I went to a debate entitled 'Free Schools - Yes or No?' featuring Toby Young, in favour of them, and Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), last night.

I found the the arguments against free schools depressing in that they were so thin, mean-spirited and, in a sense, hypocritical.

The hypocrisy was revealed when Kevin Courtney argued against free schools because, as he thought, the idea was to give places on a first-come, first-served basis. He said that this would 'cut out incompetent parents' who might be slow off the mark. In saying this, he gave the game away. He showed that he had no doubt that parents - both competent and incompetent - would want their children to go to such schools. He implicitly accepted the idea that parents would think that their children would do better there. In other words, unless he thinks parents are stupid, he thinks these schools would be better than the existing state schools.

So, he wishes to prevent the opening of schools that are better than the existing state schools. Yet at the same time he argues that the existing state schools are perfectly good. That is hypocrisy and double-talk. His arguments are self-contradictory.

This is part of what made me think that his motivation - and that of other opponents of free schools - is not to be found in the actual arguments used but in what you might call the behavioural psychology of education politics.

The opponents of free schools, I suspect, are nearly all part of the state system and deep down they want to prevent any suggestion that the teaching they give can be improved upon. Psychologically they feel it is a challenge to their belief in the value of their own work. It is thus a function of vanity, not of altruism or socialist ideology or anything of that sort. There is also, perhaps, an element of a desire to control everything in education - a desire that their control should not be challenged by parents, children, private provision, charitable provision or anything else. They know best. There is something distinctly unpleasant and Orwellian about their opposition.

It is sad to hear people who want to prevent the creation of schools that would serve children better.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Education

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