Grammar schools, public schools and social class
Posted on Sunday 27 May, 2007
Filed Under Education
The debate over the decision of Tory leader David Cameron – pictured – to ditch Conservative support for grammar schools overlooks two basic points.
First, this is not a ‘clause four moment’: the Tories will continue to support private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, as the best way of securing the full fruits of other people’s labour for their mates.
And second, nothing that New Labour, the Tories or the Liberal Democrats envisage doing with secondary schooling will of itself redress the problems facing the education system.
Empirical studies suggest that 64% of the variance in pupil achievement is explained by initial attainment and social background.
It follows that the only policies capable of increasing educational equality are policies systematically designed to rectify class inequality. And in British politics today, that really is thinking the unthinkable.
Consider some of the facts. The best performing Local Education Authorities include Richmond and Surrey. The worst include Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney. Even a cokehead should be able to spot a discernable pattern here.
Anyway, middle class parents bypass all this entirely and simply buy education advantage for even their thicker offspring. Last time I saw the stats, the top 50 schools ranked by A-level results were all private. Indeed, only 20 of the top 200 were state schools.
Private schools educate one child in 15, but account for one in four university students and about half of the Oxbridge intake.
Whatever Alan Johnson might argue, there is nothing public schools can do to justify their charitable status. That’s because they are not charities. They are businesses. Their product is the reproduction of class privilege, and they shouldn’t get tax breaks to facilitate them so doing.
Tory and New Labour attempts to introduce quasi-market arrangements have proven any more felicitous than their efforts to do the same in healthcare. The result has been selection by house pricing or parental clout, with obvious winners and equally obvious losers
The likes of London Oratory get the privileged middle-class intake. So they shoot up the league tables, leaving the bog standard comprehensives far, far behind.
You can call the selective schools grammar schools if you like. Or you can call them city academies. The name tag doesn’t matter. The class content says it all.
I’ll start taking Cameron a little more seriously on this one when the ratio of Old Etonians in the shadow campaign falls to something closer to the ratio of OEs in the population as a whole.
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I thought Norman Tebbit was quite perceptive on this: “My own party has now rebranded itself as the party to implement New Labour policies more effectively. God knows there is need of a party to do that, but I thought it was the Labour Party,”
Except City Acadamies are not in middle class areas or a way of getting extra money to schools gaining middle class entrants.
They are *all* in areas of (relative) poverty and deprivation and are often formed out of existing failing schools.
Studies show that the number of free school meal entrants has gone up in City Acadmies as roll numbers increase – and yes they also attract more middle class entrants too. Not a bad thing for these schools to have a better social mix.
So, please get the facts right before wading into this one Dave.
I’ll be honest enough to say that I am somewhat sceptical on their merits but what I don’t accept is people who say that either the answer is just more money (plainly bollocks given how much budgets have gone up in the last decade) or that we should do nothing.
Also, much as I’d love to cose every private or grammar school in the land, I also recognise that would make very little difference to the educational outcomes of the other 93% of pupils. That is what we should focus on – class war is good for the soul but won’t do much for my kids.
Last of the Blairites,
Are you a Member of Parliament? My suspicion is that you are.
ha ha ha – can I ask why? I really am intrigued.
I’ve never stood for elective public office in my life – well apart from a student union (I lost)
And before someone asks, no, I’m not a lord either!!
Why not reveal your identity then?
Curious,
are you Dave, shortly after looking at the site-meter and referrer tracker?
No KMS, always sign under my own name and so I am not ‘Curious’… but funnily enough, I too had been pondering who LoTB is. Obviously highly educated, perhaps a former far leftist?
I would vote for LOTB anyday.
the debate over education in Britain always seem so parochial, a little tinkering here, a little tinkering there
the wider questions never seem to be asked :why did Britain end up with several stratas of education and they are applicable in the modern age?
looking back at a history of Britain it becomes fairly obvious that the education system was geared towards Britain as an Imperial power and to satisfy the needs of manufacturing and business
and there’s the rub: no more empire, precious little manufacturing and primarily service “industries”
and yet the education system has not structurally changed to take account of that, or Britain’s diminished role in the 21st century?
and isn’t it all too obvious why the education system doesn’t change overall too dramatically?
the education system is primarily run by the middle classes for the long-term benefit of the middle classes, if you doubt that, try to work out what percentage of non-graduates vs. graduates hold the reins of power in the educational establishment?
