Free School

• Free schools are set up and run by parents, teachers, faith organisations or businesses rather than local authority
• • Claim that they improve educational standards by taking control away from the state powers to parents
  • Give parents and teachers the opportunity to create a new school if they are unhappy with the state schools in their local area
• Rebecca Allen (2010) argues that research from Sweden (20% of schools are free schools) show that they only benefit children from highly educated families
• Other critics: Free schools are socially divisive and create lower standards - Sweden's international educational ranking has fallen since their introduction
• Charter Schools (USA) have been criticised for appearing to raise standards, but only doing so by strict pupil selection and exclusion policies
• In England, evidence show that free schools take fewer disadvantaged children than nearby schools e.g. Green et al (2015) found that in year 1, 12% of pupils were entitled to free school meals vs 24% in the surrounding neighbourhood.