Last Thursday, a New York appeals court threw a spanner in the works of Michael Bloomberg’s school reform strategy, blocking the city’s attempt to close 19 poorly performing schools. Ruling in favour of the United Federation of Teachers and a local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the court found that the public had not been given enough warning about the impact of the closures. Against the mayor’s wishes, the schools will be allowed to open their doors to new students in September.
For teachers, the triumph is likely to be short-lived. Bloomberg has already closed 91 failing schools, and will try again another day. But for this year’s students, the impact may last longer. Most parents living near the schools knew which ones were in trouble, and stayed away. But some still signed up. At the worst affected schools, just 12 students will take up their desks this September. Budgets are draining away. Teachers are demoralised.
It’s a reminder of the scars that can be left when schools close. Yet, on both sides of the Atlantic, policies are being pursued that will increase the role of school closures in the way we manage education.
Here in the US, the charter school movement has stepped up a gear since President Obama’s election. There are now 5,000 charter schools across the country, up from just over 3,000 in 2005. Independently operated, and free from many state regulations, the schools now serve a student population of 1.5 million. Education secretary Michael Gove is choosing a similar path for the UK. His ‘free schools’ policy will see independent organisations running schools across the country, outside of local authority control.
Advocates of school freedom, like Gove, can point to a rich list of success stories. From the much-vaunted KIPP schools, to chains such as Uncommon Schools in New York, or Noble Schools in Chicago, the best charter schools have used their freedoms to achieve remarkable gains for students. But there is a reason that reformers like Gove tend to speak in anecdotes. Zoom out, and the story is not so clear cut. In the most authoritative study of charter schools to date, 17 per cent were found to be performing significantly better than comparable state schools; 46 per cent were performing at the same level; 37 per cent were doing significantly worse. For every story of success, there were two of failure.
That’s why school closures – shutting down failed experiments and expanding successful ones – are an integral part of any school strategy that is based on encouraging free and independent provision. Of the 5,250 charter schools that have opened in the US since 1992, 657 – more than one in ten – have closed. Just as in the private sector, the value of greater freedom comes in large part from the death and birth of organisations, driving productivity. That is the unspoken value of school freedom: schools frequently experiment, and those that fail quickly die.
It all raises the question: do we want school failure to be an integral part of the way we run education? Here in the US, policymakers have judged that the benefits of freedom are worth the costs. In truth, that owes much to the depth of the crisis they face. Gove may talk about charter schools as if they are a cutting-edge innovation from a world-class education system, forging ahead of the pack. But it’s just as true to see them as a move of desperation, from a system that is slipping behind. Reformers here have been trying to transform a chronically underperforming public education system for decades. Speak to charter school founders, and it is often fatalism that drives them as much as optimism; creating a world-class system from within has proven impossible, so, like vigilantes, they have had to go it alone.
It’s not at all clear that the UK is in the same position. Of course, on average, our schools remain a long way behind the world’s best, but the past ten years have seen some transformative improvements. With ambition, and a belief in the ability of government to solve problems, those improvements could be built upon.
The trouble is, Gove lacks that fundamental belief, and so is choosing a path of fatalism. His system will be one in which excellence is achieved by opting out, rather than building within. As the data suggests, he will no doubt have his success stories. But there will also be failures. Some children will be lucky, others will not. It’s a grand experiment, based more on ideology than evidence. We won’t know the true price until it’s already well under way.