tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/selective-education-21685/articlesSelective education – The Conversation2022-04-14T05:39:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1809652022-04-14T05:39:11Z2022-04-14T05:39:11Z‘Is this really fair?’ How high school students feel about being streamed into different classes based on ‘ability’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457546/original/file-20220412-22-blem13.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C15%2C3354%2C2218&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/">Many</a> Australian schools still use “streaming”, where students are separated into classes based on ability. However, not all students see streaming as beneficial.</p>
<p>My <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2022.2030396">research</a>, published in the journal Research Papers in Education, found streaming caused some students to feel unduly pressured, privileged, disempowered, and misunderstood. </p>
<p>Some students in higher-ability classes said they felt more confident and motivated, but students in lower streams reported conforming to teachers’ low expectations for achievement. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/selective-schools-mainly-select-advantage-so-another-one-wont-ease-sydneys-growing-pains-118449">Selective schools mainly 'select' advantage, so another one won't ease Sydney's growing pains</a>
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<h2>Students see less opportunity in lower streams</h2>
<p>In Australia, there is no official educational policy on streaming (also known as tracking, setting, or “between-class ability grouping”). Schools make local decisions about if and how to stream students. </p>
<p>My recent research in Western Australia shows students themselves can experience the inequity embedded in streaming. I followed 25 year 10 students across their school days for one week of school. I did more than 100 interviews with the students and conducted 175 classroom observations.</p>
<p>The research revealed some students in lower streams found their learning opportunities were limited. Student in the higher streams had different exams, assignments, grading, and excursions than students in lower streams.</p>
<p>Ryan* discussed how in the higher stream, they “got to build roller coasters” while students in the lower stream were “just building bridges.” </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457570/original/file-20220412-37887-odlbp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457570/original/file-20220412-37887-odlbp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457570/original/file-20220412-37887-odlbp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457570/original/file-20220412-37887-odlbp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457570/original/file-20220412-37887-odlbp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457570/original/file-20220412-37887-odlbp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457570/original/file-20220412-37887-odlbp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457570/original/file-20220412-37887-odlbp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The research revealed some students in lower streams found their learning opportunities were limited.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Students also expressed frustration their capacity to succeed was limited by streaming. </p>
<p>Jerome said that in a lower streamed class</p>
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<p>The highest mark you can get in that class is a C!</p>
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<p>Moving up between streams highlighted the difference for students too. Curt remembered it was like he “skipped a year.” </p>
<p>Krissy said “there is a big gap of knowledge” when you “move up” to a higher stream. </p>
<p>Some students in higher streams welcomed the challenge of more difficult learning and extra opportunities. They felt motivated by the additional opportunities and, as Jenny put it, “wanted to be pushed” because it made them “feel good about themselves.”</p>
<p>For other students, streaming felt restrictive. These students felt their teachers saw them in a way that didn’t match how they saw themselves.</p>
<h2>Not seen as individuals</h2>
<p>Many students felt their teachers had conceptualised their ability because of the streamed class they were in, rather than seeing them as individuals. </p>
<p>Being expected to perform at a higher level academically felt constrictive and unwelcome for some students. </p>
<p>Jessica, for instance, resisted being told to do more difficult work in higher streams. When her teacher told her the work she was doing was Year 11 work she responded by thinking</p>
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<p>Why can’t we do Year 10 work? What happened to the Year 10 work?</p>
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<p>Other higher stream students also felt unmotivated by being assigned work they found too difficult. Rochelle avoided her maths teacher and the learning, saying:</p>
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<p>Some of the math, she’s like doing stuff on the board and I’m just like [wide eyes] oh my God. This is too hard […] If I don’t get it, I’m like, I lose motivation.</p>
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<p>Students in lower streams complied with their teachers’ low expectations for learning. Jerome said his teacher</p>
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<p>[…] understands what class we’re in, like everyone’s just, no one really cares. So she does understand if I don’t really focus that much.</p>
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<p>Many of these students felt they didn’t fit in with the teachers’ homogeneous expectations for streamed classes.</p>
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<span class="caption">Students in lower streams complied with their teachers’ low expectations for learning, the research found.</span>
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<h2>Calling out inequity</h2>
<p>Not all students accepted streaming. Some felt undue pressure and privilege in higher streamed classes. </p>
<p>Jessica noticed she and her classmates in higher streamed classes sometimes had to do extra tests her friends in different classes got to skip.</p>
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<p>It’s really like, ‘is this really fair?’ Because I’m getting all this extra stress, and like, it’s helping me, but it’s not like 100%.</p>
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<p>Sarah noticed students in the higher streams “had the privilege to go on a lot of excursions” while students in lower steams didn’t. She said she thought it’d be better if there was no streaming.</p>
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<p>I don’t think there should be a (higher streamed) class […] I think it’s better with everyone fair, and everyone should do the same.</p>
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<p>These students questioned the fairness of streaming, even while acknowledging the privileges of being in the higher streamed class. </p>
<h2>Poor behaviour in lower streams makes learning harder</h2>
<p>Poor behaviour in lower streams made it difficult for students already struggling at school.</p>
<p>Asher, who was in a lower streamed class, said:</p>
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<p>They’re not learning because they’re always mucking around, and it takes away from everyone else’s ability to learn because the teacher’s preoccupied dealing with them […] And we’re behind a whole assessment because of the people in our class.</p>
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<p>Other students described their peers in lower streams as “naughty”, “noisy”, “rowdy” or “messing around.”</p>
