Feeble and Dubious

AS we are about to find out, thanks to Theresa May's feeble and dubious leak of plans to, just possibly, maybe, (but probably not) allow some more grammar schools to be created, without actually committing herself to creating them, the Grammar School argument is often extremely one-sided.

This is because it is so important. It is in fact the real ‘Clause Four’ of British politics, the absolutely non-negotiable demand by the Left, that the state schools should be absolutely directed by egalitarian social engineering, with education a poor second. And when I say egalitarian, I mean not equality of opportunity (for comprehensives absolutely do not provide that, even if they work), but equality of *outcome*.

Blatant Hypocrisy

I have said many times here before that there is no *educational* argument for comprehensive schools. Their advocates almost always seek to evade them for their own children, either by blatant hypocrisy or by sending them to schools which are secretly selective which allow them to escape the comprehensive experience, as undergone by the poor and powerless.

The opponents of academic selection generally ignore or distort the case for grammar schools -yet these people dominate educational journalism. Here’s an example

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/theresa-may-grammar-schools-lift-ban-education-bring-back-grammars-no-champion-of-social-mobility-a7177216.html

As usual, the writer believes that ‘resources’ are the basic answer to educational problems, and is uninterested in the way in which schools are organised and therefore how those resources are spent. The article tediously repeats research on the *existing rump* of grammar schools in England, concentrated in commuter belt areas, and concludes from this ( absurdly and illogically) that an evenly-spread national system of academic selection would have the same effect.

Top Comps are Highly Socially Selective

For example, this oft-repeated citation: ‘A recent study by the Sutton Trust found that, of the 164 grammar schools still open in 2014, 119 had fewer than 3 per cent of students eligible for free school meals; the national average across all state schools was 18 per cent. That is not a figure representative of a system that promotes radical social mobility.’

Note the 119, by the way. These will be those grammars within easy reach of large concentrations of middle-class parents reasonably anxious to avoid private secondary school fees which can cost nearly a quarter of a million pounds per child in pre-tax. income.

What about the other 46?

But this is why such research always ignores the last fully-selective system in the UK, in Northern Ireland, where outcomes for children from poor homes are demonstrably better than they are in mainland comprehensive systems.

Social Segregation in the name of Equality

By contrast (as so often I am grateful to Geoffrey Warner for the research there is ‘[A] Sutton Trust report of March 2010 which stated that “Comprehensive schools in England are highly socially segregated and the main reason for this is their admissions and selection processes rather than their location…[Moreover] the country’s leading comprehensives are more socially exclusive than the remaining grammar schools…[R]esearchers found that the country’s top 164 comprehensive schools took only 9.2% of children from income deprived homes although they drew pupils from areas where about 20% were income deprived. The 164 remaining grammar schools, also drawing their pupils from areas where 20% were income deprived, were found to be more inclusive, admitting 13.5% of children from poor homes.”

See note 27 in this document

http://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/120100312_mobility_manifesto2010.pdf

The actual report is here

http://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Worlds_apart.pdf

My thanks to the Sutton Trust for providing it from their archives.

It points out : 'Both the 164 grammars and the 164 most socially selective comprehensives drew pupils from areas where about a fifth of children were income deprived, but the comprehensives were the more socially selective taking only 9.2% compared with the grammars 13.5%. Nearly all (97.7%) of the pupils in grammars attained five good GCSEs including English and maths compared with 66.7% in the comprehensives.

I would also, like to insert here this contribution from Geoffrey Warner, which is of interest in this context and ought to be on the record on the Internet: 'On 3 August the Department of Education released a document on 'Widening Participation in Higher Education, England 2013/14 age cohort'. It showed that while 64% of students with A levels or equivalent qualifications from independent schools and colleges went on to the most selective universities, only 23% of students from the state sector did so. This was reported in the media. What was *not* reported was that 61% of students with A levels or equivalent qualifications from selective state schools (i.e. grammar schools) also went on to the most selective universities compared to 19% from 'other' state schools (i.e. comprehensives).

Just as interesting is this later report

http://www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/top-comprehensives-socially-selective-half-national-average-proportion-pupils-free-school-meals/

…which includes this information: ‘England’s highest performing comprehensive schools and academies are significantly more socially selective than the average state school nationally and other schools in their own localities, according to a new report by the Sutton Trust today.

The average rate of free school meal (FSM) eligibility and uptake at the top 500 comprehensives – all have more than 69% of pupils achieving five good GCSEs in 2012 – is just below half the national average figure, 7.6% compared to 16.5%, and 15.2% in their respective local authorities. There are nearly 3,000 comprehensive schools nationally. FSM is a measure of the overall social selectivity of a school.

95 per cent of the top 500 comprehensives have a smaller proportion of their pupils on free school meals than their local areas, including almost two thirds (64%) which are unrepresentative of their local authority area, with gaps of five or more percentage points.’

