An Englishman's Castle

...we should introduce an education credit equivalent to the amount the state pays for a primary education place, £3,150, and a secondary school place, £4,070, to those parents whose children attend a school that is designated by the Department for Education and Skills as failing, and who are dissatisfied with the education provided for their children. The parents of pupils in such schools would have the cash to purchase better education for their children, either in a local state school or at an independent school. This would achieve greater social mobility than undermining the grammar schools. Education at independent schools costs more than this, but such a change would encourage the start-up of new schools, particularly at the primary level, geared to that level of funding. What's more, this is just the sort of school that businesses could be encouraged to support.

Critics will point out that such credits are another name for educational vouchers. That is true. But in the past when they have been advocated they were attacked for creating a get-out for middle-class parents faced with a poor comprehensive. This new credit would be available only for the worst schools (mostly in the inner cities) because the children there need real help. The education establishment and the teacher unions will fight hard against the idea but what is wrong in extending to parents in the inner cities the choice that richer parents in the leafy suburbs already have?

I was encouraged to hear David Cameron say in an interview that he wants to see "parents choosing schools, not schools choosing parents". Well, this is one way to achieve that aim....