Grammar Schools Increase Inequality
Posted on: Tuesday, 13 May 2008, 03:00 CDT
By Buck, Karen
Educational inequality has been growing in recent years as schools increasingly polarise by intake, according to a study published last week by the Institute of Education. A further devastating conclusion of this research is that educational inequality is correlated with violent crime among teenagers. The fact that social mobility has lurched to something approaching a j uddering stop has stimulated a broadly predictable range of responses, most predictable of all the chorus calling for the restoration of grammar schools. Grammar schools, it was argued, acted as an educational elevator for bright but poor children (as, some say, did the Assisted Places Scheme, which offered access to private schools for a tiny number of families with lower incomes). The failed experiment in social engineering which led to comprehensives apparently constituted a mugging of the poor. Denied their one chance of a quality education, poorer children drifted further from their more privileged peers, who in turn became increasingly privately educated after the destruction of grammars.
The only trouble with this seductive narrative is that it is not true, and a quick analysis of the UK's underachieving schools shows why. Of course, during the heyday of the grammar school, a great many poorer, able children did receive an excellent education and access to university. However, selective schools helped the better off most, with 'social mobility' being an incidental benefit for the minority. According to 2005 research by the Sutton Trust, only three per cent of pupils at the 200 top-performing state schools are entitled to free school dinners (an imperfect, but not unreasonable indictor of low income). This compares with a national average for all pupils of 14 per cent.
Even more interesting is the trust's analysis of Britain's poorest-performing schools. At 638 schools, fewer than 30 per cent of pupils achieve five GCSEs at grade C or higher. Strikingly, there are a larger number of such schools in areas which also have grammar schools. Kent, for example, has more grammar schools than any other county, but also an astonishing 30 schools in this low-performing category. Could the two be linked?
It seems that a system which offers what is undoubtedly a very good education for some, including a tiny minority of children from poorer backgrounds, leads directly to a concentration of the more deprived in other schools. And while it is quite right to state that there are no excuses for under-achievement, there are, perhaps, some explanations that continue to stare us in the face.
Educational Inequality and Juvenile Crime: an Area-based Analysis is at www.regen.net/doc
"Kent has more grammars than any other county, and 30 of the worst performers"
Karen Buck, MP for Regent's Park and Kensington North, is a member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee and the London Poverty Commission. Email: karen.buck@haymarket.com
Copyright Haymarket Business Publications Ltd. Mar 7, 2008
(c) 2008 Regeneration & Renewal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Regeneration & Renewal
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