Sir, The Policy Exchange’s claim that free schools raise standards of neighbouring state-funded schools is flawed (leader, Mar 10). The sample of schools is ridiculously small. The “similar close” schools were similar only because they were in the same phase. Because they had to be in the same local authority as the free school they were probably not the closest. The report’s authors claim their analysis shows that the lowest-performing primary and secondary schools in areas where a free school opens improve by a greater amount than those where a free school does not open. Conversely, the presence of a free school appears to show a decline in the improvement of the highest-performing primary schools, and in the secondary schools with above-average performance.
John Gaskin
Driffield, E Yorks
Sir, If the free schools programme is “an overdue riposte to decades of group think by the teaching profession”, as your leader claims, it would appear to be an ill-informed effort. In my 36 years of teaching the only “group think” in which I engaged was in implementing the policies of the government of the day. Moreover, Sweden’s free schools (the blueprint used by Michael Gove) are hardly a resounding success.
Steven Gorst
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Sir, Your leader rightly recognised that the aim of free schools has been to drive up standards, and that the policy is working. Five years ago sceptics were questioning not “will the free school policy work” but “will it happen”. Yet by this September more than 400 free schools will have opened or be due to open. This is a huge achievement made possible by the efforts of hundreds of teachers, parents and charities.
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Those behind free schools come from all walks of life and from across the political spectrum, but are united in believing that all local children deserve a high-quality education. We must ensure that the next generation of free schools continue to serve the communities that need them the most — and that means setting them up not just where there is a need for places but where standards are poor.
Natalie Evans
Director, New Schools Network
Sir, David Cameron justified his party’s support for the expansion of the free schools programme by claiming that significantly more free schools than non-free schools have been graded by Ofsted as outstanding in inspections carried out at the same time. This may be the case, but the phrase “at the same time” puts a disingenuous spin on this claim; the very best schools, mostly non-free schools, are exempt from the Ofsted inspection process, provided that high levels of student achievement are maintained. Were these schools to be included in the statistics, the picture would look very different.
Sheila Titterington
Lutterworth, Leics
Sir, David Cameron uses “evidence” from a pro-free school think-tank to make the claim that standards have gone up in schools that are in the same area as free schools, and that the presence of the free school is the cause of this improvement in the neighbouring schools. Just because two facts are true, it does not mean that one fact causes the other.
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Standards of education in London rose faster than elsewhere in the UK and the huge amount of spending on the “London Challenge” programme was credited as the cause. Although this seemed plausible, subsequent research identified that the real cause was growth in population in immigrant communities where education is valued more highly than in the (proportionately falling) indigenous population.
No one yet knows if free schools work over a sustained period.
Damien Mackinney
Halesowen, West Midlands
Sir, Your leader stated that the proportion of free schools that are faith schools has never risen above 5 per cent. In fact, of the 387 free schools that have opened or have been pre-approved to open, 113 are faith schools — 29.2 per cent.
Measures such as removing the ability of new faith schools to discriminate by faith and giving pupils at all state-funded schools an entitlement to an education about the broad range of religious and non-religious beliefs in society would go a long way towards securing community cohesion and harmony for future generations.
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Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain
Chairman, the Accord Coalition