Lashing feathers to a brick...

...ain't no way to make a bird.

Apparently seduced by the effectiveness of markets and the dismal record of monopolies, the Labour government in Britain now "promises school choice for all."

The trouble is, they haven't a clue as to why markets work, and their superficial and trivial "choice" reforms will do little if anything to improve education.

For example: The Telegraph reports that

Good schools will be allowed to expand and there will be a 12-week fast track process for processing applications.

"There is no surplus places rule that prevents schools from expanding. All successful and popular schools may propose to expand, and we strongly support them in doing so where they believe they can sustain their quality." Money has been put into a capital fund to encourage expansion...

Covering the expansion costs themselves is not enough to drive a popular school to expand. Most popular U.S. private schools respond to growing demand by increasing the size of their waiting lists rather than by expanding their operations. That's because they're almost all non-profit and hence have no incentive to undertake the risks of expansion. They could cover their basic costs with the new enrollment, but so what? The fact that they can afford to expand does not mean that they will chose to.

Around the world, the profit motive has been the single most reliable incentive for popular private schools to expand. Successful for-profit schools not only cover their own costs when they expand, they increase their profits. Without the lure of profit making, there is insufficient justification to run the risks of expansion.

Search this site for the terms "for-profit" and "education" for links to evidence and further argument on this point.

In this and a number of other key respects, the Labour gov't proposal is patently at odds with the evidence on how and why education markets work.

It's not a smorgasbord, folks. You can't just pick and choose the bits of competitive markets that you like, chuck the rest, and expect it to work.

Feathered bricks don't fly.