My recent essay ‘Why is Selection by Wealth Better than Selection by Ability?’ (to be found on p.167 of a book published recently by the think-tank Civitas) deals in some detail with these arguments and can be found here

Branded as failures - by postcode

It shows that thousands of children each March are branded as failures on National Offer Day, when, thanks to their parents' poverty or lack of sharp elbows, they are relegated to second or third-rate schools. Somehow, this Game of Homes and selection by chequebook does not offend the egalitarians who moan that selection by ability is unfair.

http://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/theselectiondebate.pdf

What We Lost after 1965

There is also, of course, the evidence of the past, the wealth of working class and lower middle-class talent propelled into public service, education, business, science, politics and the arts by the free grammar school system which existed from 1944 to 1965. I saw the last flowering of it, not realising that what I saw would never be repeated. I think most of my fellow-undergraduates in my year at the University of York, who arrived there in the autumn of 1970, had been educated in grammar or direct-grant schools.

But examining the past can also be misleading, if done without sufficient knowledge or wit. People who believe the past was like the present assume that the main aim of secondary education in the 1950s and 1960s was to get pupils into University. It was not. Especially before the Robbins Report, which created plate-glass universities such as mine, university was a rarity.

Nobody ever said Grammar Schools could cure every social ill

For example, this ‘The Gurney-Dixon report of 1954 found that, in their heyday, only a tiny proportion of grammar school students from an unskilled working class background ever gained entry into university. The same report found that, of the tiny proportion of working class students that attended a selective school, two-thirds left without achieving three O-levels.’

Our very knowledgeable contributor Geoffrey Warner has commented on this as follows :’ It's odd that the author refers to the "tiny proportion" of working class children attending grammar schools at the time of the Gurney-Dixon Report when the report itself gives it at over 60%! What Gurney-Dixon was concerned about was "Early Leaving", the title of the report. Few working class children took A levels and went on to university because (a) there were plenty of jobs for school-leavers at the age of 16 and (b) the culture of the time was quite different from what it is today. Thus, when my cousins reached that age, they were told by their parents that the time had come for them to leave school and start contributing to the family budget. These days they would almost certainly have gone on to university. The fact that grammar schools can and do send working class children to university these days is illustrated by the following figures I obtained from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. In Northern Ireland, where there are still plenty of grammar schools, 38% of university entrants come from the four lowest social classes; in England, where there are still a few grammar schools, the percentage is 33.4%. In Wales and Scotland, where there are none, it is 32.6% and 27.2% respectively.

Here is Table J from the Gurney-Dixon report , which can be accessed in full here

http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/gurneydixon/gurneydixon.html

Occupational background of pupils at maintained and direct grant schools.

And here is Table K

Comparison of pupils' achievements at beginning and end of their grammar school life (maintained grammar schools only).

The report comments

‘It will be seen that the improvement between 11 and 16 which has raised many pupils from the bottom selection group to the highest academic categories is most common (amounting to 48.3 per cent) among those from professional and managerial occupations, while the corresponding deterioration which has caused many who were placed in the top selection group at 11 to be found by 16 in the lowest academic categories is most common among the children of unskilled workers (54.0 per cent) and semi-skilled workers (37.9 per cent). There are, of course, plenty of pupils whose fathers are of professional or managerial standing who were in the lowest selection group at 11 and are still in the lowest academic categories at 16. Similarly, among the children of semi-skilled or unskilled workers 46.8 per cent and 29.6 per cent respectively of those who were in the top selection group at 11 were also in the highest academic categories at 16-18.

Table K is concerned solely with actual academic achievements. It might perhaps be suggested that the poor showing of children from the homes of semi-skilled and unskilled workers was caused largely by their family tradition being against a long school life and certainly against a sixth form career; that if they had not had a high proportion of very early leavers their academic performance might have been similar to that of other social groups.’

These are deep waters, and take us into the nature versus nurture argument, a vast tropical jungle of debate, from which no traveller returns. I myself have never asserted that the purpose of grammar schools was to lift large numbers of talented children from very poor homes, where the parents’ occupations are unskilled, books absent and enthusiasm for education scanty, and send them to lives of high education, culture and achievement. It would be lovely to be able to do so, and a Christian duty where possible.

But it is by its nature unlikely. Only small numbers could be expected to make such a huge transition against all the influence of home and background, in any system.

The true difference lies around the bottom edge of the middle, among those who, given a chance, will prosper, and, if neglected or forced to sink or swim in mixed-ability classrooms, will fail or never realise their potential. Such households could never have afforded private education even before its fees were pushed upwards to suit oligarchs rather than the suburban middle classes.

So to say that grammar schools fail to raise the poorest in large numbers is not really much of a criticism.

University wasn't the main goal till very recently

The ‘Independent’ article also asserts : ‘In the 1960s, the Robbins report showed that, while the working class community represented 26 per cent of the overall grammar school intake, just 0.3 per cent achieved two A-levels or more.

That is a record of abject failure on the stated goals of the grammar system: social mobility and academic attainment.