<p>Students in higher streamed classes noticed and appreciated how being streamed protected them from poor behaviour of students in the lower streams. Rochelle said she’d felt “distracted” in the lower streams, but since moving the higher stream found “things have changed […] my class is pretty good.”</p>
<p>Since moving to the higher streamed class, Curt noticed “everyone focuses.” This had not been his experience in the lower streamed classes. </p>
<p>Clustering students who have difficulty achieving at school can lead to more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13674">behaviour problems</a> in lower streamed groups.</p>
<h2>Streaming can perpetuate disadvantage</h2>
<p>A growing body of research has identified a link between streaming and equity issues. </p>
<p>Critics of streaming <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tItvMjRxL_c">say</a> it is an ineffective way to cater to the varied needs of students and that it can perpetuate <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/berj.3321">social inequality</a> (because students from lower socio-economic backgrounds and minorities are often placed in “bottom” groups, where their opportunities to learn are <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CjKoDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=segregation+ability+disadvantage+streaming+tracking+ability+grouping&ots=Pgy0hXL_Tj&sig=w0bfNYJ2oqrAZRdrteEfZwTtnKU#v=onepage&q&f=false">limited</a>).</p>
<p>Education researcher John Hattie has said streaming (or “tracking”) says to kids that “this is where you perform” and it presents equity issues.</p>
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<p>Yet, teachers in Australia often <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2017.1347494">believe</a> streaming is beneficial because it allows them to meet students’ learning needs more effectively.</p>
<h2>So what should educators do?</h2>
<p>Schools, educators and policymakers making decisions about streaming should consider students’ experiences and take into account how streaming helps <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CjKoDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=francis+ability+grouping&ots=Pgy0jVFYSq&sig=hlvgKFfTqpkDtHrsO9q1Rd9FH_A#v=onepage&q=francis%20ability%20grouping&f=false">perpetuate</a> cycles of disadvantage. Policymakers could look to <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/sites/ioe/files/dos_and_donts_of_attainment_grouping_-_ucl_institute_of_education.pdf">guidelines</a> aimed at reducing the inequality associated with it. </p>
<p>All students deserve the opportunity to learn well and to confront limiting expectations and prove them wrong. My research shows students want to be taught and seen as individuals – unconstrained by labels and assumptions. </p>
<p>We should take care adults’ socially-contrived notions of student “ability” don’t place limits on their capacity to succeed at school.</p>
<p><em>* All names have been changed to protect the students’ identities.</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/more-stress-unclear-gains-are-selective-schools-really-worth-it-160762">More stress, unclear gains: are selective schools really worth it?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olivia Johnston has previously received research funding from the Fogarty Foundation, the Western Australian Institute for Educational Research, and the Australian government Research Training Program. This story is part of The Conversation's Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.</span></em></p>Some students in higher-ability classes said they felt more confident and motivated, but students in lower streams reported conforming to teachers’ low expectations for achievement.Olivia Johnston, Lecturer, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/652522016-09-15T10:44:37Z2016-09-15T10:44:37ZDoes selective schooling work anywhere in the world?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137563/original/image-20160913-4958-sivofq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hands up for better education policy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">michaeljung/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After Prime Minister Theresa May announced that more schools in England would be allowed to start selecting pupils based on their ability, the government has <a href="https://consult.education.gov.uk/school-frameworks/schools-that-work-for-everyone/supporting_documents/SCHOOLS%20THAT%20WORK%20FOR%20EVERYONE%20%20FINAL.pdf">launched a consultation</a> on its plans to make “schools work for everyone”. </p>
<p>But the national evidence, based on comparing the 163 existing grammar schools with all other state-funded schools in England, is clear. Grammar schools <a href="http://eer.sagepub.com/content/14/3-4/257.abstract">take in</a> very few disadvantaged or low-income pupils, and are associated with local segregation between families of different social and economic types, of a kind that reduces aspiration and damages futures. In order to get in, pupils have to be older within their year group (which is no indicator of talent or merit), and the few pupils who are eligible for free school meals in grammar schools <a href="http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/projects?ref=ES%2FN012046%2F1">have been eligible</a> for fewer of their school years than average. </p>
<p>The higher examination outcomes for pupils attending grammar schools are explained by looking at who these pupils are – their prior attainment, family poverty, age-in-year and so on – and not by the kind of school they went to. It is not clear why these schools have survived as a remnant in the comprehensive era since 1966, nor why anyone aware of the evidence, both at home and abroad, would wish to expand them. </p>
<h2>Selection in Anglophone countries</h2>
<p>One of the biggest problems with comparing education policy in one country with that of another is that the economic, political and other contextual factors differ. A developing country may have selective schools and fund education poorly, leading to worse test outcomes than a richer country that does not have selection. This would be no test of the impact of selection.</p>
<p>None of the world’s major English-speaking countries such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have a national system of selecting children for entry to state-funded schools at around age 11, even though they may – like England – have specific school types <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lesson-from-canada-why-australia-should-have-fewer-selective-schools-35534">that are selective</a>. To slightly differing extents, they have <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/9810131ec035.pdf?expires=1473761934&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=70597FB2A18EBB05BF24C56E17A413A7">what the OECD terms</a> “low levels of horizontal differentiation at the system level”, meaning that their school systems are more comprehensive than selective. </p>
<p>These countries are, in many respects, the most similar to the UK. Many of the remaining countries with strong historical links to the UK are at different stages of development, such as Pakistan, which like several developing countries, does not yet have universal secondary schooling.</p>
<h2>Selection in the Pacific Rim</h2>
<p>The picture is less clear for non-European countries which are regularly deemed to perform well in international comparisons such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/">Programme for International Student Assessment</a> (PISA) tests. China is represented only by a few coastal urban areas. Japan and South Korea do not operate a national policy of selection – Japan has traditionally allocated places by the proximity of a child’s home to the school but is increasingly offering parents a “choice” of school. </p>
<p>Singapore on the other hand is more selective, and many of its most popular schools do use selection based on prior performance to handle over-subscription. Overall, however, there is no evidence from PISA or elsewhere that nationally selective systems and better test outcomes are positively linked. </p>
