Criticisms of the Free Market in Education.

 

It is time now to offer some criticisms that have been made against the idea of leaving the free market to structure parental choice and to ensure the raising of standards in schools. I have divided these criticisms into three types: political, educational and moral.

 

Political critiques

 

The main thrust of political critiques of the free market is centred around notions of equality of opportunity. We have seen already that Brighouse discerns a huge advantage in educational opportunity to those families that can afford to move into houses within the catchment area of ‘good schools.’ In support of this kind of critique Eric Bolton, for example (formerly Chief Inspector of Schools), said in 1992,

 

there are obvious limitations in the national, compulsory system of education on the freedom of choice that can be exercised by parents, pupils or schools... Despite the Citizen’s and Parent’s Charters, schools will choose pupils; or rather, some schools will choose some pupils while others will have no choice at all (in Chitty and Simon, 1993: 11-12).

 

Caroline Gipps at the London Institute made a similar point.

 

As is becoming increasingly clear, the concept of market choice allows the articulate middle and educated classes to exert their privilege (whilst not appearing to). Both the market and the chooser are operating in terms of self-interest, and the result is exclusion and differentiation, rather than freedom and choice. Choice is not to be confused with selection. How the system copes with unchosen schools and unselected children is likely to be a major dilemma (in Chitty and Simon, 1993: 35).

 

Lawton is equally sceptical.

 

A free market in education is likely to be inferior to a system planned by professionals, because a free market is only efficient if there is perfect information¾or at least very good information¾as well as the ability to pay. Many parents are not in a position to know what is on offer, nor to know how to judge its quality, nor to pay for what they would like. Given the situation,  to talk of the free market is either naive or hypocritical; it can be argued that what parents want may not always be in the best interests either of the children or of the community as a whole.’ (1992: 86)

 

His conclusion is that ‘a completely free market in education would be unfair to some individuals and economically inefficient for society as a whole’ (1992: 90).

 

Chitty’s conclusion is that

 

there is no indication that the infusion of market values will do anything to raise the standard of education in the country. The free-market philosophy underpinning the Education Reform Act has everything to do with competition and privatisation and very little to do with a genuine extension of educational opportunities (Rattansi and Reader, 1992: 42).

 

Finally the Times newspaper argued that

 

popular schools are those that get good academic results. They get good results by being academically selective, not by admitting any children whose parents ask... (There is) the clear danger of an educational underclass now emerging: of disappointed parents, rejected children and blighted schools (from Chitty and Simon, 1993: 154-5).

 

 

These critiques are united in their fear that, left to the free market, education will continue to privilege affluent middle class parents who can afford to play the system, and continue to disadvantage poorer parents who must accept the school they find in their neighbourhood. This is compounded when schools are able to select pupils because they are oversubscribed. In this situation, all the power of choice that was supposed to be with the parents moves quickly back to the schools. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the good schools select the ‘best’ students, and these schools flourish, whilst less popular schools slip into a spiral of decline, left only with those students that the good schools have already rejected.[1] Behind this critique, we can say that the combination of the housing market and the oversubscription of popular schools operates by definition in the particular interests of some, but cannot be said to operate in the universal interest, that is, in the interests of everyone. As long as there are winners and losers, this aspect of the free market in schooling falls foul of Kant’s requirement that an objective principle be universally applicable. It begins to look, from these critiques at least, that the free market can only serve particular needs, favouring some above others, and never the universal need treating all as equal.

 

 

In 2005 the Government produced their White Paper called Higher Standards, Better Schools For All. Its proposals incorporate Brighouse’s demand for LEAs to pay the transport costs of pupils from poorer families which, in turn, should provide these families with greater choice of local schools. The principle claimed for this by Tony Blair in his Foreword to the White Paper is ‘to put parents in the driving seat for change in all-ability schools that retain the comprehensive principle of non-selection.’ Specifically, the proposal to pay for transport costs addresses the problem that while ‘the affluent can buy choice… [the new proposals] will ensure that choice is more widely available to all within an increasingly specialist system, not just to those who can pay for it’ (2005, 3). It remains to be seen whether the freedom for schools to set their own admission policies will really extend choice to the poorest families. Indeed, at the time of writing it still remains to be seen whether the Bill will be passed at all.

