LARS P. SYLL

Den svenska skolkapitalismen

På tio år har  — som SVT: granskning visar — Thorengruppen tjänat sammanlagt 944 miljoner kronor. Ägaren, Raja Thorén, har tagit 81 miljoner kronor i aktieutdelning.

I Sverige år 2023 låter vi friskolekoncerner med undermålig verksamhet få plocka ut skyhöga vinster — vinster som den svenska staten gladeligen låter dessa koncerner ta av vår skattefinansierade skolpeng. Dessa smarta välfärdsplundrare har överlag en högre lönsamhet än näringslivet i sin helhet, men när man väl plundrat färdigt lämnar man över problemen och eleverna till den förkättrade offentliga sektorn.

Vi vet idag att friskolor driver på olika former av etnisk och social segregation, påfallande ofta har låg lärartäthet och dåliga skolresultat, och i grund och botten sviker resurssvaga elever. Att dessa verksamheter ska premieras med att få plocka ut vinster på våra skattepengar är djupt stötande.

I ett samhälle präglat av jämlikhet, solidaritet och demokrati borde det vara självklart att skattefinansierade skolor inte ska få drivas med vinst, segregation eller religiös indoktrinering som främsta affärsidé!

Inte nog med att friskolekoncerner lägger beslag på våra skattepengar och tillåts använda dem för att köpa in sig i våffelstugor och idrottshallar. För att stärka sina positioner på marknaden väljer friskolor systematiskt också att sätta glädjebetyg för att falskeligen ge sken av att det i dessa skolor går ut elever med högre kunskaper än i andra. I friskolekoncernernas värld urholkas betygen för att istället bli ett sätt att fuska till sig fördelar på.

Dessa skojare och fifflare i friskolebranschen har alldeles för länge tillåtits underminera svensk skola. Nu är det dags för politikerna — som aktivt och/eller genom ren flathet har gjort denna skandal möjlig i trettio år — att visa lite samhällsansvar och se till att Sverige blir av med den skamfläck som stavas friskolor.

Knowledge and the crisis in teacher education

In Sweden, the standard of living measured by per capita income has increased by a factor of over 50 since the mid-1800s. Overall, people in the Western world today are more than twenty times richer than they were a century and a half ago. Its population has a life expectancy that is almost twice as high as its ancestors. What has caused this increase in prosperity and living standards?

At the same time, why do per capita income and growth rates differ more than ever in different countries today? Why has the difference between rich and poor countries increased? How can it be that the world’s richest countries in the early twenty-first century have a per capita income that is more than thirty times greater than that of the poorest countries?

“A truly good explanation is practically seamless,” wrote Adam Smith in his famous Wealth of Nations. Is there such an explanation for the most important problem area of ​​social sciences and humanity — economic growth? The American economist Paul Romer’s theory of endogenous growth — where knowledge is made the most important driving force of growth — is according to many economists probably the closest we can come at present.

The theory makes a significant distinction between ordinary objects (cars, refrigerators, computers) and knowledge (formulas, recipes, patents). According to the theory, knowledge is a kind of instruction or recipe that tells us how we can use our resources to produce utilities. With better knowledge, growth can increase even if material resources are limited. Knowledge is non-rivalrous in that one person’s use of knowledge does not reduce others’ ability to use the same knowledge. Unlike people (with their special skills and education) and things (stocks, machines, natural resources), knowledge is governed by increasing returns. An object (a portion of food) can only be consumed by a single person at a time, while knowledge (the recipe for the food) can be used by as many people as possible, anytime.

The theory of endogenous growth has convincingly demonstrated the importance of knowledge production for the creation of nations’ welfare. And if ideas and knowledge play such a crucial role in long-term growth and prosperity, much more of the debate should be about educational strategies, research investments, and teacher salaries instead of interest rates and tax rates.

Knowledge is power. This also applies to economics. And perhaps even more importantly, knowledge is what underlies our ability to create long-term prosperity.

Against this background, it is somewhat surprising to see how politicians in Sweden treat those who may be the most important mediators of knowledge — teachers.

For a long time, it has been known and pointed out that many of the education programs currently conducted at the country’s colleges and universities have a meager budget to live on. The result is therefore fewer teacher-led lectures in record-large student groups.

In addition to this, there has been an explosion of new student groups going on to university studies. In a way, this is clearly pleasing. Today we have as many doctoral students in our education system as we had high school students in the 1950s! But this educational expansion has largely taken place at the expense of deteriorating opportunities for students to meet the competence requirements of higher education. Many have succumbed and lowered their standards.

Unfortunately, the students we receive at universities and colleges today are also not always well-equipped for their studies. The restructuring of the school system in the form of decentralization, deregulation, and target management has not delivered as promised by politicians. The imposed professionalization of the teaching profession has rather resulted in de-professionalization as resources have decreased and non-teaching tasks and responsibilities have increased.

