Pippa Edwards has a dream. It is never to have to turn away a parent too poor to send their child to the popular school she works at in Brighton. If she succeeds it will become the first Montessori school in the country to win state funding. “My aim is to provide free Montessori education to all families in Brighton and Hove,” she says.

Research published in the journal Science last week revealed that by the age of five, Montessori children — who learn at their own pace and are not subject to testing — are better at maths, recognising words and playing co-operatively with other children. So you would think that Brighton and Hove Montessori school would be welcomed into the state sector with open arms.

Think again. Pippa Edwards has been battling for 13 years, in vain, to realise her vision.

While the government backed the school’s bid for state funding, the local authority had other ideas and obstructed the application. So Brighton and Hove Montessori took the case to the government-appointed independent schools adjudicator.

“If you set up a school and it becomes a good school, the great danger is that everyone wants to go there,” said John Prescott in an interview. Everybody mocked this, but chillingly, it is an accurate account of the way the rules work at the moment.

One of the reasons the schools adjudicator ruled against the school getting state funding was because, you guessed it, it might prove too popular and take pupils away from other local schools.

“With its new facilities, it might prove attractive to more local families who might indeed find places to be available. If this were to be the case, then the anxieties expressed by the local education authority, schools local to the proposed site and other objectors would prove to be well founded,” he said in his judgment. That is Prescott logic alive and kicking down opportunity for new, better schools.

Setting up a new school in this country is far from easy. Many schools like Brighton and Hove Montessori want to enter the state sector. But while government rhetoric is welcoming, the reality is very different.

The education department’s draft Handbook for Independent Schools Wishing to Enter the Maintained Sector starts off with the right idea. It says the government “wants to encourage more independent schools to join the maintained sector”. But on practicalities it is much less encouraging.

“Bringing in a new independent school into the maintained sector takes time — probably longer than you would expect,” it warns. “As a rough guide and assuming no hitches it can take from two to five years.” They are not exactly saying: “Come on in, the water’s fine.”

Moreover, schools pay heavily for the privilege of opening their doors to all. They must compile a detailed report of how and where they would work in the state sector, and meet the cost themselves.

But the final insult is yet to come. After all this expenditure and effort in preparing this report, a would-be state school can be told that it just isn’t needed, or worse, isn’t wanted. As Pippa Edwards will testify.

But what about schools that just want to set up in the independent sector? Surely that would be simpler? Once more, think again. There is probably a very good reason why so many independent special schools are set up by parents of special needs children: only that awesome force of parental love has any chance of bulldozing through the regulations.

Karen Sorab is one such parent. She fought to set up the Rainbow school, a special needs school in southwest London, after finding there were no schools in the area capable of meeting her severely autistic daughter’s needs. Today, the Rainbow’s over-subscription speaks for itself: about 100 applicants seeking just 15 places. Sorab told me 90% of the parents at her school have gone to tribunal or court to get state funding for their child’s place.

But the Labour government changed the regulations in 2002, and nowadays even exceptional drive is not enough. Karen Sorab says she would never have been able to set up her school with regulations as they are today.

Now, before a school can be registered by the Department for Education and Skills, it has to be set up, in its entirety, staff and all, ready for inspection. It does not take an economist to work out how expensive this will be. Under the new regulations, the Rainbow school could never have existed.

Politicians of all parties are talking about choice in education. But it is understandable that people are so cynical about politicians’ talk when the reality is so different. It is time to roll up our sleeves, tackle the regulations that get in the way and turn rhetoric into reality.