A brainless policy

There is something phenomenally depressing about the relish with which the Tories are burying grammar schools. Here are the most effective implements of social mobility this country has ever had—by 1969 they had pushed Oxford’s intake from the state sector up to 62 percent, far higher than today’s 55 percent which is achieved in party by positive discrimination—and the Tories want to run a million miles from them on the grounds of political expediency.

David Willetts sounds far from convincing when he says, “We must break free from the belief that academic selection is any longer the way to transform the life chances of bright poor kids.”

The gap in quality between grammars and the rest of the state sector is illustrated by the fact that 98.5 percent of grammar school pupils get five good GCSEs A to C compared to 58 percent overall. Willetts is making much of the fact that grammars have fewer pupils eligible for free school meals than the population as a whole, but what you hear mentioned a lot less is that, according to the invaluable Sutton Trust, in the top 200 comprehensives only 5.3 percent of pupils are on free school meals compared to the national average of 14.3 percent.

When David Cameron became Tory leader it was the first time since 1963 that the heads of both Labour and the Conservatives had been boarding-school and Oxbridge educated. Sadly, with both parties too timid to stand for real choice in edcuation and take on the vested interests that are holding back state schooling it looks like we’re returning to this bygone era.