In line with the post-secondary education expansion, a corresponding contraction of knowledge among large student groups has taken place. The education policy that has led to this situation hits hardest against those it claims to protect — those with little or no ‘cultural capital’ in their background.

Perhaps these trends and problems are especially evident in the part of our university and college education system that focuses on teacher education.

Today, an increasing number of teacher education students are recruited from households with little or no experience of higher education. Teacher students’ grades and results on college entrance exams have also decreased for a long time. At the same time as the recruitment of teacher education students with high study results has thus become more difficult, there has been an increasing demand for the academic level of teacher education. How we can solve the dilemma of higher demands on a merit-based education with increasingly weak-performing students with tighter resource frames is difficult to see.

The relative salaries of teachers have decreased for a long time. 60 years ago, an elementary school teacher on average earned almost as much as an engineer. Today, an elementary school teacher’s salary is on average 65 percent of a civil engineer’s salary. 60 years ago, a high school teacher on average earned 35 percent more than an engineer. Today, a high school teacher’s salary on average is 75 percent of a civil engineer’s salary.

The general level of teacher salaries must increase. But this is only possible if the municipalities’ accountant attitude towards schools becomes a thing of the past and the state is also willing to invest in what ultimately provides higher growth and prosperity in a knowledge society — knowledge! No one can access modern educational research without realizing how headless the last decades’ school policy has been when it comes to these fundamentals. The school’s problems cannot be solved without raising teachers’ relative salaries and giving them decent working conditions.

In fact, it is remarkable that the teacher salary gap has been allowed to continue unchecked for so long. Few measures are likely to have greater long-term returns than investing in getting skilled teachers who can impart knowledge to future generations.

Here we clearly have one of the main reasons for the problems that the Swedish school is struggling with today. Why would high-performing students, other than exceptionally, choose to pursue an education that leads to a profession characterized today by low pay and almost non-existent status?

In this situation, strong remedies are needed. Unfortunately, measures such as the introduction of teacher licensing and more high school lecturers are simply not enough. The reason is simply that these measures — which I mostly support — do not address the fundamental problems that I have addressed here.

What we can see today of the consequences of municipalization and for-profit ‘free schools’ should lead us to seriously consider whether the state should take greater responsibility for the Swedish school.

The chariot of fate certainly does not run on rails. But knowledge is still the locomotive that drives economic growth and people’s welfare forward. From that perspective, nothing can be more important today than investing in our teachers and ensuring that in the future we can get the best, most competent, and most talented individuals to want to educate themselves as teachers.

What is the use of school?

We live in an unequal society where inequality is increasing in many areas, especially regarding income and wealth. The differences in living conditions for different groups, in terms of class, ethnicity, and gender, are unacceptably large.

In the world of education, family background still has a significant impact on pupils’ performance, and it becomes even more pronounced as they get older. It cannot be seen as anything other than a colossal failure when a school with compensatory aspirations shows a pattern where parents’ educational backgrounds have an increasing impact as the pupil gets older.

Contrary to all the promises of reform pedagogy, it is primarily children from families without academic traditions who have lost out in the shift in the perception of school that has taken place in the past half-century. Today, with school vouchers, free school choice, and charter schools, the development has only further strengthened the opportunities of highly educated parents to control their children’s schooling and future, contrary to all the compensatory promises. It is difficult to see who, with today’s schools, will be able to make the ‘class journey’ that so many in my generation have made.

The school plays a large and important functional role in the reproduction of the labor market and socialization-related discipline in our society.

All of this is well known, but everything has its time and place. What I want to address here is something else. Socialization theory and hermeneutics complement each other. Instead of explaining, I am here more interested in understanding. Instead of the school’s societal functions, I focus here on some cultural and subjective theoretical aspects of the school as an institution. I want to present some sketchy thoughts on a specific question complex. How should the school be related to society at large? What can and should the school do and be?

We now live in a society where identity is something created rather than, as in the past, something inherited. This can be experienced both as a liberation and as a burden. Many young people today experience ambivalence toward the freedom that the detraditionalization of our social lives has brought. This is also expressed to a high degree in school. Much of the orientation problems that young people express are related to the norm and value dissolution that the pervasive transformation of modern social life has led to. In the past, one’s social identity was more clearly defined by an inherited social identity. Today, the image that young people have of life is much more about what they, as individuals, want to do with their lives. Each individual creates their own identity. But this also means that the support to lean on is not there. There is ‘free’ movement under one’s own responsibility and one’s own anxieties and rootlessness.

When yours truly grew up and went to school in the 1960s and 1970s, there was still a fairly clear demarcation line between the school, which took care of our cognitive skills, the family, which took care of the upbringing and emotional needs of the growing generation, and society at large.

