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Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

theguardian.com

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Re: Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

#21

Post by BurningFrog »

littlestymaar wrote: post #5
gerikson wrote: post #3

Unfortunate use of Swenglish in the headline. In Swedish, "friskola" means a school separate from the normal primary/secondary school funding system, run by the kommun/council. So it can refer to a school funded by a private company, foundation, religious group etc. Primary and secondary education in Sweden is free for the pupil or their guardians, it is payed through the tax system. The current system, in place sinc…

> The current system, in place since a few decades, is akin to a voucher system. I.e. the funding is ultimately via the taxpayer, but through different organizations. Is it the system advocated by Milton Friedman or is it different?

There are no actual vouchers, but the government pays whichever school the family chooses, so the end result is very similar.

Re: Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

#22

Post by arethuza »

jjgreen wrote: post #17
arethuza wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK "public schools" are pretty much a subset of private schools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom)

In the UK, public & private are pretty much synonyms in the schooling context, traditionally the public schools were the "grand institutions", Eton, Harrow etc, but you'd struggle to find anyone who would make that distinction in the present day. If you did, they probably went to one of them.

I must admit that I'm in Scotland and my son went to a couple of private schools (though they seem to call themselves "independent" schools) - never heard anyone referring to a public school other that in UK media discussing Eton etc.

Re: Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

#23

Post by littlestymaar »

stringsandchars wrote: post #12
littlestymaar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current system, in place since a few decades, is akin to a voucher system. I.e. the funding is ultimately via the taxpayer, but through different organizations. Is it the system advocated by Milton Friedman or is it different?

> Is it the system advocated by Milton Friedman or is it different? I think Milton Friedman's idea, was that parents would actually receive education 'vouchers' and be free to use them in whichever education context they chose for their children. This is slightly different, as the private/public system is wholly handled by the State system: parents simply choose between alternative schools, and the state channels tax…

> I think Milton Friedman's idea, was that parents would actually receive education 'vouchers' and be free to use them in whichever education context they chose for their children.

> This is slightly different, as the private/public system is wholly handled by the State system: parents simply choose between alternative schools, and the state channels taxpayer's money to whichever school the child attends.

I don't see the difference between those two situations. In your first sentence you talk about a “voucher”, but if it's a voucher, then there needs to be someone who emits the vouchers, and collect them in exchange for money, giving money back. And the “someone” is necessarily the state since it's financing the schools out of its own pocket.

Re: Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

#24

Post by robertlagrant »

mythhabit wrote: post #18

I must admit that I do not know the specifics of the Swedish model of "friskolor", but I do know that a translation to "free schools" are so misleading that intentional deception seems to be the explanation. We have a similar concept in Denmark, but here they are called "private schools", some of them are also called "Friskole", which can be translated the same way as the headline - the meaning is however that their…

I'm English and I thought of financially independent schools when I read the headline. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by your own interpretation.

Re: Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

#25

Post by somewhereoutth »

RugnirViking wrote: post #9
jjgreen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK English has "public schools" which are private fee-paying, so Swenglish has the edge here

uk public schools are public in the sense if you have the money for tuition you can go, wheras "private" schools are only open to invited families, no matter how wealthy they are

For clarity:

Public schools - a handful of top level very expensive private schools, usually have existed for centuries, the children of the highest levels of society tend to go there, a great foundation for a career in public life. Examples include Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Marlborough.

Private schools - the rest of the private schools, less expensive, but less advantageous.

State schools - free, provided by the state for children in a local catchment area, this is where the rest of us go. Most are run by the local government, but there has been some experiments with 'foundation schools' which are tax payer funded but privately run.

Re: Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

#26

Post by falcor84 »

stringsandchars wrote: post #12
littlestymaar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current system, in place since a few decades, is akin to a voucher system. I.e. the funding is ultimately via the taxpayer, but through different organizations. Is it the system advocated by Milton Friedman or is it different?

> Is it the system advocated by Milton Friedman or is it different? I think Milton Friedman's idea, was that parents would actually receive education 'vouchers' and be free to use them in whichever education context they chose for their children. This is slightly different, as the private/public system is wholly handled by the State system: parents simply choose between alternative schools, and the state channels tax…

I'd argue in favor of decoupling schools from summative assessment in general. If anything, I'd just have each course in each institution have its own well-specified entrance requirements/assessment, and have learners decide what institution/course of study would best prepare them.

Re: Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

#27

Post by CaptainZapp »

hef19898 wrote: post #4
gerikson wrote: post #3

Unfortunate use of Swenglish in the headline. In Swedish, "friskola" means a school separate from the normal primary/secondary school funding system, run by the kommun/council. So it can refer to a school funded by a private company, foundation, religious group etc. Primary and secondary education in Sweden is free for the pupil or their guardians, it is payed through the tax system. The current system, in place sinc…

So, it is basically a failure of non-public schools, and not a failure of "cost-free" schooling. Which makes a lot more sense. Someone should change the headline, before the discussion turns south...

Submitter here

I didn't want to editorialize, so I used the original title.

I changed "free school" to "charter school" which may make contextually more sense.

I hope that's acceptable.

Re: Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

#28

Post by Tijdreiziger »

sampo wrote: post #14
gerikson wrote: post #3

Unfortunate use of Swenglish in the headline. In Swedish, "friskola" means a school separate from the normal primary/secondary school funding system, run by the kommun/council. So it can refer to a school funded by a private company, foundation, religious group etc. Primary and secondary education in Sweden is free for the pupil or their guardians, it is payed through the tax system. The current system, in place sinc…

Wikipedia translates the Swedish friskola as charter school in English. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friskola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_school#Sweden "A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of autonomy for account…

This is basically how the schooling system in the Netherlands works. Any group of people is free to found a school based on their own beliefs (religious, pedagogical, or otherwise), and such schools are quite common.

The historical reason for this freedom is that Christians wanted to found religious schools, but it has since widely been used by a variety of religious and non-religious groups.

Re: Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

#29

Post by jjgreen »

arethuza wrote: post #22
jjgreen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, public & private are pretty much synonyms in the schooling context, traditionally the public schools were the "grand institutions", Eton, Harrow etc, but you'd struggle to find anyone who would make that distinction in the present day. If you did, they probably went to one of them.

I must admit that I'm in Scotland and my son went to a couple of private schools (though they seem to call themselves "independent" schools) - never heard anyone referring to a public school other that in UK media discussing Eton etc.

I can well believe that the madness of "public school" being a private school is a peculiarly English phenomena.

Re: Sweden's schools minister declares charter school 'system failure'

#30

Post by coryrc »

kristopolous wrote: post #16
stringsandchars wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it the system advocated by Milton Friedman or is it different? I think Milton Friedman's idea, was that parents would actually receive education 'vouchers' and be free to use them in whichever education context they chose for their children. This is slightly different, as the private/public system is wholly handled by the State system: parents simply choose between alternative schools, and the state channels tax…

This is basically the neoliberal story. I can't fathom for the life of me how people committed to historical concrete analysis can continue to advocate for these schemes. They always end up in exploitation. People's commitment to ideologies seem to be stronger than any material evidence.

Then you don't live in or near school districts failing to educate their students for decades: Detroit, Baltimore, even parts of Seattle fail to graduate young people capable of reading and writing near grade level, let alone understand even algebra. Year-after-year they fail a new class.
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