 

 

Educational Critiques

 

Critiques of the free market on educational grounds tend to stress the overpowering sense of the rigidity and conformity that the National Curriculum and testing bring with them. Mike Davies and Gwyn Edwards, for example, have argued that what ‘the 1988 Act failed to provide was a coherent rationale whereby its broad aims could be translated into a national curriculum which could be adapted to meet the needs of schools operating in a variety of contexts and circumstances’ (2001: 97). In our Kantian terms, we can say that their critique is that the National Curriculum provides a universal structure that is not flexible enough to meet the needs of particular areas, schools and students.

 

Davies and Edwards extend their critique beyond the 1988 Act to the more recent policies of New Labour. Where the former used the curriculum to re-inscribe competition into school selection and performance, New Labour has used the rhetoric of standards to achieve much the same thing. With the fetish of standards has come ‘the obsessive setting and pursuit of pre-specified targets’ (2001: 99). Putting together the critique of targets and training, they conclude, powerfully, that ‘the claim that the National Curriculum and its assessment, together with regular OFSTED inspections needs to be treated with a degree of scepticism in that it is premised on unquestioned assumptions about the nature and purpose of education’ (2001: 100). Or, again, in our terms, their critique is that target-setting is a universal imposition onto very different particular circumstances.

 

In addition, they critique the way that schooling has itself become defined in market terms, that is, as the main way to ensure that future citizens learn the skills necessary for success in the global market place. Education was now not only run on free market principles, its very function served the demands of that market. The student was seen less in educational terms and more in terms of training to meet the needs of industry and commerce. They remark that for New Labour ‘it is clear that the overwhelming imperative is to recast education primarily, if not exclusively, as an instrumental means of ensuring economic success in an increasingly competitive global market’ (2001: 102).

 

Overall, they conclude that the influence of the free market both within schools, in terms of the National Curriculum, target-setting and testing, and beyond schools, in terms of the demand to train students for the market place, is ‘a seriously flawed logic that renders it [New Labour’s educational policies] ill equipped to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century’ (2001: 104), and is more likely to create ‘dysfunctional caterpillars’ (2001: 105) than butterflies.

 

It is interesting to note here how critics of the inflexibility of the National Curriculum, in the interests of everyone, find themselves arguing for a greater role for the particular even though they are committed to the principle of universal provision. This contradiction, as we will see, is not easy to overcome.

 

 

Moral critiques

 

Equally powerful critiques of the effects of the free market in education are made in terms of its inherent immorality. Again, I will look at one such critique, from the existing Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

 

In his book Lost Icons (2000) Williams notes an ambivalence within the very notion of ‘choice.’ ‘Real choice,’ he says, ‘both expresses and curtails freedom’ (2000: 32). In beginning to separate market choice from real life choices he notes that the latter are not like choosing what to buy on a supermarket shelf. Applied to parental choice of schools Williams draws attention to how the ‘choice’ made by one parent may impact on the lack of choice left to another. In addition, those schools that are chosen by parents, and are therefore able to ‘attract customers away from competitors’ (2000: 34), mean that the schools left behind can enter ‘a spiral of failure… and the consequen[t] diminution of real choice for some parents’ (2000: 34).

 

Williams’ concern here is that we do not understand the effects that the choices made by one person or family have upon the decline of choice for others. We are not encouraged to worry about others, only that we get what we want. The free market’s heralding of consumer choice, in education at least, ‘encourages us to ignore the contexts and effects of such choice’ (2000: 34). In other words, we are being encouraged to think only of ourselves and our own needs, regardless of the effect they may have on others. This says Williams is part of a wider social problem where in reality choice becomes ‘the successful assertion of will’ (2000: 36). Rather than being the solution to many of society’s problems, the rhetoric of choice, for Williams, needs to ‘be stripped of its false innocence,’ (2000: 36), that is, stripped of the idea that my choices don’t affect anyone else’s. How can we promote and foster a sense of ‘corporate responsibility’ (2000: 35) in schools when parents are working against that in the competition for school places? Adults may not be very clear in their understanding of the ambivalences that characterise freedom of choice. This will only be reproduced again if the next generation are equally poorly educated about the politics that underpin the language of choice and the free market. Adults seem content to remain uninformed about their choices make a difference to others, and that ‘choice for one group is preserved or defended at the cost of the freedom of others to choose what they want or need’ (2000: 37).  In the language of the free market, Williams concludes that choice is debased, reduced from its moral imperative to always consider others to a world where ‘I get what I want and damn everyone else’.