What was once new becomes old. The rebellion of reform pedagogy against a fossilized school institution with its outdated norms and teaching styles was new and radical in the 1970s. Today, reality has surpassed it. When everyone already perceives themselves as doing as they please and basing their actions on their own experiences and lives, it is no longer radical to say to students: “Do as you please.” The answer is often, “Can’t we avoid having to do as we please? We already do so much of that in our daily lives and in modern schools. It no longer gives us an emancipatory experience. It’s just more of the same slack and indifferent …”

The innovative power of de-formalization and subjectification has long since exhausted its potential. Therefore, it is hopelessly outdated to demand increased informality, closeness, and subjectivity in today’s schools. To some extent, starting from the pupils’ reality must not be synonymous with fully adopting and embracing it. On the contrary, one must present a counter-image, an alternative. Not identity, but difference.

The school should teach for a life other than the one that exists in school. Above all, it should ensure that each pupil’s potential to live a different life from the one they are living today is fully realized. When continuity, stability, and traditions lose their significance and self-legitimizing aura, this becomes even more important. The school must cultivate ‘the principle of hope.’ Without the future-oriented hope of a better world, the school cannot fulfill its task. Therefore, socialization-theoretical explanations regarding the question “how one has become who one is” cannot be the starting point. In the school world, the educational-theoretical question “how one can become what one has the potential to become in the future” must be the guiding starting point.

Today, when the lifeworld, everyday life, and subjectivity are fully embraced in the school world, more of the same is not needed. Reform pedagogy has been so successful that it is now falling on its own grip. Subjectification has long since reached the saturation point, and saturation has led to negative marginal utility. The euphoria of novelty has turned into the discomfort of over-saturation. It is no longer helpful to invoke phrases from another time — a non-saturated time — where these demands may have seemed emancipatory. Today, the response from pupils is usually only: “We’ve been there. We’ve seen that. We’ve done that. Point to something that goes beyond ourselves and allows us to grow instead!” What was the highest radicalism in the 1970s when yours truly studied at the teacher training college – “start from your own interest in bikes and write the history of technology based on that” – today has only a glimmer of laughter. When everyone already writes their “bike history”, something else is needed.

Distance and separation provide perspective. The school should be an island in a sea of societal routines. Insisting that the school should continue to approach the pupils’ experiential horizons is no longer viable. The school cannot be a reality TV world where people expose their private and intimate lives to satisfy exhibitionistic self-affirmation impulses. Today, we do not need more leveling between the pupils’ lifeworld and the school. On the contrary, we need more respect for the necessary difference between these worlds. Learning in school must acknowledge, as a starting point, the difference between the pupils’ lifeworld and the school itself in order to function as a forward-looking bridge.

School is not society or family. The school should not be an extension of the pupils’ lives outside of school. On the contrary, it should be an alternative. Something else. In its otherness, it should create conditions for the future and not keep pupils’ experiential horizons in the present. The school should not provide self-affirmation for what the students are, but help them become what they can be.

The future is uncertain. And that is precisely why it is so important for the school to relate to the future and not the present. Therefore, the school should also be something different and not a mirror of society. Through its otherness, the school can provide preparedness for a new life and a new world. When we talk about what the school needs to provide students, this must be at the center.

We often ask what kind of students society needs. I think that question is misplaced. The demand must be a rights-based demand that transcends the students’ own experiential horizons and is future-oriented by focusing on their potential, not their contingent present facticity.

The reform pedagogy nurtured the idea that the distance between school and society would disappear and that identity would prevail. It still perceives itself as progressive (often with the same unreflected starting points regarding identity politics in general in our modern multicultural societies). I see it the opposite way. Hold on to the difference and distance between school and society. Like Adorno once spoke of ‘false intimacy,’ I would like to argue that this is about ‘false identity.’ The school should be its own entity with its own rules and norms. We enter with some of our identities for part of our lives. The school should demand and challenge students. It can make them grow and realize their potential. Going along and building false intimacy and identity rather hinders than helps these future-oriented aspirations.

To learn, one must be able to “take in” differences. This also requires a demand for distancing. Students are not helped by the school merely reflecting and affirming their own life-world. It should broaden and deepen it. Here, theoretical knowledge becomes important as well. Without it, deepening and perspective on one’s own life-world cannot take place. An identity between school and society would cement students in the present instead of preparing for an unknown and uncertain future.

The school should be the fixed point in young people’s lives where they can come and, like teachers, temporarily withdraw from the storms of family and social life. The school should be an island in a world full of intense changes. To be able to learn things, concentration and opportunities for screening are required. In our hyper-mediatized world, perhaps the latter is particularly important. In the constant digital noise that young people surround themselves with around the clock, islands of distance, calmness, and opportunities for reflection, screening of noise, and processing of information into knowledge are needed. Not to permanently withdraw from the troubles and problems of life-world, but to better cope with the constant real transformations that characterize our lives with the strength, skills, and perspectives that a knowledge and citizenship-based school can provide.