<h2>In the EU, selection does not produce equity</h2>
<p>Probably the clearest comparisons with the most evidence come from the European Union’s 28 countries. Even here, the level of development varies between countries. The <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/data-explorer">UN Human Development Index</a> is 92 for the Netherlands, but 78 for Bulgaria. In general, the countries that have low educational equity (<a href="https://www.oecd.org/edu/Education-at-a-Glance-2014.pdf">assessed by</a> a high correlation between social background and educational outcomes) are also less developed. Those with the highest Human Development Index, such as the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and England, tend to have high equity, better test outcomes, and are not nationally selective in their schooling.</p>
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<p>The European countries that have relatively low equity for their level of development and expenditure on education (such as Austria and Germany) are the most obvious examples of systems with early selection of pupils, known as tracking. Others, such as Belgium or Ireland, traditionally operate on a strong sectarian faith-basis, which is linked then to clustering by ethnicity and immigrant status as well as social class. Such countries portray a stronger than expected link between a pupil’s individual attainment and the background of their parents – presumably because selection is on the basis of prior attainment, which is strongly correlated with socio-economic status and family background. </p>
<p>Levels of trust and civic participation among adults in such lower equity countries are among the lowest in the EU. This can be shown by the <a href="http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/view/10.1057/9780230277335">link between experiences</a> at school, who a child goes to school with, and their wider outcomes such as preparation for citizenship. </p>
<p>It is quite hard to find a suitable comparison from around the world that the government in England could “borrow” its new selective education policy from in the 21st century. Most developed countries do not operate a formal, national selective system and the most successful countries (rather than cities) in PISA do not operate a formal selective system. </p>
<p>So the best evidence for England is still the evidence from England, both from when the grammar school system <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Origins_and_destinations.html?id=p00PAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">was widespread</a> and more recently. Both show that the gains are minimal if any, while the dangers for social cohesion are daunting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Gorard receives funding from the ESRC (grant number ES/N012046/1) to investigate the different kinds of poverty and their impact on education. </span></em></p>Grammar schools are back on the agenda in England, but they are not a go-to education policy for the 21st century.Stephen Gorard, Professor of Education and Public Policy, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/651992016-09-12T12:00:03Z2016-09-12T12:00:03ZTo move forwards on inequality we must not go back to grammar schools<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137350/original/image-20160912-3768-57gu2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Grammar schools are not the answer. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SpeedKingz/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Across the political spectrum everybody agrees that children should have equal opportunities to “achieve their potential”. Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/social-mobility-and-education">all the evidence shows</a> that you can’t have equality of opportunity without greater equality of outcome: if we want more social mobility we’re going to have to reduce social and economic equality first. </p>
<p>Income inequality is <a href="https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/social-mobility-and-education">strongly correlated</a> with low social mobility, with lower average educational performance and with bigger gaps in educational attainment between rich and poor children. Now, in a move to address the ban on grammar schools that the prime minister <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37311023">argues</a> has been “sacrificing children’s potential”, the government is proposing to reintroduce them. But grammar schools can’t fix this entrenched inequality between the rich and poor: all they do is perpetuate it for the vast majority of children.</p>
<h2>Disadvantage starts early</h2>
<p>Inequalities in educational attainment appear shockingly early in life. <a href="http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/page.aspx?&sitesectionid=853&sitesectiontitle=MCS2+%282004%2f5%29">Even before they reach preschool age</a>, disadvantaged children (by which I mean children from poor areas and with poor parents) lag behind the children of more affluent and educated parents. This isn’t because they are inherently less capable than other children. </p>
<p>The results of the global Programme for Student Assessment (PISA) tests run by the OECD show that in some countries, such as Canada, Finland, Japan and South Korea, <a href="http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/48852584.pdf">up 70% of poor 15-year-olds do better in school than predicted</a>. In the UK less than a quarter of poor children manage to exceed expectations based on their family background.</p>
<p>The OECD has also shown that <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/equity-and-quality-in-education_9789264130852-en">comprehensive schooling narrows differences</a> in educational achievement by social class. And in their rigorous examination of the evidence, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Truth-About-Our-Schools-Exposing-the-myths-exploring-the-evidence/Benn-Downs/p/book/9781138937178">The Truth About Our Schools</a>, authors Melissa Benn and Janet Downs exposed the failure of the grammar school system to boost social mobility and described the long-term damage caused to people who failed the 11+ entrance exam.</p>
<p>Also highly relevant is <a href="http://econpapers.repec.org/article/ucpjlabec/doi_3a10.1086_2f669340.htm">research from the University of Bristol</a>, which found that black children are systematically marked down by their classroom teachers, compared to the marks they are given in national tests marked remotely by teachers who do not know them. White British children from poor neighbourhoods were also marked down, compared to children from more affluent areas.</p>
<p>This “unconscious stereotyping” and discriminatory marking was most pronounced in areas with fewer black or poor children. This phenomenon, where children do better or worse depending on what their teachers expect of them is known as the “<a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02322211">Pygmalion effect</a>” and has been known since the late 1960s. </p>
<p>Economic and cultural inequalities have deep-seated effects on all of us, and teachers are not immune. We need them to be trained to understand how social class and socioeconomic status affect their expectations of, and attitudes towards, their students.</p>
<h2>Structural inequality</h2>
<p>It is hopelessly unrealistic to expect our education system to fix the damage caused by poverty and inequality. Efforts to widen participation in higher education have <a href="http://cep.lse.ac.uk/about/news/IntergenerationalMobility.pdf">benefited the middle class</a> more than poorer children. </p>
