Response to interpellation 2022/23:40 on discrimination in the school choice
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 L argues that discrimination in school choice is unacceptable and that a common, mandatory school choice with predictable criteria is the best way to create fairness 1. L wants to develop the right to choose school, reduce the scope for actors with quality deficiencies 1, shorten waiting times 2 and believes that lottery can create legitimacy problems 2. L believes that previous proposals failed because the principals' mandate for social composition was too broad 3, that lottery is not perceived as fair 3 and that one must first ensure that schools have enough places 3. 4 S argues that the system is rigged to disadvantage resource-poor groups 4 5. 5 S proposes that waiting time should be prohibited and replaced with randomized selection 5.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! Member of Parliament Linus Sköld has asked me what I intend to do to address socioeconomic and ethnic discrimination in school choices. Linus Sköld has also asked me when we can expect a proposal for a common school choice in Sweden.
I want to begin by saying that it is, of course, completely unacceptable if discrimination occurs in connection with admission and selection at certain independent schools. All children shall, just as Linus Sköld himself points out, be given a fair chance to choose a school. According to the Education Act, independent preschool classes and primary schools shall, as a general rule, be open to all students who have the right to education in that school form. The limitations on admission that are permitted are set out in the Education Act, and no other limitations beyond these may occur. This so-called openness requirement is one of the fundamental pillars in the system of free school choice, and it is important that it permeates both the school's routines and the information provided to guardians.
The purpose of free school choice and the diversity of schools is that all families, regardless of economic or social conditions, should be able to choose a school based on what suits them best. It appears from the so-called Tidö Agreement that we want to develop the right to choose a school and preserve the diversity of providers and at the same time significantly reduce the scope for actors with quality deficiencies.
A prerequisite for a well-functioning school choice system with high legitimacy is that it is legally secure and predictable. The Government therefore intends to introduce a clear regulatory framework based on a common and mandatory school choice, supported by better information to parents and students regarding what options are available. The work to move the issue forward is ongoing within the Government Offices.
I believe that a mandatory and common school choice where more guardians make active choices based on clear information and where selection occurs based on predictable criteria is the best way to achieve a more just and well-functioning school choice that is free from discrimination.
Linus Sköld (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Lotta Edholm, for the opportunity to finally debate this issue in the chamber of the Riksdag! What a wonderful start to this half-year in the Riksdag.
The history of the Swedish school choice system is a horror story for those who have the stamina to take in the whole scope. Then it becomes obvious how the entire system is rigged to disadvantage society's weakest groups and to segregate the student body so that students from resource-rich homes end up at certain schools and students from resource-weak homes end up at others. Therefore, a common school choice was needed where all school providers and all students are included, where choice periods are introduced and which are administered by the public and not by each individual school provider.
Researchers at Uppsala University have as recently as last spring observed that discrimination occurs in the school choice system as it is currently organized. The material consists of thousands of email responses which revealed that fake parents have made inquiries about school places to individual school units.
From the email sent, the respondents' names and occupations were revealed. In this way, the researchers have been able to establish that the nursing assistant receives a less welcoming and more dismissive response than the dentist. The one with a Swedish-sounding surname receives a better reception and more information than the one with an Arabic-sounding surname.
Parents with a weaker socioeconomic position, that is, short education or foreign-sounding surnames, can therefore expect a cooler reception and have a harder time getting a place than those with Swedish-sounding surnames and a longer educational background.
At the same time, the School Inspectorate has reviewed how the independent schools manage their own admissions. This spring, 30 schools were reviewed, and 24 of them received criticism. The criticism consisted of the fact that they collect information at the time of application that may not be used to make the selection. This concerns, for example, the student's ethnicity or support needs. Other points of criticism were that it was not transparent which selection grounds had been used. Families who have applied do not know, for example, why they were given a place or not.
In June 2020, Aftonbladet reported on principals who are being called by schools that their existing students have applied to for a school change to provide references on the students who have applied to change schools before decisions on admission are made.
That means that principals are allowed to provide references on primary school children in the school choice system we have now. Questions could concern social problems, dyslexia, or other diagnoses. This can, therefore, lead to prestige schools choosing to exclude children who have those types of difficulties.
