The following, by Huw Jenkins, was one of a series of comments about a recent post on education. I have pasted it here because it is very close to my own view. Again and again, those on the Right talk about grammar schools as if they were the holy grail and would solve all educational problems. But, as Huw says,...
"The problem I have with the grammar (selective) school system...is that, just like comprehensives, they would be part of a state-organised system imposed on everyone from above.
"Libertarians should be against any centrally-imposed system. Providers should have to cater for the market in the way they see best and be answerable to their 'customers'. I don't begrudge John East the choice of a selective school, but not if this removes the choice of a non-selective school for other people. It would also be interesting to know whether those that advocate imposing a selective system would be quite so keen if they thought their child wouldn't 'pass' the selection process.
"When I was choosing a secondary school for my daughter, I had no choice in the state sector - just the local comp (generally considered quite good as I'm in one of the top 10 LEAs judged by GCSE results) as most state schools in the area are over-subscribed. However, in the independent sector, we visited many choices and whittled it down to two. One was selective and the other not. We would have been equally happy with either - we chose the selective one because my income went down and it was cheaper. One of my daughter's friends (equally academic) chose the non-selective school partly because she could go to the same school as her less academic siblings. In fact, children from my daughter's prep school (some very unacademic) have gone to all sorts of independent secondary schools - and everyone seems to have found one that suits them.
"So the independent sector, in which there is no 'system', just alternative suppliers that have to cater for market demand, offered a more satisfacory choice. The question should be how we can make this choice available for everyone."
I would only add that we alreay have sink comprehensives in which the children of the poor end up and get a parody of a proper education. Having more grammar schools would do nothing to put that terrible situation right.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Education
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I can confirm that choice is a joke. I have Norfolk CCs document next to me (my daughter is 11).
In theory I can apply to any school in the county.
In *practice* I can only send her to the one she is allocated to, or one of the sink schools that no-one wants (including the famous Hewitt school), and one or two others that are undersubscribed for geographical reasons. Some choice.
Grammar Schools aren't the issue ; it is depth and appropriateness of education and quality of teaching that matters - and enabling teachers to teach rather than deliver prewritten lessons in a state of riot.
Posted by: Paul Robson at January 13, 2006 10:36 AM
Fame at last!
I should add that the whole debate over teaching reading by phonics or other systems is similarly flawed as it attempts to argue which system should be applied to (i.e. imposed by the central diktat on) everyone. Even if synthetic phonics is best for 99% of children, why should it be compulsory for the 1% for whom it doesn't work?
Anyway, it shouldn't require a 'consumer' of education services to become an expert on reading methods and argue for a particular type. When I buy a car, I don't have to investigate the engineering issues involved - I just buy whatever I consider to be the best end product, based on reputation or whatever. Suppliers compete to provide me with the best product and I should not have to become an expert in how they achieve this - my sanction should be to take my money elsewhere if they don't satisfy me. That is far more libertarian and democratic than to make everybody put up with whatever the majority (or in the case of this government, the largest minority) decide.
Posted by: HJHJ at January 13, 2006 01:08 PM
James, it may be true that some state schools are discouraged from moving to the International Baccaleureate but last year the head of a London school which does the IB told me that a large number of state schools were moving to it.
Posted by: James Bartholomew at January 13, 2006 01:24 PM
I've no wish to split hairs here, but even though I am in no doubt that the grammar schools were, and the few remaining maybe still are, excellent institutions I have not been arguing for a return to the old system (good grammar/rubbish secondary modern), I've also never argued for state funding of education.
I have never suggested what form my ideal system would take, so off the top of my head how about good academically selective/good vocational plus a third option in which modern liberal educationalists could be left to prove their theories on disruptive no-hopers. As for the current educational establishment, teacher training colleges and LEA's, I'd close them all down immediately and re-organise the whole system along commercial lines.
OK, some of that may have been crackpot, but it was off the top of my head.
Posted by: John East at January 13, 2006 07:08 PM
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Indeed, James. The grammar school debate is a smokescreen here. The real tragedy of Cameron's shift in education was the abandonment of the Pupil Passport.
In this week's edition of The Spectator, Peter Oborn claims the totemic abandonment of grammar schools was an essential positioning exercise to neutralise the selection issue, and poistion the PM and the Conservatives against Labour.
Oborne is, of course, wrong.
The beauty of the Passport policy was that it neatly sidestepped this debate, neither imposing a grammar or comprehensive system. It would have allowed a diversity in schooling from Grammars through technical schools and specialist academies, through to continuing mixed ability — and all driven by parental choice expressed through the marketplace, rather than by ideologues and state planners.
Posted by: James Hellyer at January 13, 2006 10:08 AM