<p>Education researcher Diane Reay at the University of Cambridge <a href="https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/reay/bjes-zombie.pdf">has said</a> that working class children are too often seen as “inadequate learners with inadequate cultural backgrounds”. She found that many working-class children describe a sense of educational worthlessness and feeling that they are not valued or respected within their schools. They feel that teachers look down on them, make them look stupid, or think they’re dumb. </p>
<p>And it’s unrealistic to expect parents to provide educationally rich and nurturing environments for their kids when their own health and well-being are <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199389292.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199389292-e-44?mediaType=Article">undermined by poverty and inequality</a>. Long working hours and high levels of debt create situations of chronic stress and time poverty. </p>
<p>When parenting is compromised by the way we structure our society and economy then that is what we need to change, rather than proposing tweaks to the education system. Successful modern societies raise their educational performance, not by focusing on the “talented” few and thus wasting the potential and capabilities of the majority, but by creating the economic and educational environment in which all children can thrive. We can achieve so much more than we currently manage but grammar schools can only carry us backwards, not forwards.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Pickett receives funding from the Medical Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, Big Lottery, the National Institute for Health Research and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. She is a trustee of The Equality Trust, a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health and a member of the Labour Party. </span></em></p>Reintroducing selective education will not solve deep economic and social inequalities.Kate Pickett, Professor of Epidemiology, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/636792016-09-09T16:03:39Z2016-09-09T16:03:39ZWhy the ghost of grammar schools keeps on haunting us<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135381/original/image-20160824-30222-b8xp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Denis Lett/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>So the cat is out of the bag, and months of rumour and speculation have borne fruit: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37311023">grammar schools are back on the agenda</a>. In her major <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/britain-the-great-meritocracy-prime-ministers-speech">speech</a> on the subject, Theresa May went further than many had expected – and claimed that selection by ability might be adopted by any school in the state system. </p>
<p>Grammar schools – state secondary schools which select pupils by ability, traditionally using an entrance exam known as the 11+ – are the ghost which has never really been laid to rest in debates about contemporary British education. Institutions described as “grammar schools” have existed for centuries in the UK, but the version often remembered so fondly is the child of the <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/school/overview/educationact1944/">1944 Butler Education Act</a>.
These grammar schools, created by the Conservative Rab Butler in the wake of his 1944 Act were abolished in most parts of the country with the arrival of comprehensive education in the 1960s. New selective schools were then banned by law under the Labour government of 1998. But grammar schools never truly died and still remain in pockets around the UK such as Kent. So why the perennial cries for their resurrection?</p>
<p>It’s worth disinterring the history in order to answer that question. The 1944 Act introduced secondary education for all children in the UK, replacing the previous patchwork provision of state secondary education, but it generally did so along stratified lines. The 11+ exam, widely adopted by local education authorities, was intended to sort academic from non-academic pupils, and to spot those with an aptitude for technical education. </p>
<p>To serve this end, a tripartite school system was established in most of England and Wales – with grammar schools for academic children, secondary moderns for those who were not, and technical schools for those with a particular aptitude for technical pursuits. But as the social historian Michael Sanderson noted, technical schools were costly an in age of austerity <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aX9qCgAAQBAJ&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=Michael+Sanderson+missing+stratum&source=bl&ots=aWZ7c8sArB&sig=sy1hdFAtsYtXGlxgy-Rl-8V7Z8g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK8bjUh9rOAhUpCMAKHfPbAjIQ6AEILTAD#v=onepage&q=Michael%20Sanderson%20missing%20stratum&f=false">and so were seldom built</a>. As a result, in most parts of the country it wasn’t a tripartite system at all, but a bipartite one – a youth divided between 11+ “successes” at grammars and “failures” at secondary moderns.</p>
<p>Historians argued that this became unsustainable due to public discontent. For instance, historian of psychology Adrian Wooldridge <a href="http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511660351&cid=CBO9780511660351A005&tabName=Chapter">has shown</a> that the 11+ came under severe attack from sociologists who showed that it was a test which over-promised and under-delivered.</p>
<p>Its advocates, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/genetics-what-it-is-that-makes-you-clever-and-why-its-shrouded-in-controversy-56115">the psychologist Cyril Burt</a>, had argued it could differentiate between nature and nurture, that it could show which children had innate ability and those which didn’t. They believed the test and the grammar schools which deployed it could provide equality of opportunity to children of all classes – and so could be seen as vehicles of social mobility.</p>
<h2>Opposition mounts</h2>
<p>But as Wooldridge outlined, the evidence <a href="http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511660351&cid=CBO9780511660351A023">didn’t back this up</a>. Instead, the 11+ was an engine of gross social injustice, fostering an education system sharply-divided on lines of social class. It was the case then, <a href="http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/cp/CASEpaper164.pdf">as now</a>, that parental wealth and status were the key indicators in predicting a child’s life chances. </p>
<p>Places were not allocated across social classes in the proportions which were expected, a fact compounded by regional differences. More grammar school places in certain parts of the country meant that <a href="http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511660351&cid=CBO9780511660351A023">in some places</a> children with considerably lower IQs went to grammar school while in other parts of the country those with higher scores went to secondary moderns. Even why 11 had been chosen as the cut-off point was open to question. Anthony Crosland, who was later to become Labour education secretary, wrote in the 1950s that the “<a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ioep/clre/2015/00000013/00000002/art00009?crawler=true">whole process has a distinctly arbitrary air</a>”.</p>