My guess is that graduates >95% in key roles, and yet I would suspect that graduates as a percentage of the general population are the debate over education in Britain always seem so parochial, a little tinkering here, a little tinkering there
the wider questions never seem to be asked :why did Britain end up with several stratas of education and they are applicable in the modern age?
looking back at a history of Britain it becomes fairly obvious that the education system was geared towards Britain as an Imperial power and to satisfy the needs of manufacturing and business
and there’s the rub: no more empire, precious little manufacturing and primarily service “industries”
and yet the education system has not structurally changed to take account of that, or Britain’s diminished role in the 21st century?
and isn’t it all too obvious why the education system doesn’t change overall too dramatically?
the education system is primarily run by the middle classes for the long-term benefit of the middle classes, if you doubt that, try to work out what percentage of non-graduates vs. graduates hold the reins of power in the educational establishment?
My guess is that graduates >95% in key roles, and yet I would suspect that graduates as a percentage of the general population are <15%.
the recent proposed changes to university admissions brought howls of disapproval from the chattering classes, across the political spectrum
and that’s the beauty of the graduate system, it’s a bit like the middle-class version of the Freemasons, instead of a handshake you have a diploma and that is the first part of entry into the middle classes, you only need to look at the appointments pages in the Guardian throughout the week, you will rarely, if ever, see any well paid jobs without subtly mentioning or a requirement for a degree,
the vast majority of well-paid jobs in the Guardian and the other “quality” newspapers generally have a pre-requisite of a degree, even before your foot is in the door, and it is rather self-perpetuating graduates prefer employing…..graduates.. funny that…
if people were sensible about changing the education system then perhaps they might survey the Scandinavian countries and pick up some of their better ideas, although I doubt that the entrenched middle classes will allow too many changes to go through, if they adversely affect Tarquin or Jemima’s prospects!
ops,
text got chewed up as HTML, should be:
My guess is that graduates form at least 95% in key roles, and yet I would suspect that graduates as a percentage of the general population are less than 15%.
Moddy seems to have little grasp of the realities of the tertiary educational sector in this country. First off it like pretty much everything else in this country is run by the ruling class and not by the ‘middle class’ whoever they might be.
Due to the social structure of this country most students are from those layers society we may fairly desctribe as the professional classes and the NMC. Another layer well represented, though not in proportion to its weight in society, is the working class although children of unskilled workers are very unfairly represented. Of course in the most prestigious universities the inbred offspring of the ruling class proper are over represented.
Its a rotten anti-working class system but not one that in terms of selection can be changed dramatically if the aim of govt is the production of a highly educated workforce. (Other than to reintroduce grants for students) Real change must begin with the secondary education system which is where most of the damage is done due to working class children.
In repect of the changes needed I cannot but feel that ending selection by wallet or religious faith would change relatively little. Nor would removing charitable status for independent schools btw. Both are sensible measures from the point of view of a reforming administration but would not improve education in the state sector. For that matter increasing the budget for the state sector would not dramatically improve the situation in my opinion although it would improve teachers pay and the fabric of schools themselves. Both of which would be important but are not fundamental.
Noone’s going to bring back the grammar schools; not because of educational arguments but finance. Can you imagine the cost of a major re-organisation of education? The number of new schools which would need to be built, the rehoning of facilities ie proper laboratories etc and, possibly, the retraining of teachers. Noone’s going to spend that sort of money. The idea of the city academies (as I understood them) was to get more private money into the educational system. Another one of these Tory/NuLab ideas that private industries is just gagging to get involved in school sports days and making sure that little Wayne or Waynetta knows how to use their machines when they start work without having to waste time and money training them. Any one who believed the arguments about raising ‘achievement’ is rather naive.
whilst no government may find it politically palatable or expedient to necessarily bring back grammar schools in their original form, they will probably appear in another guise
selection is wedded to the middle-class mentality (leaders and the led), so it seems unlikely that they would give that up for a broadly more egalitarian education system, as seems to exist in some other countries
concerning the class makeup of the educational establishment (and the ruling elites), I would welcome any empirical data that disproves the contention that the vast majority of them are graduates (or the offspring of graduates) run the education establishment and associated bodies.
To suppose that the middle classes en masse would act against their own perceived class interest (making sure Tarquin and Jemima get the right bits of paper to crawl up the greasy pole with) is naive as well is disingenuous.
What is Moddy on about this time? Is it important that the educational system be run by non-graduates? That makes no sense at all dear boy!
Frankly as a socialist i want highly educated people running the educational system. I also want the schools that the working class attend brought up to the same high standards as those the children of the parastic classes receive. Which will not be attained by handing over the schools to people lacking a higher education.
