If you run an internet search for the phrases “we make no apology” and “Ed Balls”, you will discover that the government is unapologetic about “raising the bar”, “setting high standards” and “having high ambitions”. Apparently the only reason for the failure of our schools is that the government is full of perfectionists whose sole fault has been to aim too high.

In truth it has failed to meet the most mundane expectations. Yet again it has not met its own benchmark for 11-year-olds: 85% should achieve Sats level 4, but in 2008 only 81% did so in English and only 78% in maths. Worse still, international comparisons suggest that standards have been falling. The results for reading ability from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed that between 2000 and 2006 15-year-olds in the UK fell from 7th to 17th place in the international league table. In maths there was a drop from 8th to 24th place.

For years we have been trying to provide equal opportunity for all children through monopoly schools run by local councils under the close supervision of Whitehall. There is supposed to be parental choice and every year parents go through the ritual of listing their preferences. Some are lucky, some are not, but in reality the system offers only pseudo-choice. And parents will continue to be offered false hopes so long as the main criterion for admission to schools is the proximity of the family home. When people are free to choose where they live, the inevitable result is segregation by income, class and ethnicity. Schools in wealthier areas tend to be better schools.

It has long been recognised that the remedy is to open new schools in poorer localities. That was the aim of Tony Blair’s academies and it is the aim of David Cameron’s plans for “new academies”, under which social entrepreneurs will be able to establish new schools in less advantaged areas. Instead of facing a false choice between state monopolists, parents will have real options backed by spending power. But the main drawback of the Tories’ “new academies” is that they remain state schools. The key to the success of the overseas systems on which the Tories modelled their plan was not just the provision of extra places, it was also the independence of schools from state interference.

A recent OECD study of science teaching helps to explain why independence matters. State-funded private schools cover 23% of pupils in Denmark, 25% in Spain, 55% in Ireland, and 67% in the Netherlands, all OECD countries. The 2006 PISA survey found that in 15 out of 21 OECD countries private schools outperformed public schools in science. It’s true that the OECD confused the picture by altering the results to allow for economic, social and cultural status, but even so private schools outperformed state schools in 10 countries, including the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.

What made the difference? The ability of schools to control their own income and expenditure was vital, permitting them, for example, to devote more hours to teaching than state schools. Above all, independent schools were able to harness the ideal of teaching as a vocation. The current vogue in England for target setting and performance appraisal is “deprofessionalising” teachers and independence from the state would guard against further erosion.

Worse still, since Blair’s departure the government has reverted to a modified version of class war egalitarianism. It thinks that educational outcomes reflect initial social and economic circumstances rather than effort expended by parents, pupils and teachers. As a result, it is fighting an undeclared war against middle-class parents. But if a school has an above-average proportion of parents on high incomes it does not necessarily mean that the beneficial influence of those parents accounts for the performance of pupils. Supportive parents are an undoubted help but their overrepresentation at a specific school may be because it was already a good school when they chose it. Good schools can thrive with or without good parents.

Through its admissions code and redrawing of catchment areas, the government is trying to eliminate the close ties between conscientious parents and effective schools. Head teachers are even prohibited from asking parents if they would be willing to do voluntary work in the school. Let the parents select the schools and let the schools select the parents. That way we will have schools and parents who want to work with each other. Inevitably some schools will be highly sought after and oversubscribed. Leave them alone to flourish and deregulate the supply side so that new schools can quickly take up the slack. In the Netherlands as few as 50 parents have a constitutional right to start a new school and to receive state funding. Why not here?

David Green is director of Civitas