<p>As the historian of education Gary McCulloch has shown, the Labour Party <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0046760X.2015.1076067">gradually adopted comprehensive</a> secondary education as a policy in the 1950s and early 1960s. By the 1964 general election, and the advent of Harold Wilson’s Labour government, the battle-lines of the debate between tripartism and the comprehensive alternative were clearly drawn. Labour knew that the prestige of the grammar school was real: <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0046760X.2015.1076067">comprehensives were advertised</a> as “grammar schools for all”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135378/original/image-20160824-30209-1ye3cy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135378/original/image-20160824-30209-1ye3cy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135378/original/image-20160824-30209-1ye3cy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135378/original/image-20160824-30209-1ye3cy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135378/original/image-20160824-30209-1ye3cy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135378/original/image-20160824-30209-1ye3cy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135378/original/image-20160824-30209-1ye3cy1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A local comp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/disley/4239899529/sizes/o/">aldisley/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was Crosland, education secretary from January 1965, who issued the now famous <a href="http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/des/circular10-65.html">Circular 10/65 document</a> to local authorities requesting them to change their school systems – or, in its own words, to “submit … plans for … reorganisation on comprehensive lines”. In most places, grammar schools were on the way out.</p>
<p>Ever since there have been calls to bring them back, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_making_of_Tory_education_policy_in_p.html?id=g9CeAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">most notably from the right of the Conservative Party</a>. Partly this has been due to a scepticism about comprehensive education, but mostly it is anchored in differing visions of the relationship of the individual to society. </p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3679391?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">the revitalisation of Conservatism in a neoliberal direction</a> from the early 1970s onward, grammar schools have become an emblem of a strain of Conservative thinking which emphasises that what the left sees as unjustifiable inequality is in fact simply individuals reaping the benefits of hard work. According to this reading, at face value, comprehensive education emphasised the good of the collective and grammars that of the individual. </p>
<h2>A myth that will not die</h2>
<p>But the evidence undermines such a reading. It is not enough to claim, as the prime minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/britain-the-great-meritocracy-prime-ministers-speech">has done</a>, that the debate on grammars “get[s] lost” in discussing the social mobility question. Evidence matters. She is also wrong to claim this is merely a historical issue: contemporary research on areas where grammar schools outlasted the 1960s has clearly shown their culpability in maintaining social inequality. One <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03054985.2013.776955">2013 study</a> documented how in Buckinghamshire – one of the counties which retained selective state education – children eligible for free school meals because of the wealth of their parents were significantly underrepresented in grammar schools. So why, in the face of the evidence that grammar schools do not promote social mobility, is the argument still made?</p>
<p>Part of the answer is that grammar schools <a href="https://www.tes.com/news/tes-magazine/tes-magazine/anti-grammar-camp-must-heed-brexits-lessons">did work</a> for some people. Yet the key issue is that they did so at the expense of the community as a whole. Despite May’s claims that they will be but one part of a “diverse” new system, the restoration of a general process of selection by ability implies that such a diverse system will be an unequal one in practice.</p>
<p>It is significant that Michael Gove – <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Gove_Legacy.html?id=Dgm4BgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y&hl=en">who set his face against new grammar schools in his time as education secretary</a> – agreed with supporters of grammars that comprehensives had failed. But he did not share their enthusiasm for a return to selection, favouring instead the academies and free schools which are his legacy. May’s proposals for the return of selection answer a populist Tory <em>cri de coeur.</em> But as Gove knew, it is an answer rooted in myth rather than history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Finn is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>The history of a policy that will not die.Mike Finn, Principal Teaching Fellow, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641982016-09-08T14:30:59Z2016-09-08T14:30:59ZGrammar schools have a long history of being dominated by middle-class children<p>Signals that Theresa May is in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37303348">favour of relaxing rules</a> banning the creation of new selective grammar schools in England have provoked robust attacks from opponents of the plan. This included the government’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/07/grammar-schools-expansion-disaster-social-mobility-tsar-alan-milburn">social mobility tsar</a> Alan Milburn, a former minister in the Labour government that introduced the ban, who said it risked creating an “us and them divide” in the education system.</p>
<p>The government needs to explain how its plan to expand grammar schools would help its intended contribution to social mobility, particularly since the prime minister <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36788782">declared</a> a one-nation inclusive approach to economic and social decision-making in front of Number 10 in July when she took office.</p>
<p>The role of grammar schools in promoting social mobility has long been a matter of <a href="https://theconversation.com/grammar-school-plan-might-not-be-worth-the-risk-for-theresa-may-63667">ideological debate</a>, though research has shown there is little evidence that selective schooling in England has led to improved <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-do-grammar-schools-boost-social-mobility-28121">social mobility</a>.</p>
<p>While most studies have compared outcomes from the 1970s and 1980s when the number of grammar schools was in decline, our new <a href="http://oep.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/08/02/oep.gpw039.full">research</a> has analysed what happened after the most important attempt to expand grammar school education to date: the enactment of the <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/school/overview/educationact1944/">1944 Education Act</a> in England and Wales.</p>
<p>The Act marked an attempt to move towards a level playing field for all children by introducing universally free state secondary education and preventing access to state grammar schools based on paying fees. But we found there had been no change in the relative chances of children from poorer home backgrounds either gaining grammar school places or obtaining formal school qualifications. </p>
<h2>What changed in 1944</h2>
<p>The 1944 Act was the culmination of long-term aspirations of Boards of Education in England and Wales to open secondary educational opportunities to all social classes on equal terms. </p>
<p>For decades prior to 1944, grammar schools had already formed an important part of secondary education, but there were significant structural impediments to achieving strong social mobility. Many grammar school places were offered non-competitively on a fee-paying basis. Free grammar school places were allocated on the basis of performance in a competitive 11+ exam, open to children from all backgrounds. But, in the 1920s, only about a third of children won free places, many from better-off families. This rose to about half by the early 1930s. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bYuAAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA98&ots=r4yNzhGo21&dq=he%20education%20experience%20of%20the%20adult%20population%20of%20England%20and%20Wales%20at%20July%201949&pg=PA98#v=onepage&q=he%20education%20experience%20of%20the%20adult%20population%20of%20England%20and%20Wales%20at%20July%201949&f=false">By the end of the 1930s</a>, boys with fathers in managerial or professional occupations were more than four times more likely to gain grammar school entry compared to boys from skilled manual families – and girls were three times more likely. Compared to children from semi-skilled or unskilled households, the top social groups were five to six times more likely to gain entry. </p>
