Diversity and Choice in School Education: a modified libertarian approach

In recent times and in various countries there has been considerable pressure to raise educational standards and levels of student achievement. As a means to that end there has been a drive from the political right to greater diversity of school provision and an increase in parental choice of school. In theory, this market approach should be self‐correcting and so allowed to run its course without state intervention. The political left, whilst sharing the aspiration to excellence in the school system, has been thrown into a defence of some of the status quo ante and so at times into an anti‐libertarian position. It is argued that diversity and choice in the UK are defensible, drawing from both left and right libertarian positions. Though the two are not by any means always compatible, some combination is intellectually tenable and a possible basis for policy. In this modified libertarian approach, potentially acceptable to both left and right, diversity and choice are taken to be desirable unless and until (1) some convincing argument and evidence can be adduced that the costs greatly outweigh the benefits, and (2) it can be shown that any costs incurred cannot be reduced or overcome by limited state intervention. If these conditions cannot be met, people will not be persuaded voluntarily to forgo diversity and choice and/or there can be no adequate justification for politicians to deny diversity and choice. It is argued that, from the point of view of the libertarian, diversity and choice need to be positively stimulated to sustain democracy in pluralist societies. However, diversity and choice cannot be left to market forces, but several types of state intervention are justified to protect the vulnerable from the unintended and inequitable side‐effects of market forces. In the UK, it is incompatible with a libertarian position to return to either a pre‐1965 selective system or to a pre‐1979 comprehensive system. The most promising way of balancing individual rights and collective welfare is to retain an anti‐selective comprehensive principle within a system characterised by unaccustomed and innovative diversity and choice.