School Choice Policy in England: An Adaptation of Sen's Early Work on Capability

Abstract

Since articles on school choice naturally tend to concentrate on outcomes from various “initiatives,” they tend to offer little by way of theoretical advance in the manner in which choice policy is understood or in the way school choice is actualized within families and how students are thought to benefit from it. Against a political backdrop in England of growing consensus for what is coming to be known as “the Swedish model,” this article integrates Sen's early work on capability into policy discussions on school choice, suggesting that revisiting the field from such an approach may offer a better framework for understanding the relationship between school choice and student well-being.

Keywords:

• school choice policy
• England
• Sen
• capability
• student well-being

Notes

1. Of course, “good” and “bad” are not unproblematic notions in education. In this paper, “good” is defined as “regarded as good by choosers using their own criteria.” The terms “underperforming” and “high performing” are used when the criteria are external to the chooser (like league tables of threshold GCSE and value-added measures).

2. Or at least (in England) to state a preference for which school they wish to attend.

3. The “Specialist Schools” program is a UK government initiative to encourage secondary schools in England to specialize in certain areas of the curriculum to boost achievement. The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) is responsible for the delivery of the program, and currently nearly 90% of state-funded secondary schools are specialist. To apply for specialist school status, a school must raise money (or donations in kind) from the private/charitable sector, which is then supplemented by additional grants and extra per capita funding from government. Schools specialize in one (or two) of a range of subjects, including the performing arts, music, sports,j languages, and mathematics, but must still meet the full requirements of the English national curriculum.

4. It could be argued, of course, that putting students on “tracks” like “vocational” or “academic” hinders choice because it makes change more difficult, but this is not the issue here.

5. One set of functionings dominates another set when each element of the dominant set is “better” than each element of the other set.

6. For example, the school closure program implemented in the UK by Southampton City Council in 2008–2009, which established two new “faith-based” academy schools (operated by Oasis Community Learning, a UK registered Christian charity) in place of four closed community schools (Grove Park, Woolston, Millbrook, and Oaklands).