Division of labor is a prerequisite for civilization. This also applies to the school in relation to society. The school cannot and should not solve or accommodate all the problems that a constantly changing open world creates. The school cannot compensate for all the risks of the modernization process. Family and parents – as well as society as a whole – have a responsibility that cannot simply be assumed by the school to replace or compensate for. Many social researchers describe family, norms, and social life as being in dissolution everywhere today. That is precisely why it is so important that the school should not primarily function as a compensatory social institution. Then it loses its soul. Then it loses its aura and ability to function as an energizing dream that everything can be different and that the school can contribute to making it different.

We all have several different identities. We all have different aspirations, backgrounds, and dreams. But in school, we should meet as equals. Different, but equal. When we enter through the school gate, we are all equal. Entering school also means that you (temporarily) leave family and society and enter a limited space with its own rules and goals. For part of the day, we enter a world where we collectively create ourselves as citizens and knowledge practitioners.

If you are to learn something new in school, it must be something other than an extension of pupils’ everyday lives. For the school to be able to catalyze and change, it must be something else and not identical to its surroundings. In today’s society, the school must function as something different, an alternative to the eroding market forces that threaten society by reducing citizens to consumers. Knowledge is a necessary condition for being able to resist this development. When the family or society does not stand up, the school must be able to stand up and take care of the genuine emancipatory interests of the growing generation.

A good school — not least in our meritocratic knowledge society — is an important prerequisite for young people to be able to realize their dreams of improving their conditions in the future. It should help students get out of the self-centered identity fixation they are developmentally in. Today’s over-reliance on the school starting from students’ individual, highly private, and subjective lifeworlds does not work very well. Today, this individualization over-reliance creates more problems than it solves.

The school should educate knowledgeable citizens. A school with religious, ethnic, or profit-making motives is not a good school. The school should meet pupils based on what they can become, not based on what they are. The school should provide pupils with a compass in the landscape of the future so that they can learn to navigate in uncertain waters. To fulfill the principle of hope, the school must be an island of good otherness — unrestricted by all kinds of identity politics. The more the school is drawn into the cumulative dynamics of society, the more it loses its necessary status and self-logic.

If the school is to be a realization of each pupil’s potential rather than a time-bound and contingent facticity, it must be able to build bridges to the pupil’s lifeworld while maintaining the distance between school and society.

Religious for-profit ‘free schools’

Swedish governments have for years now announced that they want to tighten the rules for religious for-profit free schools. Last year Minister of Education Lina Axelsson Kihlbom claimed that this would be “an important step in regaining democratic control in schools.”

Goodness gracious! And to think that we still have to hear this nonsense.

It’s mind-boggling.

The fact that religious for-profit free schools are allowed to exist in Sweden in 2023 is deeply concerning. And to believe that increased control — a favorite solution proposed by politicians — would solve the recurring problems and violations of the school law that these schools have been associated with for the past 30 years is downright ridiculous. The proposal is nothing more than political posturing.

It is completely unacceptable for certain parents’ interests to be placed above Swedish law and children’s constitutionally protected rights. Swedish schools should be a safe haven from attempts to turn them into a playground for all kinds of religious faiths and ideologies. Failing to safeguard schools as a safe haven is a betrayal of those who perhaps more than anyone else need society to stand up and defend their rights as citizens — regardless of gender, ethnicity, or their parents’ religious beliefs.

When yours truly grew up and went to school in the 1960s and 70s, there was still a fairly clear demarcation line between school — which took care of our cognitive skills — and the family — which took care of the upbringing and emotional needs of the upcoming generation — and society at large.

The school must ensure that it fully harnesses each pupil’s potential to live a life other than the one they live today. When continuity, stability, and traditions lose their meaning and self-legitimizing aura, this becomes even more important. The school must cultivate ‘the principle of hope.’ The school should be an island in a sea of societal routines. Learning in school must recognize the difference between pupils’ lifeworlds and the school itself as a starting point in order to function as a forward-looking bridge.

School is not society or family. The school should not be an extension of pupils’ lives outside of school. On the contrary, it should be an alternative. Something else. In its otherness, it should create conditions for the future, and not hold pupils’ horizons of experience in the present. The school should not provide self-confirmation for what pupils are but help them become what they can be.

When neither the family nor society can stand up, the school must be able to stand up and take care of the genuine emancipatory interests of the upcoming generation. A good school is an important prerequisite for young people to be able to realize their dreams of improving their conditions in the future.

The school should nurture knowledgeable citizens. A school with religious, ethnic, or profit-based motives is not a good school. The school should meet pupils based on what they can become, not what they are. The school should provide pupils with a compass for the future landscape so that they can learn to navigate in constantly changing waters. To fulfill ‘the principle of hope,’ the school must be an island of good otherness — unfettered by all kinds of identity politics and religious pressures.

