| Something extraordinary is happening in
London this week: in Lambeth, one of the city's poorest boroughs(区), 180
children are starting their secondary education in a brand new school. The
state- funded school was set up by parents who were fed up with the quality of
local education. In countries with more enlightened education systems, this
would be unremarkable. In Britain, it is an amazing achievement by a bunch of
desperate and determined people after years of struggle. Britain's schools are in a mess. Average standards are not improving despite billions in extra spending, and a stubbornly long tail of underachievers straggles(拖后腿) behind. A couple of years ago, a consensus emerged among reformers that councils had too much control and parents too little. One might have expected more from the Conservatives, who stood for election on a pledge to bring in school vouchers. Yet the Tory policy group charged with thinking deep thoughts about public services paid only lip service to parent power in its report. Where schools are failing, it said, parents or charities should get taxpayers 'money to open new ones. But only 2.9% are actually failing, on official definitions. And another proposal, that children in failing schools get extra funding if they go elsewhere, was so lacking in detail as to be meaningless. Worry about underperforming schools is hardly confined to Britain: in America, in Italy, in Germany, even in once-proud France education is a hot-button topic. Yet a number of countries seem to have cracked it. Although specific problems differ in different societies, parental choice is at the heart of most successful solutions. What are the lessons? The first is that if a critical mass of parents wants a new school and there is a willing provider, local government should be required to finance it as generously as it does existing state schools. The second is that if a charity wants to open a school in the hope that children will come, then taxpayers' money should follow any that do. Third, rules about what, where and how schools teach should be relaxed to avoid stifling innovation and discouraging newcomers with big ideas. In any event, public-examination results would give parents the information they needed to enforce high standards. These proposals may seem radical, yet parents in the Netherlands have had the right to demand new schools since 1917, and those in Sweden have been free since 1992 to take their government money to any school that satisfies basic government rules. In the Netherlands 70% of children are educated in private schools at the taxpayers' expense; in Sweden 10% already are. In both countries state spending on education is lower per head than in Britain, and results are better. It doesn't take a genius IQ -- just a little political courage -- to draw the correct conclusion. |