Busing - another kind
Wicker, Brian
Report from Britain BUSING ANOTHER KIND THE POWER OF THE BISHOPS SCHOOL BUSING has recently become an issue in Britain. But it is not quite the same sort of issue as it has been in America....
...But as soon as Mrs...
...Since the "most important duke" (to quote Belloc) is that of Norfolk, it would seem an appropriate thing for him to spend some energy on...
...The provision of free transport to school for children living more than three miles away from the school of their choice, was an important part of the deal worked out in the famous 1944 Education Act which set up the framework of our present-day school system...
...Since the Catholic lobby on education was instrumental in defeating the government on the question, it seems worthwhile to reflect briefly on the implications of what has happened...
...The local education authorities were no longer to be compelled to provide subsidized meals and transport: and this reversal of former policy would have given many authorities a chance to save the necessary money without cutting more essential educational expenditure, on teachers' salaries, equipment, etc...
...Of course, the government's case is simple...
...As long as the local education authorities had the money to pay for free buses to take children to and from school, there was no great difficulty about the system that was worked out...
...For Lord Butler was the man who had worked out the 1944 Education Act, and clearly felt that what was being proposed was a betrayal of much that he had worked to establish in the postwar years...
...The reason why the Catholic authorities were so incensed is simple...
...Thatcher demanded massive publicspending cuts, trouble began...
...Education had to take its share of the cuts: and Mr...
...One of the things that emerges from this otherwise not very significant incident is the power of the bishops, once roused, to put the screws on the government...
...He decided to make the biggest savings by cutting spending on school meals and school transport...
...Cuts have to be made, in education as in other fields...
...For without that, there would be, in effect, an infringement of the rights of parents to choose a church school, if they wished, for their children...
...But the government had not reckoned with the House of Lords in all this: and it so happened that their Lordships were especially sensitive to all matters concerning the countryside (where many of them live...
...So in the event, the Lords defeated the government by a very large majority, in such a way that it was virtually impossible for the government to do anything about it—except, of course, make the cuts elsewhere...
...Because of falling school enrollments in recent years, the church authorities were persuaded to agree to the closure of many small schools, especially in the rural communities...
...But it was of special importance to parents who wanted a church school for their children (most of whom were Catholic...
...Such agreement to close uneconomic schools was of course conditional, implicitly if not explicitly, on the understanding that subsidized transport would continue to be provided...
...And of course it was an awkward fact that the Thatcher government makes a great point of emphasizing the rights of parents in the matter of choosing schools for their children...
...Of course in a case over which they are at variance with the rest of so-called "progressive" opinion (e.g., abortion) recent history shows that there is not much they can do...
...It is surely a pity that their Lordships have not concertedly thought to defend their country interests in that matter with the same enthusiasm that they have given to the school transport issue...
...Not surprisingly, in the House of Lords debate, this point—or perhaps threat would be a better word for it—was made very vehemently by the government speakers...
...In an uncharacteristic burst of political energy, he delivered the votes of many of his fellow country landowners (who see themselves, often quite rightly, as spokesmen for the rural interest) into the "No" lobby...
...But they knew they could not hope to succeed once the issue of principle had been raised, since the issue was the very one they themselves needed to defend...
...So the government was faced by the ironic possibility of being defeated on the very principle which it was itself trying to emphasize in another part of the educational forest, or jungle...
...This is perhaps the main reason why it looks as if the government will not attempt to reinstate its policy in the House of Commons when the bill comes back to them...
...Carlisle (the Secretary of State for Education) had to decide where the cuts were to fall...
...Admittedly, they had the great advantage in this case, of being able to base their protest on a principle which the government itself is publicly committed to...
...But I doubt if the Lords would have worked up the enthusiasm to defeat the government on this issue if it had not been for the pressure put upon them by the church (and especially the Catholic) educational authorities...
...The question of renewing the Polaris system, or of stationing American missiles in the rural tracts of East Anglia, might be cases in point...
...If the cuts can't be made in the relatively marginal areas of meals and transport, then they will have to be made in places where it hurts more...
...The Duke of Norfolk, who is both the senior peer of the realm and a Catholic (and of course a strong Tory) was asked by the bishops to rouse his colleagues...
...Free transport was particularly important for children in the country districts, who naturally tended to have farther to travel to school than their urban counterparts...
...These are areas over which, as I understand it, some threatening noises have already been made in the wake of the Lords' defeat...
...This after all is one of the fundamental arguments the conservatives put forward for protecting the private sector in education—though it should be emphasized that the church schools are not, for the most part, "private" in the American sense—they are financed very largely out of state funds...
...BRIAN WICKER (Brian Wicker is Commonweal's correspondent in Great Britain...
...What exactly that means we shall have to wait and see...
...Nevertheless, one wonders whether there might not be other issues on which, if they wished, the bishops could exercise more influence on government policy than they do at present...
...But then, alas, he is basically a military man...
...The probability is that the local education authorities will now make the cuts in such relatively vulnerable areas as adult education, or even education for the handicapped...
...So the children had to go to larger schools, often at some distance from where they lived...
...On the other hand, where this is not so, one wonders how far they might be able to go had they the mind to do so...
...One of the interesting sidelights on the whole question, however, is the fact that the Catholic authorities have succeeded in putting some very strong pressure on the government...
...Of course, the assistance in this matter of the former 20 June 1980: 357 education minister, and now Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Lord Butler, was an additional factor in the equation...
...Catholic schools are more scattered than those in the state system, and distances tend to be longer for the children...
Vol. 107 • June 1980 • No. 12
