COLLES ANGLAIS

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schools and social mobility A new syllabus Plans to let more schools select pupils on ability divide parents and politicians The Economist .com Sep 17th 2016 | THERESA MAY clearly wants to be remembered for more than overseeing Brexit. On September 9th the new prime minister set out plans to build a “truly meritocratic Britain” that stretched “the most academically able, regardless of their background.” The details, presented in Parliament three days later, included some minor fiddles, such as opening more religious schools and getting universities and private schools more involved in state education. But the centrepiece was a big policy shift that delighted some within her Conservative Party and appalled others: away from comprehensive education and towards academic selection. British governments since 1997 have sought to improve education without sorting children by ability. They can claim a big success in London, once home to some of the country’s worst schools, where better teacher training and school management have raised attainment at all ability levels without academic selection. Around 15% of 16-year-old Londoners poor enough to receive free school meals get good enough grades to be on course for a prestigious university; across England the share is just 6%. The new plan to increase academic selection has gone down badly with most educationalists (the chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, called it a “retrograde step”) and even many Tory MPs (who note that it did not feature in the manifesto on which they were elected last year). But others, like Mrs May, thank selection for their own success, and regard fans of comprehensives as hewing to an outdated egalitarianism. Mrs May has identified two real problems: poor social mobility and a failure to stretch able children. Compared with those in other rich countries, British state schools produce few very high achievers. Private-school alumni are over-represented in well-paid jobs. Many British schools are “complacent”, says Andreas Schleicher of the OECD club of rich countries. “What is most striking is not that some schools in poor areas do remarkably well, but that some very privileged schools do so-so.” Proponents of academic selection point out that, in their 1960s heyday, selective state “grammar” schools sent pupils on to university and the professions in droves. Opponents attribute that to economic shifts that created vastly more white-collar jobs; there is no such expansion today. And they cite evidence that children who narrowly failed the 11-plus went on to get fewer qualifications and earn less than those who barely passed. Again, the relevance today is disputed: the “secondary modern” schools which took the children who did not get into grammars failed their brightest pupils in part by not teaching courses that prepared them for university. Nowadays all schools do. In Northern Ireland, nearly half of children still go to grammar schools—and it has more high-attaining school-leavers than other parts of Britain. Moreover, an increase in grammar-school entry in 1989 was followed by one in exam results. Supporters conclude that more grammars means higher attainment; opponents, that if such a big share of children benefit from academic rigour, it should be a feature of all schools. As for England’s 163 remaining grammar schools, a review by the Sutton Trust, a charity, found that they improved the results of the children they taught, but not by much, since their able, well-off pupils would also have done well in comprehensives. For poor children the boost was more marked—but few of them get in (see chart). Other analyses suggest that, overall, a smaller share of poor children get high grades in areas with lots of grammar schools than elsewhere. Mrs May’s plan to increase academic selection would probably boost the number of high achievers. But it would not be “regardless of their background”: most would be from well-off families and if many schools opted for entrance exams, poor children would be harmed. A less flashy policy brought in by her predecessor, David Cameron, might raise standards more widely. Schools will no longer be rated according to the share of pupils achieving five C grades in exams taken at age 16 (which encouraged them to focus on the middle of the ability range) but on the share who do as well as expected given their ability on entry. That will promote high achievement—in every school. 715 words