But a letter to the paper the following day ( from Dr John Doherty of Stratford-upon-Avon) made this point: ‘Liam Young cites the 1963 Robbins Report to show that the grammar system failed to promote social mobility and academic attainment. In truth, the report found that children of skilled manual workers at grammar school who stayed on to age 18 were as likely (65 per cent) to get two A-Levels as children of professional and managerial parents (67 per cent). Children of manual workers appeared less successful than children of the same ability in other social groups in obtaining the qualifications for entry to university largely because they left school earlier and did not take A Levels.’

The grammar schools are often blamed, by their critics, for failing to cure ills they never claimed or sought to to cure. Grammars couldn’t make poor parents richer, so their children were under as much pressure as always to leave school and start earning as early as possible. They couldn’t and shouldn’t have sought to reduce the life-chances of the more fortunate boys and girls that went to them, and it is neither surprising nor distressing that those pupils often did better than those who had come from bookless, poor homes. This article seems to blame grammar schools for having existed in an age when there were not many universities, whereas there were a lot of responsible white-collar jobs open to people who had never been to university.

The Gurney-Dixon report, by the way, is eloquent on the huge differences in grammar school provision, varying from 10% of places in some areas to 44% in others. It is shocking that so few grammar schools were built in areas that lacked them, between 1994 and 1964, and equally shocking that so few technical schools were built . I now have some figures on this. By 1958, there were only 279 Technical Schools in England and Wales by 1958, with 95,000 pupils. There were at this time roughly 1,290 grammar schools. Far too few Secondary Moderns, the third leg of the tripod, offered even ‘O’ levels to their pupils, let alone ‘A’ levels, though some did. But the faults of the system did not lie in the existence of grammar schools as such, or in academic selection. Selection by postcode and feigned religion, which has now succeeded academic selection, has been far more ruthless.

I’d add to this a recent BBC Radio 4 ‘Analysis’ programme. This is often rather a good slot, but I have my doubts about this one, which you can listen to here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07knmpc

Was There Really a Revolt Against Selection?

I was especially struck and rather annoyed by this passage:

‘“Professor Alison Wolf (presenter)

‘…Fewer and fewer parents found this [the selective system) tolerable. They wanted the best schools for their children and selection withered. What is truly surprising is where this happened. It wasn’t in Labour strongholds and it started well before comprehensives became national policy

‘It all started instead in the leafy shires with Tory councils.

Peter Mandler: ‘This is a period of rapid demographic growth especially in school-age children, new houses and new schools are having to be built and it was very difficult to for any local authority to build a new housing estate and to build two separate schools because it just looked like apartheid and so many Conservative authorities just made the pragmatic decision to build comprehensives or to try to fudge the issue.’

AW: Local authorities made their own decisions about whether, how and when to reorganise…’ ”

I wrote to professors Wolf and Mandler and am still in correspondence with them. I said ‘I understood that (outside such special places as Anglesey where demographic conditions prevented a selective system) the London County Council pioneered comprehensive schooling ( an idea originally developed by Graham Savage in the 1920s) for dogmatic egalitarian reasons, in the 1940s. I also believed that Leicestershire postponed academic selection to 14 but retained grammar schools until Circular 10/65 placed great pressure on all LEAs to abolish selection (a recent House of Commons Education committee survey shows the great bulk of grammar schools, which had been rising in numbers to about 1,200 in 1965, falling only after that date) This circular hardly left LEAs to ‘make their own decisions’ in any but the most formal sense.

I have yet to find (it may be there, but I haven’t located it) any substantial independent evidence for a pre-1965 suburban or leafy shires parental revolt against selection by ability. It is true that, by the early 1960s after more than a decade of Tory government, many local authorities had (as they do) come under the control of the Opposition party, which was Labour, by then dogmatically committed to comprehensive schools. So there were probably quite a lot of schemes for going comprehensive in being by 1964, though not implemented. And the Tory government itself was never especially committed to grammar schools, indeed Macmillan’s last Education Minister, Edward Boyle, was more or less a social democrat and by no means opposed to the comprehensive ideal. It is also the case that many grammar schools had originally been built by Labour councils, and that much of the Labour Party had at the very least reconciled itself to grammar schools since the 1930s.

Above all, the real nature of comprehensives , as it would take shape, was virtually unknown either to those who clamoured for them or to those whose children would go to them. Labour spoke absurdly of a ‘grammar education for all’ . The early comprehensives continued to ape grammar schools with teachers in gowns and mortar-boards, honours boards and religious assemblies, features which would soon prove impossible to maintain, not least because the new schools in many cases became so huge.

Anthony Crosland, the privately-educated man who would in the end destroy the grammar schools, showed in his 1956 book ‘The Future of Socialism’, that he had no idea what he was doing. He dismissed warnings that such schools would be vast, that they would have mixed-ability classes, that standards would be lower, that brighter children would be held back to the pace of the slowest ( all this is discussed in the chapter ‘the Fall of the Meritocracy’ in my book ‘The Cameron Delusion’). All utterly wrong.

But still they do not admit it. Is it because our elite, political and journalistic, are so wedded to egalitarianism for others while not experiencing it for themselves? I think so.

‘All Animals are Equal. But some Animals are More Equal Than Others’

George Orwell. Animal Farm.