<p>After the Act, rather than their parents paying for a place, pupils were admitted to a selective grammar or technical school only if they performed well in an 11+ exam, taken by all children at the end of junior school. Those who failed to make the grade were sent to a new type of non-selective school, known as a secondary modern.</p>
<h2>Access did not get fairer</h2>
<p>Our research examined whether or not the 1944 Act made a difference to children who would have been disadvantaged in the earlier era because their parents would be unlikely to be able to pay the required secondary school fees. We compared the chances of gaining a grammar school place among boys and girls with managerial or professional fathers compared to those with skilled manual or skilled non-manual fathers or with semi-skilled or unskilled fathers. </p>
<p>We found no evidence of change among these socio-economic groups in the 20 years following the Act compared with the 20 years prior to it. In other words, there was no improvement in social mobility. This was also the case when we looked at family qualifications. Children from families with at least one parent who had qualifications retained a big comparative advantage in gaining a grammar school place after the Act came into force. </p>
<p>We also examined the relative chance of children achieving formal school qualifications. Both in the early part of the 20th century and after the 1944 Act, grammar schools offered nationally recognised exam qualifications at the ages of 16 and 17-18. For the great majority of children who attended non-selective education, there was virtually no chance of obtaining these qualifications because they typically left school before then. The minimum leaving age was 14 before the Act and it rose to 15 in 1947. Again, we found that the chances of children from poorer home backgrounds gaining schools qualifications was unaltered post-1944 compared to pre-1944.</p>
<p>One possible exception was some evidence of a slight improvement in the number of boys with unskilled fathers who achieved formal school qualifications. But it is hard to pin this down to the 1944 Act alone as our data suggest that the gains were starting to appear for cohorts just before the Act was introduced.</p>
<h2>Why it did not boost social mobility</h2>
<p>Leading <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Selection%20for%20secondary%20education%20and%20achievement%20in%20four%20grammar%20schools&author=A.H.%20Halsey&author=L.%20Gardner&publication_year=1953&journal=British%20Journal%20of%20Sociology&volume=4&pages=60-75">observers</a> in the 1950s noted that poorer working class families were worried that their children would have to forego earnings if they remained longer in secondary education. They were also worried about inadequate maintenance grants. Also, some families did not want their children to enter the sort of occupations typically linked to grammar school attendance, for example banking or teaching. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QYqAAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA160&ots=EjMWsdUIMh&dq=An%20enquiry%20into%20parents%E2%80%99%20preferences%20in%20secondary%20education.&pg=PA160#v=onepage&q=An%20enquiry%20into%20parents%E2%80%99%20preferences%20in%20secondary%20education.&f=false">By contrast</a>, parents in professional or supervisory occupations were more likely to express preferences for grammar school education, a longer stay at secondary school and the need for further education after school. </p>
<p>There was also an emerging view among sociologists in the 1950s and 1960s that the use of IQ testing in the 11+ exam – with a large emphasis on areas such as the use of language, correct grammar and sentence logic – tended to benefit families with relatively highly educated parents. By 1965, the Labour government shifted education policy, moving away from selective grammar schools to a generally more non-selective secondary school system: comprehensives. Given a failure to improve educational prospects among children from less well-off home backgrounds, this switch in emphasis was unsurprising.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137047/original/image-20160908-25237-14ctkzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137047/original/image-20160908-25237-14ctkzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137047/original/image-20160908-25237-14ctkzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137047/original/image-20160908-25237-14ctkzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137047/original/image-20160908-25237-14ctkzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137047/original/image-20160908-25237-14ctkzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137047/original/image-20160908-25237-14ctkzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grammar schools started being phased out in the late 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/myf/5551199662/sizes/l">sleepymyf/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although grammar schools still exist in some pockets of the country such as Kent and Buckinghamshire, in 1998, Tony Blair’s Labour government <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/16/grammar-school-supporters-optimistic-18-year-ban-will-be-lifted/">introduced a law</a> prohibiting the expansion of new grammar schools. </p>
<p>If grammar school education is once again to be expanded, then the onus falls on government to clearly <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/grammar-schools-return-theresa-may-justine-greening-bring-back-selective-education-uk-a7141271.html">spell out</a> why today’s climate offers improved opportunities across all households and how the selection process can guarantee more opportunity to the less well off.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new study has looked at what happend when grammar schools were made free to all children in the 1940s.Robert A Hart, Professor of Economics, University of StirlingMirko Moro, Senior lecturer in economics, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/623702016-07-14T14:44:26Z2016-07-14T14:44:26ZTime for an honest debate about grammar schools<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130443/original/image-20160713-12386-1meowwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Grammar schools: moving with the times. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">michaeljung/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With Theresa May as the new prime minister at the helm of the Conservatives, speculation is already mounting about whether her <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2824689/First-grammar-school-generation-Theresa-sends-strong-message-backing-plans-create-satellite-selective-school-constituency.html">support for a new academically selective grammar school</a> in her own constituency will translate into national educational policy. This will be a big question for her newly appointed secretary of state for education, Justine Greening. </p>
<p>The debate between those who support the reintroduction of grammar schools and those who would like them abolished is a longstanding one with no foreseeable end in sight. In 1998 the Labour prime minister Tony Blair attempted to draw a line under the issue by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34538222">preventing the creation</a> of any new selective schools while allowing for the maintenance of existing grammar schools in England. Before becoming prime minister, David Cameron dismissed Tory MPs angry at his party’s withdrawal of support for grammar schools by calling the debate “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6658613.stm">entirely pointless</a>”. </p>