The Swedish for-profit ‘free school’ scandal

In Sweden in 2023, we allow poorly performing private school companies to make sky-high profits — profits that the Swedish state gladly allows these companies to take from our tax-funded school vouchers. These smart welfare plunderers generally have higher profitability than the business sector as a whole, but when they are finished plundering, they hand over the problems and pupils to the much-maligned public sector.

Many are rightly upset, and those who are critical of the privatization of healthcare and education have had golden opportunities to clearly and firmly state that they now want to eliminate the possibilities for profit-driven companies to operate in healthcare, social care, and education.

But that has not happened.

Instead, there has been a steady stream of toothless demands for increased control, tougher scrutiny, and inspections. Now that the privatization dream has turned into a nightmare, some believe that what they wanted to get rid of — regulations and “bureaucratic” control — would be the solution.

Several public investigations in recent years have shown that the system we have in Sweden with profit-driven schools leads to our schools becoming increasingly unequal — which in turn contributes to increasingly poor results. If we are to remedy this, we must have an educational system that is not based on market-oriented competitive thinking where schools, instead of educating, mainly focus on recruiting pupils and school vouchers. Schools should instead be operated as non-profit organizations with quality and a clear and distinct social mission and the best interests of pupils in mind.

Today, we know that private schools drive various forms of ethnic and social segregation, often have low teacher densities and poor academic results, and ultimately fail resource-poor students. That these operations should be rewarded with the ability to extract profits from our tax money is deeply offensive.

In a society characterized by equality, solidarity, and democracy, it should be self-evident that tax-funded schools should not be allowed to operate with profit and segregation as their primary business idea!

The decision to allow profit-driven companies into the welfare sector has been a costly mistake. Since Chile stopped this practice in the education sector a few years ago, Sweden is now the only country in the world that accepts profit interests in tax-funded schools. If Chile can correct its mistakes, we should be able to as well!

The basic question is not whether tax-funded private companies should be allowed to make profits or whether tougher measures are needed in the form of control and inspection. The fundamental question is whether it is the logic of the market and privatization that should govern our schools, or whether it should be through the logic of democracy and politics. The fundamental question is whether schools should be governed by democracy and politics or by the market.

Not only do private school companies lay claim to our tax money and use them any way they want. To strengthen their positions in the market, private schools also systematically choose to give high grades to falsely give the impression that these schools produce pupils with higher knowledge than others. In the world of private school companies, grades are eroded to become a way to get advantages by cheating.

History will judge harshly the responsible politicians who have ruthlessly and with premeditation allowed the once-proud Swedish tradition of trying to build an equal school for all to be sacrificed!

These jokers and cheaters in the free school industry have been allowed to undermine the Swedish school system for far too long. Now it’s time for politicians—who have actively and/or through pure complacency made this scandal possible for thirty years—to show some social responsibility and ensure that Sweden gets rid of the shame that is called free schools.

Högern och friskolorna

Under det dryga decennium som jag har kritiserat vinstintresset i skolan har Thorengruppens härjningar varit en följetong. Redan 2011 kom Skolinspektionen med sin första dräpande rapport om allvarliga missförhållanden. En lärare vittnade senare för mig om hur gruppen startade yrkesgymnasier utan så mycket som en svets eller hammare i lokalerna.

Alla har vetat hur illa det har varit. Ändå har ingen satt stopp. Det är ett så bottenlöst svek mot Sveriges elever att detta missbruk har kunnat fortgå.

Hela systemet utgår från tanken att alla skolor vill förbättra sig och leva upp till skollagens krav. Vissa behöver bara få tid på sig att rätta till sina brister. Det är så naivt att man blir matt. Sanningen är ju att låg kvalitet är själva affärsidén i dessa fall.

Det är ingen slump att de vinstdrivande skolorna har en lägre lärartäthet och fler obehöriga lärare, exempelvis. Det är en krass ekonomisk kalkyl.

Vissa koncerner lyckas skapa lönsamhet genom att attrahera ett lättare elevunderlag, som inte kräver så mycket resurser. Tyvärr har väldigt mycket av friskoledebatten kommit att handla om just den aspekten.

Men ett betydligt allvarligare problem är det som Thorengruppens expansion sätter fingret på. Vi har stora skolkoncerner – inte minst på gymnasiesidan – som erbjuder skräputbildningar till ett mycket krävande elevunderlag …

Det är upp till bevis nu för Liberalerna och resten av regeringen. Skeptikerna är av begripliga skäl många. Skolminister Lotta Edholm kom direkt från ett styrelseuppdrag åt Tellusgruppen till sitt nya jobb i Rosenbad. Personkopplingarna mellan borgerligheten och friskolebranschen är så många att översikten närmast påminner om ett tunnelbanenät.

Det är dags för borgerligheten att visa att man menar allvar.

Anna Dahlberg/Expressen

Den svenska friskoleskandalen

Ett företag inom svensk skola har bland annat använt skolpeng för att köpa en våffelstuga i Åre, visar SVT Nyheters granskning.

