Global

First some background. When I was eleven I was given an IQ test. I must have passed since I was sent to a different kind of school, than most of my classmates. This was post-war England and someone in the British Government had woken up to the fact that Britain had lost an enormous number of men between 1914 and 1945 and urgently needed to train replacements.

By Antonio Gois
Tying teacher pay to student test scores. Creating public schools of choice with private operators. Setting common standards for all students. Those issues probably are familiar to any American reporter who covers education.

England’s private schools are struggling to attract pupils. Although the number of school-age children has risen since 2008, independent schools have barely grown. As a result, the proportion of children at such schools has slipped from 7.2% to 6.9%, with absolute numbers falling everywhere apart from the prosperous south-east (see chart). Why are English parents—a famously pushy bunch—increasingly reluctant to pay for their children’s education?