<p>This is an issue that continues to resurface and recently became even more pressing with the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34535778">government’s decision in October 2015</a> to allow a school in Tonbridge, Kent, to open up an annexe in Sevenoaks, ten miles away. This decision has led to the very real possibility of existing grammar schools applying for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/15/grammar-school-decision-likely-to-spur-more-bids-for-satellite-developments">similar expansions</a>. Whether or not more will be given permission to do so in the years ahead, many existing grammar schools are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/15/grammar-school-decision-likely-to-spur-more-bids-for-satellite-developments">currently expanding their intakes</a>.</p>
<p>This latest resurgence of the debate is playing out in an educational landscape which has been radically reformed since 2010. Old arguments about what type of school the government should favour have little traction or meaning in an education system deliberately set up around the principles of autonomy, diversity and choice. Meanwhile, much of the debate continues to ignore and distort the bodies of evidence on crucial issues such as the effectiveness of selection, fair access and social mobility.</p>
<p>It is against this backdrop that we completed a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131911.2016.1184132">recent review</a> looking at how reforms to the education system affect the grammar school debate and examined the evidence underpinning arguments on both sides.</p>
<h2>Old debates, new system</h2>
<p>Grammar schools have been re-positioning themselves within the newly-reformed landscape. Notably, 85% of grammar schools have now become academies – giving them more autonomy. Turning a grammar school into an academy is now literally a <a href="http://schoolsweek.co.uk/exclusive-grammar-schools-given-tick-box-application-form-to-open-new-sites/">tick-box exercise</a>. Adopting a legal status that ostensibly keeps the state at arms-length while granting autonomy over curriculum and admissions policies has had a strong appeal for grammar schools.</p>
<p>New potential roles for grammar schools have also opened up. We are seeing the emergence of new structures and forms of collaboration, such as multi-academy trusts, federations and other partnerships. Supporters argue that grammar schools can play a positive role within these new structures, offering leadership within the system. Notable examples include the King Edward VI foundation in Birmingham <a href="http://www.schoolsofkingedwardvi.co.uk/school/king-edward-vi-sheldon-heath-academy/">which in 2010 took over</a> the poorly-performing Sheldon Heath Community Arts College. There are also current <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/king-edward-vi-foundation-school-considers-becoming-multi-academy-trust-after-successfully-taking-a6872356.html">proposals</a> for the foundation to become a multi-academy trust.</p>
<p>The Cameron government’s <a href="https://goo.gl/4ZvisH">quasi-market</a> approach to making education policy – and that of New Labour before him – has favoured looser and often overlapping structures that allow for a diversity of provision and responsiveness to demand. The central focus is on standards rather than a state-approved blueprint for all schools. This involves intervention where standards are low and expansion where standards are high and there is demand for places. </p>
<p>This policy approach neither supports nor opposes grammar schools – it tries to sidestep the question entirely, leaving many concerns about fair access and the impact of academic selection unanswered.</p>
<h2>Fair access</h2>
<p>A disproportionately small number of disadvantaged pupils attend grammar schools. Contrary to the claims of grammar school proponents, the <a href="https://www.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=97485&p=0">evidence</a> shows that these disparities in intake are not entirely accounted for by the fact that grammar schools are located in more affluent areas nor by their high-attaining intake.</p>
<p>Yet grammar schools (and academies) are in a position to use their control over admissions policies and application procedures to seek <a href="https://theconversation.com/english-grammar-schools-try-to-shake-off-middle-class-bias-23806">more balanced intakes</a> and fairer access should they wish to do so. Whether or not they have the ability or inclination remains to be seen.</p>
<p>The issue of school admissions is a good example of where the public debate has failed to keep pace with the realities of the system. <a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/researcharchive/evidence-effects-selective-educational-systems/">Previous research</a> by the Sutton Trust found that some of the most socially selective schools in the country are comprehensive schools, at least in name.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/may/11/grammar-schools-tory-rightwinger-selection">Pitting comprehensive schools against grammar schools</a>, therefore, only loosely grasps the issue of social selectivity. With its emphasis on school types this distracts from the larger issue: the content of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389388/School_Admissions_Code_2014_-_19_Dec.pdf">school admissions code</a> and how to ensure compliance with it. If more balanced school intakes are desired, the focus should be on rules around admissions and permissible over-subscription criteria for all schools.</p>
<h2>What are grammar schools the answer to?</h2>
<p>Much of the current debate is predicated on the superior effectiveness of grammar schools. But the evidence <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131911.2016.1184132">we have reviewed</a> suggests that <a href="https://www.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=97485&p=0">the academic benefit</a> of attending a grammar school is relatively small. Even these estimates are likely to be inflated by differences in intake that are not taken into account in the statistics.</p>
<p>Evidence on selection, both as <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/ces/ifodic/v7y2009i1p26-34.html">part of the education system</a> itself and <a href="https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/setting-or-streaming/">within schools</a> through setting or streaming, suggest there is little overall benefit to children’s academic achievement. The overall effect is, at best, zero-sum and most likely negative, with higher-attaining pupils benefiting at the expense of lower-attaining pupils, leading to an <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-do-grammar-schools-boost-social-mobility-28121">increase in inequality</a>. The <a href="http://www.nosacredcows.co.uk/blog/2867/thoughts_on_grammar_schools.html">question</a> remains whether that is a price worth paying.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Are grammar schools a force for good in England’s reformed education system?Tom Perry, Research Fellow and Lecturer, University of BirminghamRebecca Morris, Lecturer in Secondary English Education/Research Associate, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/492482015-10-16T12:15:24Z2015-10-16T12:15:24ZWhy do grammar schools remain so popular?<p>The education secretary Nicky Morgan has announced <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34535778">her decision to allow</a> a grammar school in Kent to build a new “annexe” providing additional places for 450 girls. </p>
