Small Schools and Economics
The Case against small schools, alleging unacceptable costs:
1Devolved School Budget divided by number of pupils produces unacceptably high individual pupil unit costs. There are flaws in this argument.
AResearch done in the 1980s as part of an Oxford University Masters Degree dissertation showed that whilst this was a general tendency the unacceptably higher sharp upturn came only with rolls below 25-30.
BWithin any Local Authority’s annual list of pupil unit costs calculated this way there were remarkable fluctuations with some larger schools costing more than smaller ones and some small schools below 100 on roll costing less than much larger schools.
CThe very small figures themselves fluctuate correspondingly enormously with a change of circumstances- a new family arriving or leaving, a change of staffing. Many schools cost less if still open after such changes.
DIn 2008 the DCSF advised NASS that no more than 5.4% of all primary teachers worked in schools in England with less than 100 pupils on roll. 50 – 60% of these would be needed wherever the children attend. There is, and never has been the unacceptable drain on local resources for education alleged by those proposing closure, including professionals in larger schools.
EIn 2010 NASS received valid school bus contractor estimates used in calculating costs for Local Authorities: the average estimate was £2000 per pupil, per year, per 5-mile journey and rising as diesel costs were escalating. It is irresponsible of Local Authorities to minimise these costs in closure proposals or, as some have done, refuse to produce them claiming they arise under another section of their budgets.
2The Case for Small Schools- arguing long-term returns to taxpayers, including profit:
AScottish Government analysis of individual school costs in 2006 (including socio-economic factors for free school meals and clothing grants) showed unequivocally the smaller the school the better, with children in nits smallest schools having a 25% higher chance of entering higher education and children from disadvantaged and impoverished families making progress- rare evidence in UK school achievement despite billions spent on failed strategies addressing such factors- mainly in large, urban environments and schools. Small schools have consistently been recognised for their effective work with such pupils and families.
BThis evidence mirrors the earlier findings from the US “Headstart” programme which cost billions of dollars aimed at improving relationships between home and school in large urban cites. The eventual reductions in the costs of teenage educational failure and educational disaffection, along with enhanced learning achievements leading to higher qualifications, better jobs and higher tax revenues in the future showed conclusively that for every dollar spent between 4 and 15 dollars returned ten years later to the Exchequer. The Scottish evidence, with no heavy initial investment costs, is achieving its results by the same fundamentally effective quality of relationships between parents and teachers, home and school, difficult to achieve as number rise- even in the best large schools.
CThere has long been evidence that just two resources influence long-term educational outcomes- home background and quality of teaching. Small schools excel at both. The working model in small schools is also far closer to how learning happens at home and in real life than the more rigid, conventional patterns of provision in larger schools based on closed single year groups and year-at-a-time access to teachers, with little contact with headteachers. Ofsted has twice reported that quality of teaching is higher in small schools, with proportionately more good teachers and the teaching role of headteachers significant in moderating and raising standards.
3The Community Factor
AIan Gilder showed in research as a St. Edmundsbury Planning Officer that it was cheaper to locate new housing in small villages than the larger market towns. He analysed the costs of providing four major services, including education in reaching this conclusion.
BLater the same decade the Audit Department reported to Mrs. Thatcher that even in the most rural shire counties more was spent on its urban citizens than those in villages. The school is almost the only significant return for village taxpayers on moneys largely spent on urban residents. In a recent Swedish case villagers calculated that they paid more in than they received out. Their school was still closed essentially on cost grounds with little consideration of transport costs either.
CA study by Dijon University of a rural department in France working in similar conditions as an EU country to ours examined the impact of closing 22 of 50 small schools and bussing the children to the other 28. After ten years they found the costs of transport almost at levels where it would have been cheaper to have kept the 22 open- and, significantly, as in the UK, as 50 schools they got better results than as 28.
DThe Scottish Government also found in 2008 that when it examined overall costs of providing education, NOT just moneys provided to individual school budgets, between £500 and £1000 per year more was being spent per pupil in largely urban, large schools than on pupils in rural and market town areas.
These are hard facts, NOT NASS propaganda or wishful thinking. Yet school closure proposals are ruthlessly based on one very convenient statistic calculated to the exclusion any more sophisticated economic analysis- the kind any respectable business would employ when looking at costs.
Typical of spurious cost arguments is the one claiming smart new buildings, area schools, re-vamped academies deliver better results. There may be short-term novelty elements that bring initial satisfaction and comfort but two major studies in 2003 and 2006 by no less than Price Waterhouse Cooper (for the DSCF) and York University (for the Design Council) both showed, to use the user actual words of the later document, that provided fundamentals like adequate working space, ventilation, sound-proofing and hygiene were provided “you could change a school from a Ford to a Ferrari with little long-term impact on performance.”The Government chose to ignore this truth as it wanted to induce school rationalisation under the Building Schools for the Future argument- to such an extent Councils ignored rising birth-rate and are now short of places.
4Conclusion
The argument that small schools cost unacceptably more is seriously flawed, historically unfair, shallow and superficial to the exclusionmof more sophistyicated and relevant economic analysis. It has been grievously unfair to children in closing progressively a sector of education rich in example and potential- one needed in those larfge urban areas.
NASS opposes such myopic public administration that ignores some of the best examples of teaching and learning yet produced. The quality of the best small schools is virtually irrefutable and does all that the profession and others claim education should provide.
Mervyn BenfordInformation Officer National Association for Small Schools2013