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Written by Tom Clougherty
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Friday, 09 November 2007 |
This week's Economist praises the educational reforms of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg – and with good reason. As the article notes:
Progress has been sufficiently impressive that the Broad
Foundation declared New York the most improved urban school district in
the nation... Graduation rates are at their highest in decades.
Much of this success is due to New York's charter schools, which are
independently run, but publicly financed. Often backed by private firms
or charities, these schools have far more flexibility in their
operations than local authority schools (although they are not allowed
to select pupils – places are allocated by lottery). In return
head-teachers are held accountable for the education their schools
provide, getting bonuses if they succeed and losing their jobs if they
fail. Schools that don't improve face closure.
Such is the charter schools' success that Bloomberg now intends
to extend their autonomy and accountability to the rest of the schools
in the city.
In the UK, city academies were meant to be like 'charter schools'
but – despite some encouraging signs – the results have mostly been
disappointing, leading many to question their worth. Accordingly, one
of the first things Gordon Brown did on becoming Prime Minister was
give local authorities more control over academies.
That was to completely miss the point. Academies have not been
disappointing because they were too independent. They have been
disappointing because they are little more than re-launched state
schools in fancy new buildings.
If we want city academies to make a real difference, we should
take a leaf out of New York's book. There must be real independence,
real incentives to succeed, and real accountability if they fail.
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Written by Tim Worstall
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Sunday, 09 September 2007 |
Wat Tyler
does a sterling job, consistently cataloguing how our tax money is
burned on the bonfire stoked by the State apparatus. Here, he's looking
at the report just out on the productivity levels of the education
system. Yes, much more money is being spent and we obviously want to
know whether we're getting a better system for it. No is the obvious
answer, but have a look at the gymnastics necessary to cover this up.
The ONS reckons that in the decade to 2006, overall
spending increased in real terms by 25.3% (technical aside- regular BOM
readers may wonder why that's less than the 60% quoted here:
essentially it's because the ONS has deflated cash spending using a
specific index of educational input prices, whereas we simply used the
Treasury's GDP deflator: in other words, educational input prices-
especially salaries- have risen much faster than the general price
level... another Simple Shopper triumph).
Now that might seem sensible, to use a different deflator: we've known
for a long time that services will tend to become more expensive
relative to manufactures, after all. However, the specific one used
here is in fact driven entirely by the huge amounts of money being
pumped into the educational system itself: as Milton Friedman pointed
out, it's always a monetary matter and if you funnel it in to a certain
sector then of course prices in that sector will rise. So by choosing
that deflator they're actually covering up how badly the system has
performed.
Thus Wat's 60% is a better number to use: and output, even by the
manipulation used, is only up 27% or so. Yes, we are spending more to
get a worse education system.
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Written by Dr Madsen Pirie
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Tuesday, 21 August 2007 |
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The Taxpayers' Alliance have been making waves with Peter Cuthbertson's report on university 'non-courses." Widely covered by the BBC
and major newspapers, the report highlights 401 such courses, which it
says cost £40m a year to run. For its top five it picks out
• Outdoor adventure with philosophy, at Marjon, the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth
• Science: fiction and culture, at the University of Glamorgan
• Equestrian psychology, at the Welsh College of Horticulture in Mold, Flintshire
• Fashion buying, at Manchester Metropolitan University
• Golf management, at UHI Millennium Institute, based in Inverness.
Author Peter Cuthbertson says that political priorities have
driven governments to increase the numbers attending university, and
"As a result, there has been a massive expansion of 'non-degrees' of
little or no academic merit." His findings have been attacked by
Universities UK, who report that the so-called non-courses were
provided in response to demand, and are in fact over-subscribed. Well,
yes, but could that be because they are easier? Just as some students
are going for less demanding A-levels, might they not also be choosing
easier degree courses?
If university courses were not subsidized by public money, students
might be reluctant to take on huge debts to gain degrees of dubious
worth.
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