We do actually have private schools, it's just that many of them are also partially funded by the state. And the Academy programme which Gove is pushing is, in effect, one that turns current state schools into private ones.

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I don't really see why.

That's just how it is. People have done studies and things. I know that I personally can't do either, and here I am, nevertheless.

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We do, it's called "university". Plus, nothing in Goves argument about "other options" - only about a nostalgic returen to the "good old days" of selection.

Which poor brainy kids can't get into because they went to a comprehensive where everyone is equal, and came away without the requisite A Level grades. Meanwhile, bankers' kids who'd make excellent plumbers are spending five years on a Creative Arts degree at Exeter.

But none of this matters, as long as we all wish really hard that egalitarian education worked properly. Our good intentions will pave the way to paradise.

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Well, who pretends it's the same for everyone? That's a complete straw man: the objection is that Gove is seeking to make things worse not better. Surely what everyone except these elitists would like to see is a high quality universal education system.

I'd like everyone to have a Porsche too. Then we could race 'em on the M1.

Wishing will make it so.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

But none of this matters, as long as we all wish really hard that egalitarian education worked properly. Our good intentions will pave the way to paradise.

Well, why doesn't it? Your argument is tantamount to claiming that poor kids are just simply intellectually inferior, can never be taught the kind of things that rich kids can be taught, and should be trained to be the servants of the truly importnant because that is the highest peak to which they can aspire.

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Wishing will make it so.

No, DOING IT will make it so. You're arguing that not only should we not make an effort, but that we should actively work against it.

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Well, why doesn't it? Your argument is tantamount to claiming that poor kids are just simply intellectually inferior, can never be taught the kind of things that rich kids can be taught, and should be trained to be the servants of the truly importnant because that is the highest peak to which they can aspire.

No, my argument is claiming that some kids are just simply intellectually inferior, can never be taught the kind of things that others can be taught, and should be trained to do other, less intellectual jobs, because that's the most efficient way of using our resources.

I'm advocating an aptitude-based selection system. You're the one that wants to stick to the old wealth-based selection system. Oh sure, you guys are working towards excellent education for all, but that's cold comfort to a brainy kid who's bunking off his inner city comprehensive right now.

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No, DOING IT will make it so. You're arguing that not only should we not make an effort, but that we should actively work against it.

I'm arguing that, rather than giving everyone a Porsche and making them become racing drivers, we should only give them to the people who are the best drivers in the first place.

This would mean that I, personally, wouldn't get one, of course. But maybe the money we save could be spent on giving me something more suited to my skills and preferences.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

No, my argument is claiming that some kids are just simply intellectually inferior, can never be taught the kind of things that others can be taught, and should be trained to do other, less intellectual jobs, because that's the most efficient way of using our resources.

In which case the appropriate resopnse, as many people have often argued, is to have proper vocational training, and to no treat as some sort of dispointing dumping ground for the kids of the poor. In other words, precisely the opposite of the Grammar school approach.

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I'm advocating an aptitude-based selection system. You're the one that wants to stick to the old wealth-based selection system. Oh sure, you guys are working towards excellent education for all, but that's cold comfort to a brainy kid who's bunking off his inner city comprehensive right now.

No you're not, not if you're defending Gove's aspiration to reinstitute the grammar school system, under the guise of "academies". Because comprehensive do have duties to serve the local population, while academies have a free hand on selection, and have already been shown to select disproportionately for wealthy families.

I've never opposed giving students appropriate education; that explicitly exists in the O and A level structure, even if implementation could be better. But Gove is saying that INSTEAD of trying to make universal education better, or more appropriate for individuals, the best approach is to let a bunch of de facto private schools cream off the best students, and to dump the rest.

If you're in favour of appropriate schooling for all students, you should be against this proposal.

Grammar schools worked. Now we must reinvent them | Roy Greenslade | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

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Melissa Benn is concerned about the creeping return of the grammar school. Thirty years ago I would have been nodding vigorously in agreement. For a considerable time now, however, I have been in the process of changing my mind: did people like me, both a beneficiary of a grammar school education and also a vociferous critic of it at the time, make a grave error? My thoughts coalesced when I was questioned while taking part in a BBC4 documentary, The Grammar School – A Secret History (to be next screened on Thursday at 9pm). This was a much more difficult U-turn for me than many because I wrote a book in 1975 about my former school, Dagenham County High (now defunct), entitled Goodbye to the Working Class. I was extremely critical of the school specifically and grammar schools in general. Though I do not recant everything, including the book's overall thesis, I now concede that I totally underplayed the value of the education itself. Indeed, when I bump into old boys and girls, the majority of them extol the virtues of the school and the education system which gave them – the sons and daughters of largely blue-collar workers – the chance to take a step on the ladder to a better life. Part of the baby boom generation, we did have the advantage of leaving school in the mid-1960s, when new job opportunities were opening up. But the relative ease of entry was down to our education. The social mobility "narrative" that Benn scorns was a reality, as my study of my 120 peers illustrated. Although only 6% went direct from school to university, the overwhelming majority of them entered office jobs that led to stable, well-paid occupations in academia, advertising, banks, stockbroking and the upper echelons of various police forces. Let's make it clear: selection at 11 was wrong. Consigning people at that age to a second-class education in secondary schools was also wrong. I do not wish to see us go backwards. I supported the transformation to comprehensive schooling in the egalitarian belief that we should dispense with a two-tier state system (the third tier, technical schools, never worked anyway). But I now accept that we should not have rejected the educational ethos of grammar schools. As the testimonies in the documentary illustrate, they did a fine job. In phasing them out, we dumbed down instead of smarting up. And those grammars that have managed to survive prove the point. Benn is right when she quotes from the 1963 Robbins report that only 1% of the children of semi-skilled or unskilled workers went on to higher education. But the figures are a misleading snapshot. The full picture, more clearly drawn from my interviews 10 years after we left school and from my annual meetings with old pupils, reveals a much more complex result. There were economic reasons for many not going on to university, allied to the fact that obtaining a place was difficult because there were fewer universities at the time. Most significantly, the schooling itself provided a springboard to the professions and led many to go to university later, as mature students. Benn is wrong to cite another set of statistics, from a Sutton Trust report, because she has been overly selective. It showed, she wrote, that the existing 164 grammars are "among the most socially exclusive schools in England". In fact, the report argues that Britain's top 164 comprehensive schools are much more socially selective than the grammars. The top comps only take 9.2% of children from income-deprived homes while the grammars take 20%. They are more inclusive, says the report, because they admit 13.5% of children from poor homes. I am not pleading for the return of the 11-plus, though at least its form of selection was transparent. Today, there is both academic and social selection by stealth. We who still believe education to be the best ladder up from the bottom know that grammar schools – and particularly the disciplined culture they cultivated – worked. The trick is to reinvent them, not to dismiss them altogether.

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