(2005-09-22) Blair School Choice

Tony Blair is hoping to improve High School education in the UK via School Choice. The main aim of the new legislation will be, in the words of one minister, "to open up the supply-side" by making it far easier for new providers and sponsors to set up schools-or as Mr Blair said this week, "to break down monolithic `one size fits all' provision". The key, Mr Blair has decided, is to end the ability of local education authorities (LEA-s) and, more particularly, the Orwellian-sounding Schools Organisation Committees (SOC-s) to block new schools... Mr Blair's hopes now rest on three legs. The first is an acceleration of the City Academies movement with at least 200 established by 2010 in places where existing schools are struggling. The academies are expected to provide what Mr Blair calls "the empirical test bed" needed to win over doubters. Each one will be centrally funded to the tune of at least L20m, but run by a sponsor who has put up L2m -usually a philanthropic outfit, such as Ark, a charity supported by the profits from City hedge funds that intends to operate seven schools. Although the academies have their critics, this year's GCSE results, which showed an improvement four times the national average, was some vindication. Parents are also queuing up to get their children into them. The second expectation is that nearly all schools will eventually opt for self-governing "foundation" status, which, since this summer, they can do by a simple vote of the governing body. Mr Blair says that foundation schools will have as much operational autonomy as the academies. The third is that lots of other people, including parents' groups, will start up new schools where there is a need for them.