I skolkoncernen Watma har 20 miljoner kronor i koncernbidrag gått från utbildningsverksamhet till moderbolaget under de senaste tre åren. Av summan har 2,8 miljoner därefter gått vidare till dotterbolaget Nordic Leisure, pengar som sedermera delfinansierade ett köp av våffelstugan …

Anders Hultin som driver skolkoncernen Watma skriver i ett mejl att det är ägaren själv som disponerar den vinst som uppstår i ett företag.

Omni

I Sverige år 2023 låter vi friskolekoncerner med undermålig verksamhet få plocka ut skyhöga vinster — vinster som den svenska staten gladeligen låter dessa koncerner ta av vår skattefinansierade skolpeng. Dessa smarta välfärdsplundrare har överlag en högre lönsamhet än näringslivet i sin helhet, men när man väl plundrat färdigt lämnar man över problemen och eleverna till den förkättrade offentliga sektorn.

Många är med rätta upprörda och de som är kritiska till privatisering av vård och skola har haft gyllene tillfällen att tydligt och klart tala om att man nu vill se till att undanröja möjligheterna för vinstdrivande bolag att verka inom vård, omsorg och skola.

Men så har inte skett.

Istället har det kommit en jämn ström av tandlösa krav på ökad kontroll, tuffare granskning och inspektioner. När nu privatiseringsvåtdrömmen visar sig vara en mardröm så tror man att just det som man ville bli av med — regelverk och ‘byråkratisk’ tillsyn och kontroll — skulle vara lösningen.

Ett flertal offentliga undersökningar har på senare år  visat att det system vi har i Sverige med vinstdrivande skolor leder till att våra skolor blir allt mindre likvärdiga — och att detta i sin tur bidrar till allt sämre resultat. Ska vi råda bot på detta måste vi ha ett skolsystem som inte bygger på ett marknadsmässigt konkurrenstänk där skolor istället för att utbilda främst ägnar sig åt att ragga elever och skolpeng, utan drivs som icke-vinstdrivna verksamheter med kvalitet och ett klart och tydligt samhällsuppdrag och elevernas bästa för ögonen.

Vi vet idag att friskolor driver på olika former av etnisk och social segregation, påfallande ofta har låg lärartäthet och dåliga skolresultat, och i grund och botten sviker resurssvaga elever. Att dessa verksamheter ska premieras med att få plocka ut vinster på våra skattepengar är djupt stötande.

I ett samhälle präglat av jämlikhet, solidaritet och demokrati borde det vara självklart att skattefinansierade skolor inte ska få drivas med vinst, segregation eller religiös indoktrinering som främsta affärsidé!

Beslutet att släppa in vinstdrivande företag i välfärdssektorn har varit ett dyrköpt misstag. Sedan Chile på skolområdet satte stopp för detta för några år sedan är Sverige nu det enda land i världen som accepterar vinstintresse i skattefinansierade skolor. Kan Chile rätta till misstag så borde vi också kunna!

Grundfrågan är inte om skattefinansierade privata företag ska få göra vinstuttag eller om det krävs hårdare tag i form av kontroll och inspektion. Grundfrågan är om det är marknadens och privatiseringarnas logik som ska styra vår skola eller om det ska ske via demokratins och politikens logik. Grundfrågan handlar om skolan ska styras av demokrati och politik eller av marknaden.

Inte nog med att friskolekoncerner lägger beslag på våra skattepengar och tillåts använda dem för att köpa in sig i våffelstugor. För att stärka sina positioner på marknaden väljer friskolor systematiskt ckså att sätta glädjebetyg för att falskeligen ge sken av att det i dessa skolor går ut elever med högre kunskaper än i andra. I friskolekoncernernas värld urholkas betygen för att istället bli ett sätt att fuska till sig fördelar på.

Historiens dom ska falla hård på ansvariga politiker som hänsynslöst och med berått mod låtit offra den en gång så stolta svenska traditionen av att försöka bygga en jämlik skola för alla!

Dessa skojare och fifflare i friskolebranschen har alldeles för länge tillåtits underminera svensk skola. Nu är det dags för politikerna — som aktivt och/eller genom ren flathet har gjort denna skandal möjlig i trettio år — att visa lite samhällsansvar och se till att Sverige blir av med den skamfläck som stavas friskolor.

Den nya regeringens absoluta bottennapp

Landets nya skolminister blir Lotta Edholm — under flera år ett hårt kritiserat skolborgarråd i Stockholm och sedan en tid tillbaka styrelseledamot för friskolekoncernen Tellusgruppen, vars aktier idag rusade på Stockholmsbörsen efter tillkännagivandet av utnämningen.

Herre du min milde! Man tager sig för pannan. Detta är inget mindre än en praktskandal. Alla som börjat hoppas på att vi på allvar äntligen skulle göra något åt det svenska friskoleeländet kan nog glömma det för lång tid framåt. Bedrövligt.