Final thoughts

 

What kind of conclusion can we arrive at, then, when thinking about education and the free market? Is it, on the one hand, the only efficient and effective way of getting the best schools for all pupils? Or, on the other hand, is it merely an ideology that favours the haves over the have-nots and enshrines and perpetuates privilege and discrimination in the education system? This question is for you, the student, to think about, to reflect on, and argue about. As future Education Studies graduates this can be expected of you. This thinking can be aided by returning to Kant’s definition of an objective principle and thinking how it might apply here and what can be learned from it.

 

Suppose I think it unfair that the free market be used in education only to benefit those with enough money to make choices and that, therefore, I support the universal interest by letting communities, through LEAs, decide which child attends which school. At the same time, this opinion makes me nervous because it will remove the right of parents to choose and replace it with the decisions of local politicians. To ensure everyone is treated the same I have removed the right for anyone to choose at all.

 

On the other hand, I might take the view that freedom to choose is more important than any LEA policy. I support the free market, therefore, because it restores that choice. However, I am also slightly nervous because I recognise that whilst some will have choice, others won’t.

 

Put bluntly, if I support the universal interest, I suppress particular needs and if I support individual choice I prioritise the choices of the few over the (universal) needs of the many. It seems that whichever choice I make I cannot satisfactorily meet the universal interest and individual needs. What am I to do?

 

Perhaps returning to Rowan Williams might help here. Rather than see the problem as requiring one answer, perhaps one should recognise the need for a better understanding of the nature of making choices. It is true, on the one hand, that every choice has implications beyond the locality of the choice. If I choose a pair of trainers I must also recognise that they may be produced by children working in sweat shops around the world being paid very little. I cannot help that. But I can gain a clearer understanding of the implications of my choosing those trainers. Similarly, and on the other hand, if I support equality of opportunity through universal education policies which apply to everyone, I must also recognise the dangers this holds for individual freedom of choice. I can gain a clearer understanding of the ways in which equality of opportunity may well reduce the choices that others have. Or, if I support freedom of choice over the universal needs of everyone, I must recognise how getting what I want may well mean others losing out.

 

Politicians and policy makers, it seems, seldom commit themselves to expressing the difficulty of choosing between the universal and the particular. For political reasons they are expected to have unambiguous statements on everything. Thankfully,  Education Studies students need not be so restricted. We can remain open to learning about the contradictions that appear in the relation between the universal and the particular when seeking to apply principles. Indeed, this provides us the opportunities, in our studies, to look ever more deeply into what more can be learned from such contradictions.

 

 

References

Brighouse, H. (2002) ‘A Modest Defence of School Choice.’ Journal of Philosophy of Education, 36(4), 653-659.

Caygill, H. (1989) Art of Judgement. Oxford: Blackwell.

Chitty, C. (1989), Towards a New Education System. London: Falmer.

Chitty, C. and Simon, B. (1993) Education Answers Back. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

 

Cox, C.B. and Boyson, R. (eds.) (1975) Black Papers 1975; The Fight for Education. London: Dent.

 

Curtis, S.J. (1948) History of Education in Great Britain. London: University Tutorial Press.

Davies, M. and Edwards, G. (2001) ‘Will the Curriculum Caterpillar Ever Learn to Fly?’ In M. Fielding (ed.) Taking Education Really Seriously: Four Years Hard Labour. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 96-107.

DFES, (2005) Higher Standards, Better Schools For All, White Paper, 25^th October.

Kant, I. (1956) Critique of Practical Reason. New York: Macmillan.

 

Kant, I. (1990) Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. New York: Macmillan.

Lawton, D. (1992) Education and Politics in the 1990s: conflict or consensus? London: Falmer Press.

Rattansi, A. and Reeder, D. (eds.) (1992) Rethinking Radical Education. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Simon, B. (1991) Education and the Social Order. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Smith, A. (1977) Wealth of Nations. London: Everyman.

Tooley, J. (2003) ‘Why Harry Brighouse is Nearly Right about the Privatisation of Education.’ Journal of Philosophy of Education, (37)3, 427-447.

Williams, R. (2000) Lost Icons. London: Morehouse Publishing.

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