House Magazine: A New Curriculum in a Cold Climate

The House Magazine, the most read weekly publication within London's Palace of Westminster, has just published my article about Open Access for UK Schools, a policy proposal I wrote while I was at the Adam Smith Institute:

New curriculum in a cold climate

Sweden’s bold experiment in liberating schools from state control has worked, says Marek Hlavac

Our state education system leaves much to be desired. Too many pupils graduate without having acquired the skills they need for life, work or further education. Regulations prevent good state schools from expanding and make it difficult to establish new schools. State schools, as a result, are faced with too little competition and have little incentive to improve.

Read the rest here.

A Tangled Web on Open Access for UK Schools

A Tangled Web, a political blog, has a post about my report Open Access to UK Schools, recently published by the Adam Smith Institute:

"It was interesting to read about Swedens education reforms over at the Debatable Land . They now offer total choice in state funded education - and as a result have improved standards. A new paper from the Adam Smith Institute suggests the UK could usefully copy Sweden's voucher system. It points out that:

'After the government allowed parents to send their children to any school that they thought was best -- whether state, private or religious -- and the government made sure that funding followed the pupil, as long as the school did not charge any top­-up fees, Sweden experienced an unprecedented expansion in the independent school system. New, affordable educational possibilities opened up to children from disadvantaged families. Swedish state schools were faced with having to compete in a more vibrant environment, and their quality improved as a result. Thanks to its spectacular success, the open access scheme introduced there is now valued by most parents, and embraced by all major political parties.' "

From the comments:

"Interesting link and I hope something like it gets introduced into Britain. It puts the debate over Grammars vs Comprehensives into perspective as well, as both systems effectively put all the power with the state rather than with children and parents."

"Yes please - lets have it 'ere!"

"I'm in."

I'm glad it's been well-received.

Tom Clougherty Writes About My Report Open Access for UK Schools

On the day when "Open Access for UK Schools" was published, Tom Clougherty, the Director of Research at the Adam Smith Institute, wrote:

Give Parents Open Access to Schools

Our latest report, Open Access to UK Schools: What Britain can learn from Swedish Education Reform, is published today.

Inspired by Sweden's experience, the report calls for the UK to implement a universal open access scheme, which would allow parents to send their children to any school of their choice – whether state, private or religious – and make these schools eligible for government funding on a per–pupil basis. Two conditions must be met: the schools must not charge additional fees, and must accept pupils on a first-come-first-served basis.

The surplus places policy – which stops good schools from expanding or new ones being established when there are spare places at another school in the area – should be abolished. Establishing new schools should also be made much easier. The Department for Children, Schools and Families should approve the establishment of any new school, provided it meets basic civic and teaching requirements and would not charge fees.

Finally, the national curriculum must be simplified, to allow more innovation and personalized teaching. Teachers must be freed from central control and bureaucracy and allowed to do their job.

Britain's present education system, the report says, "is not fit for purpose". Far too many children leave school without the skills they need for life, work or further education. Children from low-income households have few educational opportunities, and social mobility is declining as a result. Only a thorough-going reform will solve these problems.

Fortunately, the Swedish education reform of 1992 shows that it is possible to encourage the growth of new schools, improve the quality of existing ones, and create a dynamic and innovative school system in which teachers are highly motivated and students receive the very best education.

It's time Britain followed Sweden's lead and enacted similar reforms. The UK's children deserve no less.

Newly Published: Open Access for UK Schools

On October 1st, the Adam Smith Institute published my report
"Open Access for UK Schools" (PDF) :

Our latest report, Open Access for UK Schools: What Britain can learn from Swedish Education Reform, by Marek Hlavac, argues for a radical overhaul of the UK school system.

Inspired by Sweden’s experience, the report calls for the UK to implement a universal open access scheme, which would allow parents to send their children to any school of their choice – whether state, private or religious – and make these schools eligible for government funding on a per–pupil basis. Two conditions must be met: the schools must not charge additional fees, and must accept pupils on a first-come-first-served basis.

Based on the Swedish reforms, the paper recommends the following measures be adopted in Britain:

1) Let parents choose the best school for their children. Open access means letting parents send their children to the school of their choice. So long as schools accept pupils on a first-come-first-served basis and do not charge any additional fees, they should receive state funding on a per-pupil basis – regardless of whether they are state-run, independent, or religious.

2) Make it easier to establish new schools. The Department for Children, Schools and Families should approve the establishment of any new school, provided it meets basic civic and teaching requirements and would not charge fees.

3) Abolish the surplus places policy, which stops good schools from expanding, or new ones being established, when there are spare places at another school in the area.

4) Simplify the national curriculum to allow innovation and personalized teaching. Teachers must be freed from central control and bureaucracy, and allowed to do their job.

Nothing is more important for the future of the UK than improving our education system. The Swedish example shows us that it is possible to encourage the growth of new schools, improve the quality of existing ones, and create a dynamic and innovative school system in which teachers are highly motivated and students receive the very best education. The UK’s children deserve no less.

Please take a look at the report and tell me what you think.