Regeringens vinststopp i skolan — meningslös plakatpolitik

– Politiskt är det ju en begriplig reform för folk är arga över vinsterna, men om man vill uppnå en högre grad av måluppfyllelse när det gäller skolans verksamhet så är den meningslös, säger Anne-Marie Pålsson

SVT har intervjuat flera experter som håller med Anne-Marie Pålsson om att ett vinstutdelningsförbud inte är någon garanti för att skattepengarna kommer att stanna i skolan. En av dom är Jonas Vlachos, professor i nationalekonomi på Stockholms universitet.

– Att man inte får lov att plocka ut pengarna ur bolaget innebär ju bara att de ligger kvar i bolaget, det är en otroligt mild reglering, säger han.

Både Jonas Vlachos och Anne-Marie Pålsson pekar på att det vid ett vinstutdelningsförbud till exempel fortfarande skulle gå att skicka vidare vinsten i form av koncernbidrag, eller använda överskottet för att köpa fler skolor.

SVT

Ann-Marie och Jonas har så klart helt rätt!

I Sverige låter vi år 2022 friskolekoncerner med undermålig verksamhet få plocka ut skyhöga vinster — vinster som den svenska staten gladeligen låter dessa koncerner ta av vår skattefinansierade skolpeng.

Många är med rätta upprörda och de som är kritiska till privatisering av vård och skola har haft gyllene tillfällen att tydligt och klart tala om att man nu vill se till att undanröja möjligheterna för vinstdrivande bolag att verka inom vård, omsorg och skola.

Men så har inte skett. Istället har det kommit en jämn ström av krav på ökad kontroll, tuffare granskning och inspektioner. När privatiseringsvåtdrömmen visar sig vara en mardröm så tror man att just det som man ville bli av med — regelverk och ‘byråkratisk’ tillsyn och kontroll — skulle vara lösningen.

Ett flertal undersökningar har på senare år  visat att det system vi har i Sverige med vinstdrivande skolor leder till att våra skolor blir allt mindre likvärdiga — och att detta i sin tur bidrar till allt sämre resultat. Ska vi råda bot på detta måste vi ha ett skolsystem som inte bygger på ett marknadsmässigt konkurrenstänk där skolor istället för att utbilda främst ägnar sig åt att ragga elever och skolpeng, utan drivs som icke-vinstdrivna verksamheter med kvalitet och ett klart och tydligt samhällsuppdrag och elevernas bästa för ögonen.

Vi vet idag att friskolor driver på olika former av etnisk och social segregation, påfallande ofta har låg lärartäthet och i grund och botten sviker resurssvaga elever. Att dessa verksamheter ska premieras med att få plocka ut vinster på våra skattepengar är djupt stötande.

I ett samhälle präglat av jämlikhet, solidaritet och demokrati borde det vara självklart att skattefinansierade skolor inte ska få drivas med vinst, segregation eller religiös indoktrinering som främsta affärsidé!

Historiens dom ska falla hård på ansvariga politiker som hänsynslöst och med berått mod låtit offra den en gång så stolta svenska traditionen av att försöka bygga en jämlik skola för alla!

Till skillnad från i alla andra länder i världen har den politiska ledningen i vårt land gjort det möjligt för privata företag att göra vinst på offentligt finansierad undervisning. Och detta trots att det hela tiden funnits ett starkt folkligt motstånd  mot att släppa in vinstsyftande privata företag i välfärdssektorn.

Det var fel att införa friskolor. Och inte nog med det. Det var ett av de största fel som någonsin begåtts i svensk skolhistoria!

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Den svenska skolans extrema olikvärdighet

En intressant fråga är hur stor del av elevernas resultat som skolan egentligen kan förklara.

En lämplig utgångspunkt för att ta sig an denna fråga är bilaga 7 i senaste Långtidsutredningen (LU) … I likhet med en likaledes gedigen rapport från Skolverket landar LU i att vilken skola eleverna går på kan förklara mellan 2 och 5 procent av den totala spridningen i elevernas kunskapsresultat. LU sammanfattar med att huvuddelen av resultatskillnaderna mellan skolor kan hänföras till elevsortering eller skolsegregation …

LU landar i att det finns en betydande spridning i grundskolors uppmätta kvalitet. Mellan de bästa och sämsta skolorna skiljer ungefär en standardavvikelse, vilket översatt till betyg motsvarar ungefär 70 meritpoäng.

