A report alleging that ‘rogue’ state schools are selecting children on the basis of their parents’ income is published today. In Sins of Admission, Chris Waterman, Chief Executive of ConfEd, a body representing local education authority leaders, argues that if there isn’t a crackdown on school selection - that is, schools selecting pupils – the already gaping achievement gap between better-off pupils and the deprived will widen.
Waterman’s research, commissioned by the Institute for Research in Integrated Strategies, provides evidence that the best-performing schools in the country are closing their doors to the children of less well-off families. Parental interviews are being used to covertly select children from wealthier families, in the hope of boosting league table performance. Waterman’s report points out that by insisting on admissions interviews, these ‘rogue’ schools are undermining the integrity of the admissions process - and with it the very principles of universally accessible education. Waterman shows that parents in the implicated schools have resorted to ‘dishonesty’, in order to get their kids in.
The question is, are these schools correct in their assumption that the better off the child, the better off their position in the league tables will be?
Despite New Labour’s attempts to redress the performance imbalance between rich and poor in education, the association between poverty and underachievement stubbornly persists. Research from 2003 by Feinstein shows that just six months after birth, class differences are clearly manifest in a child’s development. By six years old, the affluent child with low cognitive ability will have overtaken the clever but poor child. Exacerbated by an education system where success is determined on the basis of fulfilling test criteria rather than demonstrating creativity, class and attainment have become inextricable.
However, it is not only class-inherent disadvantage holding poorer pupils back. In March, Peter Lampl, Founder of the Sutton Trust and a key adviser on working-class access to leading state schools argued that ‘too many of the best state schools are middle-class bastions’. He points to the fact that only 3% of those attending the top-performing state schools are eligible for free school meals, compared to 17% the percentage eligible nationally.
An admissions system which can be exploited by the affluent, leaving the poor discarded in sink schools presents a real threat to social mobility. When both affluent parents and schools can select each other exclusively, the choices of the less privileged are even further diminished. Whilst the impact of socio-economic background is a tougher nut to crack, we can at least address the structural impediments to narrowing inequality through education. If the government is committed to equality it must ensure that the already advantaged affluent are not given further advantage in the education system.
Comments (1)
I could have hoped that Civitas would point out another reason why church schools have a slightly more affluent intake than others.
As Civitas have shown, family breakdown and voluntary single parenthood are a major indicator of both poverty and poor academic performance. While there are plenty of divorced mums at my childresn's school gate, it's still likely that the baptised child or child of churchgoers will still have both parents. Conversely the bastard child is unlikely to be baptised or to have parents who follow the Commandments.
Posted by Laban | February 15, 2006 7:20 AM
Posted on February 15, 2006 07:20