What?

I have no idea what to do with this. Everyday, they make themselves just a little bit more electable, albeit by basically creating a new party. A Tory party that cares about things like social mobility and the environment would be like, well, a Labour party that valued big business over the well-being of the workers, if you can imagine that. Is there any similarity left between the Tories today and the 1980s government? Thatcher must be rolling in her grave. During the day, I suppose.

The issue of education brings out my most lefty views. I don't believe in school choice and market forces (and I'm an economist) for the provision of compulsory education, because I've thought a lot about these things and I understand about both equity and efficiency, and I also don't forget that there is a short-run. The argument for increasing competetion between schools is essentially a Darwinian one - badly run schools will fail, while good schools will prosper. Don't worry about the generation of children who are educated at one of the failing schools, because in the long run, only the best schools will remain and education will be fantastic, providing you can afford to travel.

Really, this all comes down to what role state-provided education is really all about. I believe it should provide the basic skills and knowledge to allow equality of opportunity so that when it becomes time for a student to make his own future decisions, he is not impeded. He is able to go to whichever university suits his or her ability, or to get a job, or whatever. None of this should depend on his or her family background, and none of this should be affected by the academic opportunities he or she was presented with as a child.

The best schools attract the best teachers. The best schools are also able to be more selective, and with no other information, are more likely to choose children from more priveledged backgrounds on the reasonable assumption that they are, genetically speaking, more able. This penalises children from poor backgrounds and the less academically gifted in two ways. They end up with worse teachers, when really they need the best teachers to get anything out of them, and they miss out on the valuable peer effects - children perform better in classes where they are surrounded by hard-working or able students.

And let us be clear on one thing - most of what is taught in schools does not make the country more or less productive. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the only subject positively linked to directly causing economic growth is primary school maths*. So any argument that says that academic selection allows the brightest children to prosper is not the same as saying academic selection helps our future economy. On the job training, vocational qualifications and univeristy education really drive our productive capabilities, or at least allow employers to screen for the most able individuals and assign them more efficiently to the top jobs.

There may be more on this later, when I've, you know, done some revision.

*Alison Wolf, "Does Education Matter?", (2000)