What is the purpose?

There is pressure on the independent schools, whether from Government diktat or from a very narrow focus by the Charity Commission on the meaning of charity, doubtless at the behest of the Government. The next target could be faith schools, while grammar schools seem to be seen as an affront at worst and an embarrassment at best, even to leading Conservatives.

The cause is, of course, the consistently better results achieved by pupils at schools not controlled by the state or local authorities.

You would think that the Government would use this to ask what are the differences between the two sectors - general state and selective/independent, in order to learn lessons to improve the poorer performing.

Instead, the pressure is on to reduce or hobble the independent sector, presumably on the grounds that their students should not out-perform, or as they would say, in order that they should not have an unfair advantage.

The important question the becomes:
"If they haven't found a way to improve ( that is real improvement as compared with dumbing down and cosmetic improvement) poorer performing schools, what are they hoping to achieve by attacking the well performing schools?"

Do they honestly think that if they succeeded in closing all those schools they do not directly control, and dispersing their staff and students into the remaining schools, that somehow education in this country will be improved?

There will always be poorer performing schools, if assessment is objective and correct. There are all sorts of reasons for this, which need not be repeated here. We have had increased funding for education which seems to have achieved little so far, to judge by the on-going rapid series of new measures which seem to lead to indigestion in the system.

What is required is a new culture. Whatever else this involves, it must ensure that there is both a large measure of freedom for practitioners - especially head teachers and their staff, and that there is accountability to "customers", ie local families and others, such as employers. We have for too long tried the monolithic approach imposed from above. It is surely time to try a more devolved approach allowing for local characteristics and needs.