Abstract
The opening of new state schools by non-state actors has intensified debates about social selection and inequality in quasi-markets. This article examines the case of England, where the government allows anyone to apply to open a new 'free school', arguing this will improve social equity. Using data from the National Pupil Database for all 325 free schools established between 2011/12 and 2015/16, we analyse whether the students attending free schools are representative of their local neighbourhoods. We develop the first analysis of whether the specifics of who opens and provides a free school impacts on who attends the school. We also analyse whether opening a free school has an impact on neighbouring schools. We find that free schools are located in areas with above-average deprivation but admit intakes that are more affluent than the average for the neighbourhoods from which they recruit. This is particularly the case for primary free schools, which also recruit students with above-average prior attainment. There is no evidence that free schools become more representative as they admit additional year groups. Significantly, we find that all categories of free school providers have opened schools whose populations are more affluent than their neighbourhoods, with the exception of academy chains. We also find that the opening of a free school leads to a concentrated loss of pupils at the closest school, except in cities, but we do not identify an impact on the student composition of neighbouring schools. Discussing the reasons for this, we conclude that free schools are socially selective and reproduce socio-economic inequalities.
Highlights
Free schools are part of an ongoing policy agenda to liberalize the ‘supply side’ of the school quasi-market in England, by allowing non-state actors to open and govern new state schools
We set out the findings of the analysis by first outlining several key characteristics of the free schools that opened in Waves 1 to 5
We examine who attends mainstream free schools, including who has provided them, before considering whether free schools have a discernible impact on neighbouring schools
Summary
Free schools are part of an ongoing policy agenda to liberalize the ‘supply side’ of the school quasi-market in England, by allowing non-state actors to open and govern new state schools. Five years on, following the opening of the first five waves of free schools, Nicky Morgan, the Secretary of State for Education, argued that ‘Free schools are the “modern engines of social justice” helping “break the cycle of disadvantage”’ (DfE, 2015: 1). All free schools are able to determine their own admission policies, within the constraints of a national admissions code (DfE, 2014) This allows schools to create prioritized catchment areas (instead of using a simple distance measure) as an oversubscription criterion and to select 10 per cent of their students by aptitude, determined by a test, in specific subject specialisms (performing arts (including music), visual arts, modern foreign languages, sport, design and technology and information technology) (DfE, 2014b). The people and organizations opening free schools can choose to locate their schools in more advantaged areas or develop a school ethos and curriculum that proves more attractive to particular parents, including by socio-economic class and/or ethnicity (Hatcher, 2011; Walford, 2014; Higham, 2014a)
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