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IF Labour is serious about improving social mobility in the professions, I will take its new equality champion, Alan Milburn, up the road from my Islington home to Canonbury Primary School to show him how bad London has got.
Rich and poor pupils mingle in the playground. Boris Johnson sent his children there, as did the manager of Coldplay, who offered a private performance by Chris Martin as a prize in the school's charity auction. The winning bid came in at £5,000, and it is fair to guess it was not made by one of the single mothers from our nearby council estates. The children may be in the same school but they live in different worlds.
Upper-middle-class parents hire tutors to get theirs through the exams of private schools or the few remaining state grammars. Everyone who can afford to play the system does, including our local Labour MP, who somehow managed to divert her children to a selective school in Potters Bar.Meanwhile the poor, the working class and the lower-middle-class are stuck with inner-London's dismal secondary schools. These parents never say that their children will enjoy a life-enhancing education and go on to a professional career, and I do not contradict them.
Suppose, against all odds, a working-class boy or girl were to receive an education in Islington to match that of the upper-middle-class children they played with at primary school. They would then have to go to university and burden themselves with debt. Even after that they would still not find a paid professional job. They would have to become an "intern" on "work experience", a refined version of slavery. I cannot see how graduates without mummy and daddy's subsidies behind them can afford to play this game.
If Milburn wants to change Britain, he must challenge a school system that goes out of its way to stop bright children from modest backgrounds enjoying the advantages of the children of the professional classes. He must instead back a system that selects the best, and isn't ashamed to do so, in order that they get the same kind of education the elite enjoys. In doing so, he will face opposition from the teaching unions and Labour MPs. But unless he does challenge the present status quo, nothing will change.
Reader views (13)
In large part I am in agreement with your article, yet your depiction of Dame Alice Owen in Potters Bar misleads. The former Islington school has honoured its commitment to continue serving Islington's community, and many here istill identify with it.Though you characterise it as selective, it is only very partially so: much of the annual intake is based on post code and siblings (thereby in effect discriminating against only children). Only about 25% enter on the basis of exam results.
Nevertheless,it has retained its popularity precisely owing to the dismal state of the Islington secondaries, leaving next-to-no choice to financially strapped families with academic aspirations for their children. While the new SMM academy looks slick, for families not of an evangelical christian persuasion it is out of the question (also the lack of streaming means many students will either be bored or lost). The unaccountability of academies, along with the utter lack of transparency of the Cambridge Education Authority that runs Islington's outsourced schools, add up to a dire situation. Though grammar schools had problems, compared to today's options they were far more equitable, paving paths to upward social and professional mobility for many non-wealthy children with potential; in 2009 by contrast they have no options, are doomed to be left out, left behind and their potential will never be realised. The ideology driving this putative anti-elitism reeks of hypocrisy.
- Canonbury Parent, london
Nick, I've always been worried you'd fall into that pattern of lefties who become interesting because they challenge left-wing stereotypical assumptions, but after a while become boring because they move into just repeating right-wing stereotypical assumptions. Here you are doing just that.
Why does anyone suppose "bring back the grammars" is going to solve the big problem of the poor expectations and performance of those who aren't in the top 20% who would go to grammar school? Given that inequality has already set in by the age of 10, the vast majority of those in the 20% who would go to grammar schools would be from better off backgrounds anyway.
So why is hot-housing a tiny proportion of kids from poor backgrounds going to solve the big problem of social mobility? It'll snatch a few to bring them up, but a few always manage to make it up anyway. It doesn't solve the big problem of those who are of middlish intelligence, where if you come from the right family background that will pull you up, if you come from the wrong family background that will push you down. Bring back grammar schools and all you'll get is those middle-class middlish intelligence kids in them, and those working-class middlish intelligence kids in the secondary moderns. Which is why the middle class parents of middlish intelligence kids _really_ want "bring back the grammars" and all this stuff about them being to help bright working class kids move up is just a smokescreen.
- Matthew Huntbach, Eltham
The biggest boost to social mobility was the introduction of Gramar Schools. This way people were given advantage purely by their own ability. They didn't need to go to a private school which governs opportunity purely by ability to pay!
