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Education
As I was getting yesterday's Economist, I had a flick through the Spectator (a magazine I don't buy, but occasionally glance through). It had an article moaning about David Cameron's "betrayal" of selective education. (And the author was moaning that because Suffolk doesn't have grammars, he "had" to pay £13K for private education. Oh, the shame.)
I will say at the outset that I am vehemently opposed to selective education and believe in the forcible abolition of all remaining grammar schools, so I may be slightly biased. Nonetheless, a few points:
1) The assumption is that a child will do better in a grammar than a comprehensive. This is unproven (and may even be untrue). In order to test this, you need to compare the results of children of equal ability and background, one group at a comprehensive and one at a grammar. The aggregate results are irrelevant, because the grammar is only teaching the clever children.
2) This also assumes that the 11+ is a reliable way of sorting children. It isn't. In Northern Ireland the transfer test is being abolished because the margins are so thin that they're meaningless. And children can be and are coached for the tests (so much for a "route for poor children".)
3) It is impossible to have more than a few grammar schools without also having secondary moderns. And here we have the gamble: if you want the chance of going to a grammar, you must also take the risk that your child will fail the exam. There must be losers as well as winners. This means that 75-80% of children will be sent to inferior schools, as secondary moderns are and always have been. Only well-off parents will take this chance, because they can afford the consequences--if their child fails, they can pay to go private. Poor families can't. So talk of a "route out for the poor" is nonsense, as it always has been--most grammars have traditionally been in middle class areas. Even if you have comprehensives as well (which also means fewer grammars--you can only take so much cream before you get skim) it is impossible to have a loser-less system. Someone has to go to the secondaries. If you let children have 2 bites at the apple, allowing them the chance to choose a comprehensive after failing the 11+, you create double losers: children who choose not to take the 11+ then run the risk of being shifted to a secondary modern anyway.
Is it right to condemn 80% for the sake of 20%? I would argue not, and certainly from a votes point of view not. Proponents of selective education focus on the 20%, and don't realise or want to realise that we can't all be winners. People have to lose, but no one wants to think it will be them.
Selective education perpetuates classism (and this is openly mentioned in debates, talking about middle class parents who would otherwise choose private education--because G-d forbid their little babies should have to go to school with the riff-raff).
The answer now, as it has been for decades, is genuine, high quality comprehensive education. This does not mean "one size fits all". It simply means providing different varieties of education under the same roof, and not condemning children to an inflexible system that creates winners and losers at the age of 11.
There are some things that grammars still do better than comprehensives, such as increased opportunities for triple science, Latin, et cetera. I don't see why comprehensives can't offer these opportunities if there is the desire and funding to do so. I grew up in an area that was entirely comprehensive. There was one local school per area (fixed catchment areas, no enrollment caps), and that's where you went--no pretence of choice. If you didn't like it, you went private (usually religious) or you moved. Yet Long Island has the best public high schools in the country. Comprehensive does not mean mediocre and it pisses me off no end when our so-called Labour government denigrates "bog standard" comprehensives.
I will say at the outset that I am vehemently opposed to selective education and believe in the forcible abolition of all remaining grammar schools, so I may be slightly biased. Nonetheless, a few points:
1) The assumption is that a child will do better in a grammar than a comprehensive. This is unproven (and may even be untrue). In order to test this, you need to compare the results of children of equal ability and background, one group at a comprehensive and one at a grammar. The aggregate results are irrelevant, because the grammar is only teaching the clever children.
2) This also assumes that the 11+ is a reliable way of sorting children. It isn't. In Northern Ireland the transfer test is being abolished because the margins are so thin that they're meaningless. And children can be and are coached for the tests (so much for a "route for poor children".)
3) It is impossible to have more than a few grammar schools without also having secondary moderns. And here we have the gamble: if you want the chance of going to a grammar, you must also take the risk that your child will fail the exam. There must be losers as well as winners. This means that 75-80% of children will be sent to inferior schools, as secondary moderns are and always have been. Only well-off parents will take this chance, because they can afford the consequences--if their child fails, they can pay to go private. Poor families can't. So talk of a "route out for the poor" is nonsense, as it always has been--most grammars have traditionally been in middle class areas. Even if you have comprehensives as well (which also means fewer grammars--you can only take so much cream before you get skim) it is impossible to have a loser-less system. Someone has to go to the secondaries. If you let children have 2 bites at the apple, allowing them the chance to choose a comprehensive after failing the 11+, you create double losers: children who choose not to take the 11+ then run the risk of being shifted to a secondary modern anyway.
Is it right to condemn 80% for the sake of 20%? I would argue not, and certainly from a votes point of view not. Proponents of selective education focus on the 20%, and don't realise or want to realise that we can't all be winners. People have to lose, but no one wants to think it will be them.
Selective education perpetuates classism (and this is openly mentioned in debates, talking about middle class parents who would otherwise choose private education--because G-d forbid their little babies should have to go to school with the riff-raff).
The answer now, as it has been for decades, is genuine, high quality comprehensive education. This does not mean "one size fits all". It simply means providing different varieties of education under the same roof, and not condemning children to an inflexible system that creates winners and losers at the age of 11.
There are some things that grammars still do better than comprehensives, such as increased opportunities for triple science, Latin, et cetera. I don't see why comprehensives can't offer these opportunities if there is the desire and funding to do so. I grew up in an area that was entirely comprehensive. There was one local school per area (fixed catchment areas, no enrollment caps), and that's where you went--no pretence of choice. If you didn't like it, you went private (usually religious) or you moved. Yet Long Island has the best public high schools in the country. Comprehensive does not mean mediocre and it pisses me off no end when our so-called Labour government denigrates "bog standard" comprehensives.
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I was in good sets for Maths, Chemistry, Physics etc, and crap sets for English, French etc.
This meant I got taught to my ability in all the subjects that I did maning I got better grades than if I'd been selected by any subject.
From the bits I've seen about Cameron he's thinking of introducing that in schools.
So why did we go private? Well all the schools in the area are some of the worst in the country, where I think 20% of people going there got 5 gcses. When faced with that kind of choice private education looks tempting.
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Obviously, the Comprehensives in this country are often underfunded, and failing as a result. I'm not seeing where "abolish the Grammar Schools" solves this problem.
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I am in agreement that testing a child at 11 is perhaps a bit early yet, i certainly thrived at a grammar school and know many people that felt that a comprehensive school was the best option for them.