What is important is that working class youth are given the opportunity to learn and the expectation that education will benefit them by providing them with a better future. That must mean demonstrating that by staying in school they will be able to get decent interesting jobs and earn enough to have a good standard of living. Which quite simply is not the situation that many working class youth see before them today.
I’m fine with grammar schools – just as long as the decision is made to spend twice as much on each child as fails their eleven plus than on them as pass it…
Surely, all of us know people who would greatly benefit from going to university later in life – I see it all the time in my life.
But they cannot afford to take three/four years off work to do it.
The solution ought to be to make those who go to Uni when 18/19 pay more to subsidise the many who were denied the opportunity when they were younger (for all sorts of reasons – and let’s not all pretend it is a great capitalist conspiracy, plenty of working class boys were I grew up had a contempt for learning that had little to do with immediate oppression).
Of course when you suggest this too many on the left think that our task os to keep subsidising the sons and daughters of the middle class, rather than make them pay for the privileges.
Some truth there LOTB,
But it could more simply and more fairly be achieved by progressive taxation.
Otherwise those “go to Uni when 18/19 pay more ” than those who earn the same as them, but didn’t go to university.
It is also a lot simpler and cheaper to apply universal benefits and apply universal taxation, than to fart around with with tax credits, etc.
There is a similar thread at Harry’s Place and I don’t wish to replicate any of my arguments from there, but I think what I am arguing is that there an implicit assumption and acceptance, across the political spectrum even including some people on the Left, in a degree of selection, certainly no one here argues for crude selection at secondary school level, but there is, by the time people have entered University selection by default , and there is a level of recognition of that fact, even if it is not openly argued against.
So we find that in British universities that students from middle-class backgrounds are more likely 1) to enter university in the first place 2) to see that the degree through 3) more likely to obtain better results (as a vestige of their earlier social and educational training/tutoring)
Leaving aside rather crude political slogans (invariably thrown around by a few bitter middle-class malcontents, who may have done rather well at University). It is fairly clear that the educational system in Britain is geared towards supplying a comparatively small elite with higher education, and the rest of the population are left with feebler forms of vocational or technical training, at best.
I think that socialists (or like minded people) should be arguing for free and fully funded universal University education, eventually achieved by a staged expansion of the education sector (obviously, at the moment, there wouldn’t be sufficient University teachers, etc but as time passes it will be possible to gear up for a dramatically expanded Higher education sector).
This approach would in turn required a co-ordinate expansion of secondary education and further education colleges.
Levelling down will not improve anyone’s education. I went to a North London comprehensive and from that experience I can say that money was not the problem, our school cost the taxpayer bundles. The elephant in the room is discipline. Bringing down the priviliged kids will not help anyone. How much would it cost to introduce discipline back into schools?
The best performing Local Education Authorities include Richmond and Surrey.
Given that I live in one of those council areas, and I work for the other, I know that the castles of Richmond and Surrey LEAs are actually built on sand.
While there have been increases in the number of 16 year olds getting 5 GCSE A-C grades, it cannot last long.
The Lib Dems are freezing council tax in Richmond for the next three years, according to the local rag. This will mean cuts, and given that the Tories made sure that the only other thing they spent money on apart from their own allowances was education, the cuts are going to effect schools.
Surrey’s is more interesting. Surrey Council underwent a massive ‘restructuring’ (i.e. job loss programme) and formed four directorates. Education, like in Leeds and Hackney, was farmed out to something called “FourS”. 4S, unlike Leeds and Hackney Learning Trusts, however, is a profit making enterprise. According to the website, it is a “joint venture” between Surrey County Council and VT Group plc (who, when not running schools in Surrey, are a major defence company).
This is from the website; I’m not making this up…
The Joint Venture is a jointly owned company. 80.1% of the shares are owned by VT and 19.9% are by Surrey County Council, the maximum holding allowed for a local authority for the new venture to retain full commercial freedom. Surrey retains an influence over the direction of the company through ‘minority interest’ provisions. Surrey County Council is represented on the board of the company by the Executive Director for Children and Young People and the Executive Member for Children and Young People.
That’s not the best bit…
5. Profits from the Joint Venture will be initially invested in the Joint Venture. Profits which are distributed will be split 30% Surrey County Council; 70 % VT but in the early years there is a higher distribution to Surrey County Council as well as a one-off payment at the start of the contract.
See for yourselves.
Essentially: VT are bleeding Surrey Council dry.