Education Funding Concerns

Good afternoon :-)

This afternoon, following the concerning announcement of changes to school funding, I took the liberty of penning this brief letter to Leamington Spa Conservative MP, Chris White. Please let me know if you can think of anyone else that might be interested in it's content.

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To whom it may concern,

Please find, below, a brief illustration of the marriage problem, one of the foremost thought experiments in political theory, as originally found in Robert Nozick's famous libertarian account Anarchy State and Utopia. The experiment was originally intended to demonstrate how choices and opportunities can be distributed fairly, despite appearances to the contrary. It is also the first problem that came to my mind regarding the proposed changes in school funding, as appeared on BBC News today (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11748765).

While I fully acknowledge the possibility that there are significant problems with education funding, reducing the level of Local Authority involvement in the process seems to me a proposal of such profound idiocy that it falls to me, as part of this great society, to comment on the fact. But firstly, the illustration I mentioned:

The marriage problem might arise if one is to line up two sets of people, ranked in order of (some objective measure) of attractiveness, and labelled in descending order from A to Z. Despite the luck-based attribute of attractiveness, it is clear that those ranked 'A' are likely to take the first opportunity to marry, and so on. So A1 marries A2, D1 marries D2, and so on. Now, despite having no opportunity to change the fact, Z1 has no choice other than to marry Z2, regardless of the effort he might put in. Is this fair?

Robert Nozick argues that it is, as it preserves the element of choice that is at the heart of a fair society. However, in examining the problem, we can see several issues. The initial one is that the number of choices offered to those at the 'lower' end of the alphabet are limited. It's possible to say, however, that this may be overcome if only Z had tried harder. However, a far more troubling issue is the fact that at no point (due to the objective character of attractiveness in this case), was Z ever able to change his life chances. While the process might appear to be fair, the outcome, intuitively is not.

According to the work of several of the worlds most prominent theorists of justice, it falls to the state to address these unfair outcomes, particularly if they are decided by luck or accidents of birth. While it appears that many of the brains behind the government might intuitively stand with thinkers such as Nozick and Ayn Rand, I can only suggest the possibility that this is through a lack of consideration regarding the alternatives. I am more than happy to provide a reading list, but in the meantime might I suggest you start with the eminent works of John Rawls' Theory of Justice and Ronald Dworkin's Sovereign Virtue.

The relevance of the illustration may seem fleeting, however when combined with the economic idea of diminishing marginal utility, it's relevance to education funding is far more accessible. Put simply, how does reducing the participation of democratically elected local authorities increase the fairness of locally based education? While the word 'change' was repeated during the election period to the point of semantic dilution (I hope your spin doctors have read Wittgenstein), the impression I got was that the key change to take place was an increasing level of participation in local services. We do care about the education of our children, and want to take part in it. Meanwhile, a more equitable and less targeted form of local education funding can only be seen as a colossal waste of money in the event that the funds are channelled in the direction of schools that would like, but do not necessarily need them.

Mr. or Mrs. ambiguous bureaucrat, I have no idea of knowing your wealth, social status or family background, but, having grown up in two of the more deprived areas of the country – Southern Wales and Coventry, where, I can assure you, a difference in funding between schools made a huge difference to those, including myself, who may not have otherwise been able to develop the aspirations that led to my high level of education, and furthermore developed the sense of citizenship and faith in society that leads me to pen this letter.

While this letter may have appeared to be a long way to reach the point, I can only emphasise the level of feeling, emotion and empathy that has prompted me to write it. I hope you are able to address some of my concerns, particularly by further elaborating on the form that the great society is to take in the final instance. As this government, particularly with regard to education, appears to be hell-bent on a combination of centralisation and semantic word-games with regard to very serious promises, I can only assure you, through the veil of civil service anonymity, that the irony between what is said, and what is done, will continue to attract more and more attention in the media and the universities. Throughout history, our society ultimately has always developed a desire to reclaim it's own future when the words of politicians fail us.

Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains,

Alexander Hoseason