Already in 2013, Uppdrag granskning revealed that a twelve-year-old girl with good grades is significantly more welcome in many independent schools than a twelve-year-old boy with poor grades. Uppdrag granskning asked 50 independent schools, of which 27 had space for the girl, while only half of the 27 had space for the boy at the same time. I am furious in plain Swedish, Edholm's party comrade Björklund said in the media then. Now, ten years later, Lotta Edholm actually has the opportunity to do something about this.
It is, so to speak, built into the system. Those who run a school can be expected to have higher costs than average for students where there is weaker support from home and for students with a mother tongue other than Swedish or who have different forms of support needs. Therefore, especially schools with owners who demand profitability have strong incentives to want to select a student body with good prospects of completing their schooling.
The system disadvantages society's most resource-poor groups in this way, such as children of parents with short education, and children with a linguistic background other than Swedish are systematically discriminated against. It is not sufficient. The heads of the institutions are unable to manage their own admissions. The question was: When can we expect a proposal for a common school choice?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! The picture that Linus Sköld gives of how school elections sometimes function in Sweden's schools is extremely frustrating and upsetting. That is also why the mandate now exists to establish a common school election system that rests on a public actor. In practice, this means either on individual municipalities or on the state. It has not yet been decided which is the most suitable actor to do this, but it is needed. Predictable and clear criteria in such a system are also, of course, needed.
Skolverket now has a mandate to submit a proposal, and they are working on the issue right now. When they have then submitted their proposal, we will of course have to discuss it again. But I do not dare to say exactly when this can happen. It is a bit too early.
Linus Sköld (S)
Mr. Speaker! I believe that in this debate we should also talk for a while about the criteria. It is worth taking seriously. It is, so to speak, connected to this.
First and foremost: school choice is here to stay. Families' wishes regarding location shall continue to be of decisive importance for where the children end up in school. Everyone agrees on that. But school choice needs to be changed to become more fair. One change is the common school choice, and the other we shall talk more about now. It concerns criteria.
The so-called free school choice is not free in the sense that all students have a right to the school placement they themselves have chosen. When there are more applicants to a school than there are places at the school, a selection must be made, and what distinguishes my party from the right-wing conservatives in this issue is the view on which grounds should be used to make this selection. Using queue time as a basis for selection is segregating. The one who has the best grasp of the system puts their children in the queue first. It results in a socioeconomic stratification of the student body in popular independent schools. Therefore, we have proposed that queue time be prohibited as a basis for selection.
The Tidö Agreement, on the other hand, which Lotta Edholm has entered into with Sverigedemokraterna, Moderaterna, and Kristdemokraterna, states that the waiting time shall remain but be shortened. The Tidö Agreement identifies two reforms regarding school choice. One is to introduce mandatory and common school choice. The other is to retain waiting time as a basis for selection but shorten it.
The Minister had the opportunity, both in the interpellation response and in his answer to a written question that I submitted during the Christmas break—since this debate dragged on for quite a long time—to explain how preserved but shortened waiting times would lead to increased fairness in the school selection.
The Minister has gladly explained how a common school choice would lead to increased fairness in the school choice, but categorically avoided talking about how length of stay as a selection criterion would support that fairness. And it is not so strange. Lotta Edholm's party leader Johan Pehrson waded into the arguments regarding length of stay in SVT's party leader interview just before the election—to such an extent that it almost sounded as if the Liberals wanted the same thing as we Social Democrats, namely to ban length of stay and use randomized selection to give all applicants an equal opportunity to get into a school.
Only weeks earlier, the Liberals had presented their election manifesto, which stated a no to a lottery. And now, in the Tidö Agreement, together with the Sweden Democrats and the Moderates, they have landed on a concert ticket model, where the one who has the fastest internet or the one who is not working at night when the application opens will be the one who can get first in the queue. This will still favor families with a strong socioeconomic position who have a handle on the system.
