School independence - it works

More evidence that schools that are more independent of the state control do better than schools that aren't. Of course they do, because they are independent.

The parents are willing to pay (twice) in order to give their children the best start they can and are prefectly willing to take their children, and their money, to where they think is best. This means that the schools have to react in order to retain their customers and do so by using their relative independence from central government dictats to offer the best possible education they can. Is it really such a surprise that the schools with the greatest incentive to give the best education, and possibility of experimenting to find the best form of education, produce better results than schools with less incentive and no power to put any ideas they may have into practice? The product of the competitive market has yet again beaten the product of the state industry.

Expect more nashing of teeth from the left as they demand that the State's failure be covered up by the State interfering universities admission policies to make them accept people that they would not otherwise accept, just because their education to that point has been blighted by State interference. They will declaim how unfair it is that some people have not had their educations crippled by the state. They will scream that all must have prizes. They will keep very, very quiet about giving the state funded sector the same independence from state control that gives the independent sector its edge, like they do in Sweden.

As for the examinations that make it so difficult to differentiate between the best pupils and so lead to these accusation of bias from the universities, the pre-U can not come too soon.

UPDATE

Yep, like shooting fish in a barrel, only Fiona Millar manages to add her own nutty conspiracy theories onto the standard template to keep it interesting.

At least Vince Cable seems to have been reading his Mill with a policy like the Conservative's Assisted Places scheme, that Labour scrapped with the Lib Dem's approval.