I think that is the flaw with the proposed system as you describe it. I think you can easily introduce competition of the sort you want without subsidising rich parents with money that belongs to poor children. I’ll elaborate in a separate post as you suggest.

Don’t let your disdain for the rich distract you from the other benefits. It’s an unhelpful view that regards something that rich people can enjoy as automatically bad - even if the poorer do well out of it also.

All of us will be consumers with schools wanting us to buy their product (I usually detest consumer/product analogies so please resist the temptation to take me to task for using it now). They will simply have to perform better in order simply to survive. This raises standards in even the worst of schools.

Economies of scale are not the preserve of the state (and I’m not sure they actually use them anyway). Any group of independent schools can join together and co-operate for all sorts of ends - economical and also educational.

“Bottom line: you get what you pay for.”

Agreed. But the recipient of your cash currently doesnt realise he’s being paid because he gets it automatically. When you , the individual, have some say over whether he gets it his world suddenly changes.

Frank, you’re a bit of a bright spark. Go and find me something really wrong with a voucher system. If you post on your blog (and let me know) I’ll happily link to it.

Here’s your starter:

In order to be attractive to parents, some schools may well refuse admittance to chilfren with discipline or behavioural issues. These children might find themselves being refused schooling anywhere.

If you can find a couple of others it’ll make an interesting post.

Why is it that conservative solutions always seem to involve taking our money and giving it to the rich?

The rich don’t need £5,200 of my money to educate their kids. And the poor will still get whatever’s left. Only this time after their £5,200 has been devalued by forgoing economies of scale that the state can avail of but individual schools can’t, and by private interests taking profits.

Making word-class education the norm is a good goal. But this won’t do that.

Bottom line: you get what you pay for.

The “money creation” fraud is of course the central policy that makes this all possible.

My problem with Blair’s latest outburst though is that he may not (a) follow through nor (b) actually mean exactly what he says.

For so long as the state controls schools they aren’t free. And this government has a track-record in intervening in all areas of our lives so they won’t hesitate to over-rule schools ‘in the public interest’ or wherever they (the government) could be seen to be wanting.

Why on earth does he want schools which are currently independent to become state schools? So he can control them. What else?

But I tell you what: I’ll try to be optimistic. Here goes:
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Nope, didn’t work. Sorry.

Though, as you point out, there is a lot wrong with the latest education proposals, we should take comfort that they are heading in the right direction.

A reduction in the power of the hard-left LEAs and the dreadful appeals councils, and an increase in the right of schools themselves to admit or exclude pupils represent major U-turns from 8 years of failed orthodoxy.

The tragedy is that it really is so simple. My 5 year old boy attends a school which teaches reading via phonics. Nearly all the children in his class of 5 and 6 year olds can already read basic text. It is heartbreaking that so few children are taught this simple but effective way to read.