<p>There are 163 existing state-run grammar schools in the UK, which admit pupils based on academic selection – but legislation was passed in 1998 prohibiting the opening of any new grammar schools. Morgan’s long-awaited, but controversial <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2015-10-15/HCWS242/">decision</a> will allow Weald of Kent Grammar School in Tonbridge to expand by opening a satellite school nine miles away in Sevenoaks. </p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/education/articles/story/grammar-school-extension-open-floodgates-labour">criticised</a> about the decision, she <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/15/nicky-morgan-denies-grammar-school-kent-open-floodgates?CMP=share_btn_tw">claimed</a> it would not “open the floodgates” for more grammar schools. </p>
<p>Grammar schools continue to be popular among the general public. A poll published in April 2015 by <a href="http://comres.co.uk/polls/ngsa-grammar-schools-poll/">ComRes found 51% of British adults</a> support allowing new grammar schools to open. Their appeal seems to endure, despite strong research evidence showing that grammar schools <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/papers/2014/abstract323.html">generate inequality</a> and <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v93y2009i7-8p965-973.html">perpetuate privilege</a>. But why?</p>
<p>A key part of the myth surrounding grammar schools is that they are good for social mobility. We know that <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-do-grammar-schools-boost-social-mobility-28121">this is not true</a> – that pupils from affluent families are much more likely to get into grammar schools. But it seems to need just one or two public figures to say that they grew up in a poor family, went to grammar school, and, well, “look at me now”. These anecdotes “prove” that grammar schools help social mobility in the same way that knowing someone who smoked 50 cigarettes a day and lived to be 90 years old “proves” that smoking doesn’t kill you.</p>
<h2>Discipline and respect</h2>
<p>Another part of the reason for the apparent popularity of grammar schools is that they are only half of the story. For ever “winner” who attended a grammar school, there are two or three “losers” who were sent to the old <a href="http://schoolsweek.co.uk/new-grammar-school-decision-how-secondary-moderns-are-responding/">“secondary moderns”</a> where people who failed the 11-plus entrance exam went. I suspect that public opinion would be different if people were asked whether they favoured opening more secondary modern schools. It is inherent in selective systems that you can’t have one without the other – and yet the discussion is only ever about the rosier part of the story.</p>
<p>It may also be that the appeal of grammar schools lies in an image they <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30483031">conjure up</a> of good classroom discipline, tidy desks and respectful pupils. But such an atmosphere is by no means restricted to grammar schools. This is part of the success story of some of the top-performing comprehensive schools. Famously <a href="http://www.mca.mossbourne.org/the-academy-2/welcome/">Mossbourne Community Academy</a> in Hackney has that ethos, alongside a number of the best academy chains. </p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/19/why-no-excuses-charter-schools-mold-very-submissive-students-starting-in-kindergarten/">No Excuses</a>” charter schools in the US take a similar approach while catering for some of the most disadvantaged children in the country and delivering excellent results. There are no selection exams – admission is by lottery (they are very popular).</p>
<h2>The impact of school selection</h2>
<p>Grammar school systems reduce social mobility, raise inequality and make family background much more important for school attainment. The international evidence is clear on this. Comparing across countries, assigning children to different schools by an exam early on in life <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w11124">raises inequality</a>. </p>
<p>Also, this assignment, or “tracking” as it is called in most other countries, from an early age across schools <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp2348.pdf">reinforces the impact of family background</a> on attainment and labour market outcomes and so reduces social mobility. </p>
<p>A number of studies have recently looked at the long-term effects of a switch to a comprehensive school system – without selection based on attainment – in the Nordic countries in the 1950s to 1970s. <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v54y2010i4p483-500.html">Researchers found</a> that the switch to a comprehensive system led to a weakening of the influence of <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/ifs/ifsewp/04-10.html">family background</a> on attainment. Others <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v93y2009i7-8p965-973.html">found that</a> the elimination of a two-track system based on attainment in Finland substantially reduced the dependence of children’s future income on their parents’ circumstances. </p>
<p>Evidence from the UK says the same. Research at Bristol’s Centre for Market and Public Organisation <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/cmpo/migrated/documents/gregg.doc">shows</a> that there are few children eligible for free school meals in grammar schools and that while the marginal pupil (who just passed the exam) in grammar schools does better, the marginal pupil (who just failed) in a comprehensive school does worse. Others have also found <a href="https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/research/publications/working-papers/iser/2014-05.pdf">positive effects</a> on the attainment of those who pass the 11-plus exam and mixed results on longer-term outcomes such as earnings. Other <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/papers/2014/abstract323.html">research</a> from the UK has shown that children growing up in grammar school areas – where some would have gone to a grammar and some to a comprehensive – face much higher earnings inequality later in life than those growing in areas without grammar schools.</p>
<h2>Legal challenges likely</h2>
<p>It seems possible that the Sevenoaks annexe decision will face legal challenge. If it stands, what will it mean? Probably the actual impact in the local area will not be large. If pupil numbers in Kent were static, then more grammar school places would necessarily mean more “winners” and fewer “losers”. In this instance, presumably the pass mark to get into the grammar school would have been lowered so that the classes weren’t short of pupils – this would actually have been good news, evening things up a bit. But pupil numbers are actually rising in Kent – meaning there is competition for places – so this increase in grammar places merely perpetuates the inequality. The <a href="http://www.educationdatalab.org.uk/Blog/October-2015/So-who-will-get-to-go-to-a-grammar-school-if-the-S.aspx#.Vh-oW36rSUl">impact on the local pupils’ chances</a> will not be large.</p>
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<p>The big picture is surely that the present situation cannot last. As Sam Freedman, research director of TeachFirst, said <a href="https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/654557040631791616">on Twitter</a>, it is still against the law to open a new grammar school. Having an “annexe” nine miles distant from the main school is so obviously an abuse of the spirit of this that if more are to follow, surely the law will need to be changed.</p>
<p>And the fact that a decision on the annexe was initially rejected by the former education secretary Michael Gove and was then <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-32786033">pushed back</a> beyond the election date suggests that everyone knows how controversial it was going to be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49248/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Burgess receives funding from ESRC and the DfE. </span></em></p>A new grammar school has been given the go-head in Kent, despite evidence that selective education increases inequality.Simon Burgess, Professor of Economics, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.