RADICAL plans to tackle Scotland's "failing" schools have been announced by Tory leader Ruth Davidson at the Scottish Conservatives party conference in Stirling. Parents would be allowed to transfer pupils within local authority area Week off a year for carers also proposed Over 400 pro-independence and bedroom tax campaigners protest outside of conference Conservative proposals would see parents be given an "opportunity voucher" worth the equivalent of their child's education. They would then be able to use this to send their youngster to the school of their choice - although parents could not use the vouchers to help with the cost of private education or home schooling. Ms Davidson said the scheme would "give parents a choice over their children's education that they have never had before." She added: "It would send the clearest possible message to under-performing schools - improve the education you provide or parents will vote with their feet and choose something better for their children." The scheme would largely allow parents to transfer children between different schools within the same local authority area. Ms Davidson announced the policy in her speech to the Scottish Conservative Party conference in Stirling. No change to Holyrood powers Her address also included a pledge that carers who spend more than 50 hours a week looking after a loved one would be entitled to a week's break every year. In addition, the Tory pledged that a No vote in next year's independence referendum would not mean there would be no change to Holyrood's powers. On the issue of education she said the focus must be on tackling underachievement and the problem of "disadvantaged children in under-performing schools." "While first class work is being done in many schools serving Scotland's most deprived areas, others are not just coasting, they are failing," she said. They are failing their pupils, and failing the communities they serve. And it's a failure we cannot tolerate. Ms Davidson said that turning around under-performing schools meant considering "radical steps." She pledged: "We will give all parents a route to the better education their children need. We will introduce an "opportunity voucher" with a value equivalent to the cost of their child's education. That voucher could be used to help transfer their child to a better performing school. She conceded that opponents may argue that the measure would "undermine under-performing schools." Ms Davidson insisted:"I reject a counsel of despair that some schools simply can't improve. But if they don't, whey should the pupils served by them simply have to settle for that. Pro-independence and bedroom tax campaigners protest outside Scottish Conservatives party conference Around 400 pro-independence and anti-"bedroom tax" protesters have staged a rally outside the Scottish Conservative Party conference. Protesters waved banners with the face of Labour MP Alistair Darling, the chairman of the pro-UK Better Together campaign who is addressing the Tory conference today, with the slogan "The Abominable No Man." One protester carried a bag with a skeletal image of late Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with the slogan "I'm Dead." Iain MacDonald, organiser at the Unite union, inflated a seven-foot rat with the slogan "Standing Up To Tory Ratbags." He said: "I'm quite shocked that Alistair Darling is in there. I'm tempted to sing to him that he's not Labour anymore, but as a trade unionist and a Labour member I want the UK to stay together so on this occasion I will excuse him. He's got a lot of work to do. I don't know if it will be reciprocated with David Cameron coming to the Labour conference - I hope not. Independence campaigners Dennis Canavan and Tommy Sheridan addressed a rally in Stirling's King's Park, before marching on the Tory conference in the city's Albert Halls. The rally is a reaction to the UK Government's decision to deduct housing benefit from those with spare bedrooms, dubbed the "bedroom tax." Mr Canavan said: "The Government claims that this is a way of encouraging people to move to wee-er hooses. The truth of the matter is the wee-er hooses don't exist. We have a housing crisis in Scotland. Statistics issued this week indicate that housebuilding is at its lowest point since World War II. I chair the advisory board of the Yes Scotland campaign, but I am not a nationalist. I don't believe independence is an end in itself, but a means of creating a fairer Scotland. Mr Sheridan, a former Scottish Socialist MSP who was imprisoned for perjury, said: "This isn't a rally for independence. Personally I'm for an independent Scotland because I want the basic democratic right to get the government that we vote for. But I say to the SNP if you're serious about winning the referendum why not put yourself at the head of this campaign. All you have to do is amend the Housing (Scotland) Act to outlaw evictions. And to every individual, I want you to become personal organisers of the biggest civil disobedience campaign since the days of the poll tax. Protester Alan Smart was outside the conference again today after he was arrested while singing a song urging "English Tories" to go home yesterday. He said: "Prior to my release I was specifically warned by the arresting officer that if I sang the song again in Stirling today I would immediately be arrested again. Well I am singing it. Please do arrest me. Police estimate that around 400 people attended today's rally, double the attendance of Prime Minister David Cameron's keynote speech to conference yesterday. There were no arrests.