Privatisation of Education

I read with some interest recently Pete Yeomans @ethinking blog post (original here) on the privatisation of education, as someone who is currently in the process of setting up a private venture within the education sector I was immediately  drawn to it and as one might expect initially inclined to agree with it.  However I feel that it is necessary to give any ideas such as this a chance for proper consideration, so here is my resultant musings.

I largely agree with what Pete has stated, particularly the concept that "over regulation leads to limits on creativity".  I believe that this can be seen quite clearly within some of the current trends in education, drawing on only my own experience here, I have seen a shift away from creative teaching with a focus on following the children's interest towards a 'safer' teach to the test mentality.  The result being de-motivated and sometimes quite stressed children (and teachers) with a focus on ticking the appropriate boxes rather than actually providing a deep and meaningful education.

I agree with the assumptions that Pete has made and believe the whole model would actually have a good chance of success, the main point I find myself disagreeing with is the concept of the wisdom of the crowd.  While I can see merit to the Invisible Hand Theory ideologically I am concerned about how this would be applied in the real world.  I believe that given the chance parents would make a decision on what provision they choose based on what they believe to be best for their children.  However my concern arises on what information they will draw their conclusions from.  I don't believe that as educators it is our responsibility to take parents by the hand and explain to them what is best for their children.  But how would parents make an informed decision about what is the best establishment for their children?

In have found it to be a long held truth that a bad product or service can thrive in a market, often displacing higher quality products or services, based solely on the strength of the marketing.  My concern therefore is parents would find themselves in a situation where they would be unable to decipher the sale literature and get at the core of what a school could offer their child.  Unfortunately I cannot see a clear solution to this, one the one hand if schools are regulated by a body such as Ofsted then creativity would be hampered however if no regulation exists how do we ensure the quality and honesty of service providers?

Perhaps the solution is rather than Ofsted a body similar to Which? to provide honest market reviews of the provision available for children?  Would this however just lead us full cycle to a similar system of league tables and thus bring in voluntary legislation which in turn would hinder creativity?

Peter

@peterofwinkley