As a lucky Grammar school pupil from the 70's I had this advantage, which with a father as a postman would not have happened any other way.
You can't force mobility, but you can offer the opportunity without the need for a deep pocket.
- John Whitby, Peterborough, Cambs
I believe Nick has some very valid points though doesn't go far enough to point out the very material disincentives to achievement. Marginal taxes are well beyond 100% as you improve your lot. Free childcare for your kids is only available if you are state employed or unemployed (so thats at least 10k a year out of taxed income, per child per year...). Housing benefits are huge, which again, you miss out on with an average job. Means testing of pensions and other benefits also affects. University courses, often of poor quality (though seen as a step towards success) saddle young people with debt for 10 years plus, removing any hopes of housing and parenting. A still overpriced housing market driven by a debt-obsessed chancellor means most cannot afford the housing ladder until their mid 30s. Top this off with appalling or non-existent private sector pension provision and you've got a large number of reasons why, we often now hear, "I can't afford to work".
This creates a cycle of poverty. When I was a school in the 80s and early 90s, benefits were not seen as so beneficial so kids from poorer backgrounds worked hard to improve their lot as they had much to gain. This was in the 'harsh world' of Maggie's Britain. It worked though. The trick is not rebalance the outcomes (wealth, quality of life), though to make the game fairer (better schools). This is socialism and Labour's ultimate sin.
- Da, london
Nick says
"Meanwhile the poor, the working class and the lower-middle-class are stuck with inner-London's dismal secondary schools."
Not me. Despite living in E London and being lower middle-class our children don't go to dismal secondary schools. We simply don't bother with school - instead we teach our children ourselves. It makes it all a lot easier.
- Arneson Stidgeley, London
this is not about which school you go to, nor is it about poverty in the traditional sense. it is poverty of expectation and poverty of ambition that keep the british working class where they are.
- Anna, hong kong
it may be that we can't go back, but grammar schools were an exceptional medium for social mobility, I remember grumblings about Oxbridge giving conessions to candidates from private schools to get them in when there were better candidates from state [Grammar] schools. How things have changed.
- Crest, St Peter Port
Unfortunately, it is not just Labour who are anti grammar schools. "Call me Dave" has also confirmed that the Tories won't restore them either. The abolition of grammar schools was one of the most socially divisive measures taken in the sphere of education. Educational opportunities are now dictated by money and your postcode. They retain grammar schools here in Serbia and did so throughout the communist period under Tito. In Britain it was good old fashioned class hatred that closed down grammar schools; heading the charge - the privately educated Tony Crosland.
- Peter Sykes, Pirot, Serbia
Trouble is, the Tories have also said they won't bring Grammars back - so if you live in an area without them and can't afford to go private, you've had it (unless Leafy Lane Comprehensive will take you). It took my family two generations of Grammar School education to rise from factory workers and chronic unemployment to the first one to go to University. Without the Grammar school, the potential of those who were able to benefit from academic rigour would never have been developped.
- Tim, London UK
Bring back Grammar Schools! Of course - and David Cameron would sweep to victory if he only had the guts to take on the educational establishment and go for it!
Parents want more Grammar schools - a recent survey showed that 62% favoured their expansion, and only 7% their abolition.
The worst of all the politicians in terms of this type of hypocrisy is Harriet Harman, who was strongly aganst Grammar schools but sent her son to a top one, because 'it was the right choice for him.' Her daughter was privately educated - I don't know which is the more maddening hypocrisy.
- Liz, London,UK
Well said Joe
- Ians, Dorset
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative & independence.
You cannot help people by doing for them what they could & should do for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln
- Joe, London
So Nick, what you are saying then is "Bring back Grammar Schools " BUT isn't this exactly what the Nulabour nutters abhor ? and should not the Labour politicians who send their children to Grammar, Selective and Private schools be challenged ? why are they allowed to get away with saying one thing and doing another. I read that Geoff Hoon is paying for his daughter to have selective coaching to get her into Oxbridge. Why is he allowed to be a Senior member of a government spouting one thing and practicing another? Hypocrisy rules !
- Michael, London
