New Labour’s New Maths: How to Get Less from More

Civitas, 26 October 2006

In his last budget, Gordon Brown pledged to increase public expenditure so as to bring funding per child in state schools into line with the average costs per child in the independent sector. This move would involve increasing annual state spending per child from £5,000 to £8,000. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, to close this gap, the Exchequer would need to spend an extra £17 billion per annum.
According to a report in today’s Times, the Chancellor has just been taken to task for this pledge by the House of Commons Select Committee on Education. They have argued to carry it out would only anger tax-payers unless the extra spending could be shown to result in improved performance by state schools.
To date, there has been little precious sign of extra spending in this sector having done so. According to the same news report, during the last eight years in which New Labour has been in power, annual public expenditure on education has increased by over 50%, yet last year only just over a quarter of pupils from state schools managed to obtain good GCSE grades in English, mathematics, science and a language — a fall of 4 percentage points from 2002.
I wonder whether, if instead of increasing public spending on state schooling in the manner pledged, the government were to award to parents of pupils at them who obtained good GCSE grades in these subjects a sum of £2,000 for each year their child had attended one, there would not soon be a spectacular and demonstrable improvement in the attainment levels of state schools at far less cost to the taxpayer.