To think that state schools should not be run like businesses?

[Feawen]

My friend teaches at the school we both used to attend. It's a big state secondary with a very diverse intake. Not exceptional academically, but when we were teens it was good at pastoral support, looking after the less academic kids, providing loads of options and activities, etc. Money was mysteriously found for those who couldn't afford important trips or essential kit. Not perfect by a long way, but not bad.

Now, the school office charges admin fees to the subject departments for any work they do. I've just had my friend ranting tearfully down the phone because her budget for the year won't cover the textbooks needed for the GCSE classes. I mean, the cost of the books would be more than her whole budget, iyswim. When she asked her line manager - new, hired by the new head - he laughed and said the pupils would have to buy their own. They're £30 a book, and these won't be the only ones.

I know this is only one story and I'm finding it hard to see things objectively...but what the hell is going on? Can the UK actually not afford to run its education system? I can't help but think that someone, somewhere, is doing well out of this and it certainly isn't the pupils.

Schools should be run as a business insomuch as they employ staff, they manage budgets and assets. They run a P&L. They produce a product (education) and they must maximise limited resources to make their school function as best it can.

The only difference between it and a 'proper' business is that long-term, a school shouldn't make a profit. Short termit should aim to, of course.

herecomethepotatoes

How are you defining short term profit?

BoneyBackJefferson - herecomethepotatoes

How are you defining short term profit?

Perhaps 'surplus' would have been more apt. Honestly, I have no knowledge of the state system but assuming there's one large budget for the school (as in public schools) then a short term 'surplus' allowing them to save for larger expenditures. My sons school have just added undercover tennis courts. That didn't come out of a single year's budget.

If schools are to be run like businesses, then someone needs to define who are the clients.

If the clients are the students and their families, who are "buying" an education via taxation, then a business (school) that has run out of money and can no longer afford the materials necessary to provide that education is basically bankrupt. If it were a business it would close.

Of courses schools aren't and shouldn't be businesses. That doesn't mean that certain aspects of schools can't be run along business lines - in fact if schools are spending money on making managers look good rather than on text books, it appears that they could do with being run a bit more like businesses, since that implies some oversight of spending!

Where I live, text books are purchased by students starting in Y11 (before that they are supplied by school) - but there are generous grants for parents on lower incomes, and the parents' associations run cooperatives that purchase new books and recycle used ones in order to keep costs down (it cost me about €100, or £80, across 10 subjects for my Y11 daughter). We also don't have uniform costs.

My son attends a great secondary school that has recently had lots of very pretty modern building work done. They get provided one English and one maths revision book by school and then we have to buy everything else. They don't even get copies of the text they are studying to read at home; it all has to be read in class/shared between 2. I just bought my year 1 sons teacher a giant pack of whiteboard pens from eBay as I was bloody sick of going in to help and the chikdren having to press really hard to get the crappy ink less pens to work as there were no new ones to use! Schools have no money so if as a parent I do (not much mind u) I will happily provide. It's v.v sad though.

Regarding them being run like businesses; they have to. They have a finite amount of money for the academic year (which government is reducing in Sept 2016) and someone with a level business/finance head needs to a balance the books so that they still have money for wages, printing, books etc by Easter.

Yanbu. We couldn't afford paper last year. It's horrible rationing children when you just want to help them thrive.

YABU. There is no magic money tree. I think the Administrstion in this country from 1997-2010 ruined education in the Uk

My eldest two have to provide all of the things they need but the primary school where their cousins go (and DSis teaches) provide everything. Well, I said provide but they have currently run out of pencils and rubbers and have no money to buy more. Each English lesson starts with the children scrabbling round in a pencil pot to find an inch long pencil to write with.
It's disgusting.

Thenaze care to expand on how you feel the Labour Gov destroyed education in this country?

Did secondary schools ever provide pens for pupils? I don't remember that myself (1980s).

Can't imagine how you study in a sensible structured way without textbooks though

naive parent of primary school child

We live in a 'deprived' part of the country (the North), so I think we get extra funding. We haven't had to buy anything but my DC's don't bring any books home as they wouldn't be returned - safer to keep them in school.

Having said that I have bought a number of Revision books (both recommended by the teachers or by DC's themselves) from Amazon, and will continue to do so if we need them.

Most businesses 're-charge' their service to other departments, ie admin, IT so I suppose schools are no different.

Lastly, the teachers at our school work really hard and there are always extra revision classes after school, Saturdays and school holidays. Having said that, some drive away in fantastic cars (£) but I don't begrudge them that at all - my DC's are doing well.

