education spending

The Tory plans to allow parents to set up their own schools are under fire from Ed Balls. He says that existing schools will get their funding cut and class sizes will go up because of the proposals.

Is money being cut from an under-performing school and given to a new one an issue provided that the total funding per student remains the same?

If a group of parents set up their own school so that there are two schools instead of one in the area won't that mean there are likely to be extra places available which could lead to a reduction in class size?

This might be an over simplistic view of the situation but as I've mentioned before the arcane art of government mathematics is not my speciality....