Vad LU säger är alltså att om man placerar en slumpvis vald elev på en av landets bästa grundskolor så kan hen förväntas gå ut med 265 meritpoäng. Samma elev kan förväntas lämna en av landets sämsta grundskolor med 195 meritpoäng. Den som undrar om denna skillnad är stor kan fråga en niondeklassare om vad det innebär att söka till gymnasiet med 265 snarare än 195 meritpoäng …

Skolsystemets extrema olikvärdighet till trots så beror bara 20 procent av resultatspridningen på vilken skola som eleven råkat hamnat på. Annorlunda uttryckt så beror 80 procent av resultatspridningen på elevunderlaget medan bara 20 procent beror på vad som händer i klassrummen. Att starka elever på dåliga skolor presterar bättre än svaga elever på bra skolor kan inga realistiska kvalitetsskillnader mellan skolor ändra på …

Den normativa frågan blir naturligtvis hur stor andel av resultatspridningen som skolan kan tillåtas förklara innan den anses vara oacceptabelt olikvärdig. I ljuset av ovanstående skulle nog de flesta säga att 20 procent är på tok för mycket, men hur är det egentligen med fem? Svaret bör lämpligen avges utan kännedom om vilken skola de egna barnen råkar gå på.

Jonas Vlachos

I Sverige år 2022 låter vi fortfarande friskolekoncerner med undermålig verksamhet få plocka ut skyhöga vinster — vinster som den svenska staten gladeligen låter dessa koncerner ta av vår skattefinansierade skolpeng. Dessa smarta välfärdsplundrare har överlag en högre lönsamhet än näringslivet i sin helhet, men när man väl plundrat färdigt lämnar man över problemen och eleverna till den förkättrade offentliga sektorn.

Många är med rätta upprörda och de som är kritiska till privatisering av vård och skola har haft gyllene tillfällen att tydligt och klart tala om att man nu vill se till att undanröja möjligheterna för vinstdrivande bolag att verka inom vård, omsorg och skola.

Men så har inte skett. Istället har det kommit en jämn ström av krav på ökad kontroll, tuffare granskning och inspektioner. När privatiseringsvåtdrömmen visar sig vara en mardröm så tror man att just det som man ville bli av med — regelverk och ‘byråkratisk’ tillsyn och kontroll — skulle vara lösningen.

Ett flertal undersökningar har på senare år  visat att det system vi har i Sverige med vinstdrivande skolor leder till att våra skolor blir allt mindre likvärdiga — och att detta i sin tur bidrar till allt sämre resultat. Ska vi råda bot på detta måste vi ha ett skolsystem som inte bygger på ett marknadsmässigt konkurrenstänk där skolor istället för att utbilda främst ägnar sig åt att ragga elever och skolpeng, utan drivs som icke-vinstdrivna verksamheter med kvalitet och ett klart och tydligt samhällsuppdrag och elevernas bästa för ögonen.

Sverige har varit internationellt unikt genom att tillåta vinstuttag i friskolor. En lagändring skulle här innebära att Sverige i likhet med andra länder omöjliggör vinstutdelning på friskolor finansierade med offentliga medel. Detta skulle också innebära att vi får en lagstiftning som går hand i hand med vad svenska folket tycker, eftersom opinionsundersökningar gång visat att en klar majoritet anser att friskolor ska vara skyldiga att återinvestera hela överskottet i skolan.

Man ska komma ihåg att det striden gäller egentligen inte är om verksamheter får gå med vinst eller inte, eftersom en vinst — ett överskott — som återinvesteras i verksamheten är en förutsättning för att skolor ska kunna överleva och utvecklas på sikt. Vad striden gäller är vinstdelning — om vinsten ska få lov att lämna verksamheten i form av t. ex. aktieutdelning. Detta avspeglas också i val av bolagsform och vilka aktörer skolföreträdare värnar. De som prioriterar lönsamhet och finansiärer, väljer ofta att driva verksamheten i bolagsform eftersom det underlättar för externa finansiärer att få avkastning på satsat kapital. De flesta av dagens friskolor drivs i bolagsform och de största skolkoncernerna ägs numera av riskkapitalbolag vars huvudsakliga syfte är att förvärva företag för att så snart som möjligt avyttra dem med vinst.

Vi vet idag att friskolor driver på olika former av etnisk och social segregation, påfallande ofta har låg lärartäthet och dåliga skolresultat, och i grund och botten sviker resurssvaga elever. Att dessa verksamheter ska premieras med att få plocka ut vinster på våra skattepengar är djupt stötande. I ett samhälle präglat av jämlikhet, solidaritet och demokrati borde det vara självklart att skattefinansierade skolor inte ska få drivas med vinst och vinstutdelning som främsta ledstjärnor

De politisk partierna måste droppa sina ideologiska skygglappar och inse att en och annan helig ko måste slaktas om vi ska få rätt på svensk skola. När skolfakta sparkar så får man vara så god att ändra kurs.

Jag har sagt det förr — och jag säger det igen: kommunaliseringen av skolan och införandet av friskolesystemet är den största floppen någonsin i svensk utbildningspolitisk historia. Men misstag går att rätta till. Som den engelske nationalekonomen John Maynard Keynes brukade säga: “When I’m wrong, I change my mind.”

Staten bör åter — om vi ska ha en rimlig chans nå målet om en likvärdig skola — få det övergripande ansvaret för vårt skolsystem.