Short on time to fully articulate however, this covers some of it

www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/archives/4055

DH is a school business manager - much of his life is spent trying 'save' money from unnecessary areas (sadly this includes trips, textbooks etc - not something he is happy about) in order to keep staff/heating/roof on. Massive funding cuts, whomever is to blame, ultimately have to be accommodated and we teachers are not great at seeing things objectively - the school I teach at doesn't have a business manager and financial cuts have hit us even harder due to inexperienced financial controllers. I hate the fact that these decisions have to be made and feel that the budgetary restraints caused by funding cuts are seriously harming education, but the pragmatist in my says that at least the lights are still on...

Interested to know how you could run a school NOT like a business??!

My dh used to comment on how much of my salary got spent in resourcing my classroom and department. Luckily he had a far larger salary than I ever earned, so I could do it. He did get cross though at times. This was 2002-06, so during Labour's tenure, and we got less funding than Labour urban areas as my county was predominantly LibDem at the time, and we were rural and at the ends of the earth as far as Westminster was concerned.

Touchshay, I had a nice pre loved car, paid for by dh, as he wanted me to have something reliable, as he was posted abroad. Couldn't have done it on my salary!

Yanbu.
Let's not forget that the Tories do not care about state education- they don't use it!

I'm not saying the other political parties are great either.
The exams the children have to do are awful. Yes they are merely seen as a product. A product to get from A to B as cheaply as possible without having to waste extra resources( teaching time, support from other staff, extra help, extra work etc).

If schools are a business then the logical progression is that they will be free to choose their market and product. So like private schools they can select the goods in.
Yet we still have state schools having to bend over backwards for the 'non productive products' .
Spending money on pupils( products) who will not achieve, who cause disruption, who cost more than they are worth.

Basically you cannot run schools as a business unless you are allowed the powers which a business has.

What other business would be forced to tolerate customers swearing and shouting at them?
Children do best when school staff are allowed to do their job and care for the children.

nyama well, for a start schools that run out of money don't close, and unless there is a surplus of school places in a particular area, schools don't lose customers because they can't supply the basic requirements for an eduation!

What seems to happen in education is that when the "business" (school) doesn't have enough money to supply the "product" (education) it gets its employees to fill the gap. That does not happen in business. If my employer asked me to pay for the photocopying, or to get my clients to pay for it, then I'd tell him to take a hike...

Well people , this is what you voted for. I'm fed up hearing people say " oh yes, I want lower taxes and less public spending . Just not on the services that I personally use " .

It is going to be interesting to see how things pan out under the new "fairer funding" review - we know there will be winners and losers, we know there will be some contextual features but for most schools it is not clear which way their own particular budget will change.

While that is still up in the air (and while schools are required to make 3 year provisional budgets even whole that information is lacking) then schools will be having to keep very much on the side of caution.

There's a lot of confusion on here about what "running like a business" means. Even organisations which are plainly not "businesses", like a charity or a voluntary association or (dare I say it) a state school, have to stick to a budget, to keep accounts, and to comply with certain legal requirements. None of that makes them a "business".

Last year I had a heated discussion with a member of staff over glue sticks - mine had run out and I needed a few more. I was told no, I couldn't have any more until Christmas! Apparently it was my fault I'd not taken care of them, and the kids were pressing down and using too much glue. I was also told the same about pens for the mini whiteboards, and was expected to save the empties to show I hadn't lost them so I could trade them in at Christmas, the kids thought I was bonkers stopping them throwing them in the bin. In my first year there we weren't allowed photocopying cards, I could only photocopy with the HoDs permission, and instead I was expected to project worksheets on the board - which was a nightmare as not all could see it as I have a big classroom, and everyone works at their own pace, the kids kept asking why I couldn't just photocopy them. We had absolutely no textbooks for the GCSE course we were delivering either, and I teach a core subject.

The best resourced school I worked in was a catholic one that got extra funding from the church. Plenty of textbooks and general equipment. If you wanted something relevant to the course, and it was reasonable, you could generally get it. Enormous photocopying budget. The kids were expected to have their own stationary and take care of textbooks that we bought but signed out to them. Looking back it was amazing, but really it's what all schools should be!

scaryteacher I'm not criticising the teachers pay - I think they earn every penny of it. They are always at school doing extra lessons, parents evenings etc - I don't think some of them ever go home!

There is a lack of (good) teachers around here so are incentivised by Head of/Leader of posts. I don't mind that.

My DC's are getting a good education because the school cares, the teachers care and we as parents care.

I would pay for books and equipment if asked, but luckily I can afford to.

merilwenrose- the catholic school probably had huge contributions from parents. It's often mentioned on MN about the excessive demands from parents for 'voluntary' school fund contributions that are nothing of the sort!