The Guardian in the U.K. reports on a study finding that parents in England are unhappy with the past three decades of “school choice.” By contrast, parents in Scotland are satisfied with their local public schools.
Three decades of school choice in England has left parents feeling more “cynical, fatalistic and disempowered” than their peers in other parts of the UK, according to new research.
A study comparing parents in England, where families can name up to six state schools for their children to attend, with those in Scotland, where children are generally assigned to local state schools, found Scottish families were still more likely to be satisfied with the outcome.
While 75% of parents in England said they had enough choice of schools, 76% of those in Scotland said the same, despite their lack of explicit choices within the admissions process.
Parents in England were more likely to express frustration and disempowerment, with several calling the current school choice policies an “illusion”, in surveys and interviews conducted for the research published in the Journal of Social Policy.
Aveek Bhattacharya, the chief economist at the Social Market Foundation and the author of the paper, said: “This research adds to the growing evidence that school choice policies have failed to bring the benefits they were supposed to.
“For all the emphasis that policymakers in England have put on increasing choice, parents south of the border are no happier with their lot than their Scottish counterparts. Indeed, many are disenchanted and dismayed.
“These findings show that parents offered a range of options for their children’s school are no happier than parents who have less choice about education.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Charles Koch, most if not all of his family, the Walton family, Bill Gates, et al. do not care what the people think. The biggest difference between them and the traitor is that most of them avoid the spotlight and do not tweet.
Hitler didn’t care.
Mao didn’t care
Stalin didn’t care
et al.
Thank you for this interesting article. So-called choice is an alluring proposition that has snookered many parents into believing their children would be getting a better education through choice. Corporate education is not superior, and in many instances it is worse than public education. Monetizing education creates a climate of politicking that is corrupt and not beneficial to students or parents. Privatization is rife with cheap, sub-standard instruction, non-professional teachers, fewer legal protections for students as well as waste, fraud, and embezzling of public tax dollars. The vast majority of students are funneled into cheap privatized schools that produce maximum profit. Only a small number of students end up in a better school as the result of so-called choice.
The Scots are wise enough to avoid making the mistakes that so many other countries have made. They value their community based public schools operated by professional educators instead of business people. Overall, community public schools meet the needs of most students better than so-called choice systems.
Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon, the feisty First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) would approve this message. I love this woman’s grit, courage and fortitude; when she’s in full oratorical mode she is a sight to behold.
“This research adds to the growing evidence that school choice policies have failed to bring the benefits they were supposed to.”
It won’t matter at all in ed reform. They haven’t moved an inch on any ed reform agenda item in 25 years. The agenda is exactly the same as when it started, despite all the claims of “evidence” and “data based”. I can’t think of a single time any of them have even admitted AN ERROR, let alone reconsidering the broad privatization premise.
It’s the opposite of “innovative”. There’s ONE idea, “privatize’, with lots and lots of marketing and relabeling. They don’t even “improve” the privatized systems they currently operate. The charter lobby resists any and all efforts to revisit charter governance schemes.
It’s a shame. This country is privatizing the last universal public system we have, and we are doing based on the “research” and “advice” of a completely captured, lock step echo chamber- the same people paid by the same people who all say the same things.
We will regret it. Of course, future generations won’t know anything BUT the privatized school markets ed reformers designed so there won’t even be a real comparison then.
There’s breathtaking irony, isn’t there, in the insistence of the Deformers on “data” and “accountability” and their absolute refusal to accept the utter failure, by their own measurements, of their experiments in standardized testing, national “standards,” merit pay, VAM, school grading, virtual schools, vouchers, and charters.
This would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic. I read the meretricious nonsense from the T.B. Fordham Institute and other Gates/Walton shill organizations, and I am astonished at their ability to say with a straight face that they are all about the data and the accountability. They are utterly unaccountable for the failure of their agenda by their own invalid measures–test scores.
Exactly right, Bob. The Deformers insist on funding failure.
Chiara, thank-you for your insightful and common sense appraisals of the ed-reform echo chamber. I often quote you & use your ideas in my neighborhood blog.
Here’s an example of the rigorous, completely unbiased “research” the ed reform echo chamber churns out every day:
“One kind of public school is improving faster than another kind. What explains charter success?
Greg Richmond”
Over and over and over, all of them. It’s so completely systemic in the echo chamber no one even questions it.
Go right now to any ed reform site or any high profile, paid ed reformer and look for a single criticism of any existing charter or voucher law or privatized system. There is none. They simply don’t do any.
One would think with 50 states one professional ed reformer could find one thing wrong with one of the charter or voucher laws they wrote or even a single charter school. Nope. No dissent permitted. Even a slight break with 24/7 charter/voucher cheerleading is disallowed. They must know a lot of these charter laws are garbage- after all, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania exist- but it doesn’t benefit “the movement” to look at that, so they don’t.
“It is unclear whether in England the genie can be put back in the bottle…” With privatization, it takes a social movement to put the genie back in the bottle. Come to think of it, it’s not a genie; it’s a gremlin. It’s more like putting the Pandora back in the box, if you will. Privatization and deregulation have hobbled democratic rule on both sides of the Atlantic.
United States. n. The only country in the world where working class people typically vote against themselves
That to me is the most puzzling aspect of American politics: the fact that working class and poor people vote against their self-interest, that they vote for politicians whose only policy is to cut the taxes of the wealthiest.