Straight from the horse's mouth

It's quite clear that the state could pay for a private education for every child in Scotland for no more than it spends on its own Stalinist system:

The figures mean that while taxpayers spend £5,160 on the average child's education annually, £1,700 is swallowed up by local government.

Of course, as a good libertarian, I don't believe that the state (OK, the taxpayer) should be funding anyone's education, but one must wonder why so few politicians advocate education vouchers and the closure of government schools.

Actually, we don't need to wonder:

But Keir Bloomer, chief executive of Clackmananshire (sic) council, said: "It is not clear to me that devolving more money to schools, which traditionally have been the most conservative part of the education system, is going to get the change that we want. I would start by querying the assumption that we should be devolving more and more."

That sums up things perfectly: It's not what parents want or children need that matters, it's what "we", in the political class, want. "Devolve" the money back to its rightful owners and we'll find out quickly enough what's wanted.