Blog

The answer to bad scrutiny should be better scrutiny, not less scrutiny. There is also a larger point here that we seem to forget whenever we discuss government schools. A child studying in a government school is not a lesser child, the school they attend should not be treated as a lesser institution, in fact, if governments genuinely believe that their reforms are transforming public education, they should want the world to see it. But when the immediate response to scrutiny is a circular, a restriction or a warning, suspicion naturally follows, not that something illegal is happening but suspicion that perhaps the government is more comfortable controlling the narrative about its schools than allowing people to independently examine them. And that is a dangerous distinction.