SJ tested this model with the train tickets over Christmas and New Year. Ask SJ if they think it worked well! Ask their passengers if they thought the ticket sales were fair! The system crashed, and SJ was forced to compensate a lot of passengers because they had paid an overprice as a result of the crash.
Mr. Speaker! The only reasonable thing is to abolish waiting time as a basis for selection. But those who want to protect the independent schools' opportunity to go with a surplus are, of course, taking a stand for school queues, because there is a lot of money to be made by segregating the student body so that one can get high-performing students who can be taught at a lower cost.
What does the minister think about this? Is it fair that the person who has the best internet connection has the greatest chance of getting into popular schools? Is waiting time as a basis for selection part of a fair school choice in the minister's opinion?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! The school election is here to stay, says Linus Sköld. I am truly pleased by that announcement, because it has not been obvious before.
What must be done is to find a school system that is common, where there are common rules and where schools cannot have their own sets of rules. It is very important, not least because the entire system is tax-financed. Then one can have slightly different opinions about what should be included.
One could, for example, imagine that the proximity principle should also apply to independent schools; it could be an alternative to the lottery that Linus Sköld advocates for. I believe, however, that it would be a major problem to do it that way, because then residential segregation would hit even harder than it does today in the way that occurs in municipal schools, where the proximity principle applies.
I believe that the most important thing is to shorten the queue. It is not reasonable that a child born in the autumn ends up behind a child born early in the year, which happens when one goes solely by date of birth. The time must be shortened, also so that people who move have a greater opportunity.
I am skeptical of a lottery because I believe that also causes these types of problems when it comes to a system's legitimacy. If Olle's parents have set school A as the first option while Pelle's parents have set school A as option number ten and Pelle gets in solely because of a lottery, it will of course also lead to legitimacy problems.
We really must investigate to the bottom what possibilities exist and which system is the best. But I do not believe that a lottery has greater legitimacy among parents than what a waiting time has.
Let us discuss this when Skolverket comes with its proposals on how to design such a system in a fair and good way. But I do not advocate for a lottery as an admission system to Swedish schools.
Linus Sköld (S)
Mr. Speaker! Those who want a fair school election system cannot use waiting time as a basis for selection. Lotta Edholm does not advocate for a lottery, and she argues that it would cause legitimacy problems if one has applied in different rankings and is selected through a lottery.
I think it is something that would be resolved if we make the choice coordinated. If we organize school choices jointly, one would not need to go to ten different principals and indicate someone as the first priority in the admission order. Instead, we would arrange it as we have done for higher education: If one gets into a school that one has prioritized higher than another, one is disqualified as an applicant for the lower ones. That would not be difficult. That would actually not create any legitimacy problems.
What Lotta Edholm is actually saying is that she does not think that all children who have applied for a place at a school should have the same chance of getting in. That is what the consequences of the concert ticket model with waiting time will be. The consequences are that those who have great resources and who know how the system works will have a better chance of getting into popular schools. That is the consequence of waiting time as a selection basis.
Then the question remains whether Lotta Edholm thinks it should be the case that children of resourceful parents should go to certain schools and children of less resourceful parents should go to other schools. It is worth asking.
I believe that the question of publicly administered school choice deserves to be repeated. The proposal for a common school choice has been investigated and referred. It is sitting ready on the Minister's desk. What is she waiting for?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! That proposal fell in the Riksdag precisely because it had such major problems. Heavy referral bodies said no to the proposal, which contained the idea that the principals should work towards a diverse social composition of students. It is clear that this is an incredibly broad mandate, and if it is to be had in that way, it must be defined much more clearly than this.
I believe that a lottery is not perceived as a particularly fair system. I do not believe that lottery activities in general are perceived as particularly fair.
Then one must also remember that most students, regardless of whether they choose municipal or independent schools, get into their first choice in this system.
This should actually be the first thing we consider: How can we ensure that schools, whether they are municipal or independent, can have places so that there are enough for the students who want to attend these schools? I would say that the queue system is also a very important part of this. A common queue system means that one can more easily see, for example, where and in which municipalities there is a need to expand schools and where there is no such need.
I see that a common school choice system will have good and important consequences also in other areas than just the selection system for students and for parents.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.