My previous posts on this topic:
"A Lesson from Sweden," written for 18DoughtyStreet.com
"Learning from the Swedes," written for the Adam Smith Institute blog

World Freedom Atlas

Absolutely fabulous:

The World Freedom Atlas is a geovisualization tool for world statistics. It was designed for social scientists, journalists, NGO/IGO workers, and others who wish to have a better understanding of issues of freedom, democracy, human rights, and good governance. It covers the years 1990-2006.

[...]

Originally a final project for Professor Mark Harrower's Geography 575 course at the University of Wisconsin, the World Freedom Atlas was completed over the summer of 2007 by Zachary Johnson.

Check it out here.

(h/t: Adam Smith Institute blog)

Princeton Fed Challenge

An announcement from my econ department:

Princeton Fed Challenge [...] is a new student group, which presents a great opportunity for undergraduates to debate macroeconomic theory and monetary policy, especially as it relates to US Federal Reserve interest rate decisions. The group will also be sending a team to the regional New York College Fed Challenge in November, where Princeton students will present a monetary policy recommendation and compete with teams from other schools for cash prizes and the opportunity to advance to the national Fed Challenge competition.

What a group - how fascinating in its dorkiness!

The Economist on Education Reform in the UK

The Economist has a leader about education reform in the United Kingdom:

A couple of years ago, a consensus emerged among reformers that councils had too much control and parents too little. There was radical talk in both main parties of encouraging parental choice as the best way to drive up standards: if schoolchildren were free to vote with their feet, taking public funding with them, new schools would open and existing ones would improve in order to compete.

[...]

What are the lessons?

The first is that if a critical mass of parents wants a new school and there is a willing provider, local government should be required to finance it as generously as it does existing state schools. The second is that if a charity—or business—wants to open a school in the hope that children will come, then taxpayers' money should follow any that do. Third, rules about what, where and how schools teach should be relaxed—though not abandoned—to avoid stifling innovation and discouraging newcomers with big ideas. In any event, public-examination results would give parents the information they needed to enforce high standards.

These policies sound almost identical to those favored by the Adam Smith Institute, a free-market think tank where I interned this summer. I focused on reforming the British school system to enhance competition between schools and make good education more accessible to children from low-income families.

You can find my previous writing on this topic here and here.

Hyun Shin et al. on Fair-Value Accounting

From an article in the Economist:

New research suggests that the increasing reach of fair-value accounting might be a mixed blessing. A paper by Guillaume Plantin of the London Business School, Haresh Sapra of the University of Chicago and Hyun Song Shin of Princeton University concludes that fair-value accounting could sometimes generate fluctuations in asset values that distort the very price information that it puts such store by.

[...]

This theoretical model is a challenge to the ideal of fair-value accounting: that more information is always better. Although it is technically feasible to mark to market even idiosyncratic assets such as loans to small businesses, it might not be desirable. The authors point to a well-established principle in economics, that incremental moves towards perfect competition are not always good. Eliminating one market imperfection (such as poor information) need not bring the ideal of a frictionless economy closer, because this may magnify the effect of remaining distortions (such as managerial short-termism or illiquid markets).

Professor Hyun Shin taught me corporate finance, by the way. He devoted quite a lot of time to positive feedback mechanisms, such as the one described in his paper, and even used the example of the Millennium Bridge in London to demonstrate the concept.

Forbes Magazine: World's Most Powerful Women

Forbes magazine has published its annual list of the 100 most powerful women in the world. Here's the top ten:

1. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
2. Wu Yi, Vice-Premier, People's Republic of China
3. Ho Ching, Chief Executive, Temasek Holdings, Singapore
4. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, USA
5. Indra K. Nooyi, Chairman & Chief Executive, PepsiCo, USA
6. Sonia Gandhi, President, India
7. Cynthia Carroll, Chief Executive, Anglo American, UK
8. Patricia A. Woertz, Chairman, Archer Daniels Midland, USA
9. Irene Rosenfeld, Chairman & Chief Executive, Kraft Foods, USA
10. Patricia Russo, Chief Executive, Alcatel-Lucent, USA

My first impression is that the rankings mix apples and oranges: The kind of power one wields as a government official, for instance, is vastly different from the power of a business executive.

After filtering out women active in the private sector, one is left with the following top 15:

1. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
2. Wu Yi, Vice-Premier, People's Republic of China
3. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, USA
4. Sonia Gandhi, President, India
5. Michèle Alliot-Marie , Minister for the Interior, France
6. Christine Lagarde, Minister of Economy, Finance and Employment , France
7. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice, USA
8. Queen Elizabeth II, UK
9. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator, USA
10. Nancy Pelosi , Speaker of the House, USA
11. Margaret Chan , Director-general, World Health Organization
12. Helen Clark , Prime Minister, New Zealand
13. Tzipora Livni , Minister of Foreign Affairs, Israel
14. Tarja Halonen , President, Finland
15. Gloria Arroyo, President, Phillipines

Wise Words from A Miss Teen Contender

I'll give her the benefit of doubt, and say that she's just not used to speaking in public.