Parent power

Steve Richards’s column in The Independent is, as ever, worth reading. Richards is surely right that education is fast becoming the main dividing line between the two parties. But I’m puzzled by this question that he poses about the Tory plans for independent, state-funded schools:

“And if these schools are “independent” of political control, as Mr Gove envisages, to whom will they be accountable?” 

The answer is that the schools will be answerable to the parents of its pupils. Once Gove’s supply-side reforms have been enacted, parents will be able to pick schools for their children rather than having the schools pick the pupils. Any school that isn’t up to scratch is simply going to see parents sending their children elsewhere.