Class and Education - Lampl

[Xenia]

In today's FT:

Break down the barriers in English education

By Sir Peter Lampl

English schools are undergoing another major shake-up as Michael Gove removes them from local authority oversight and introduces a broader range of providers. No wonder, then, that the first fortnight of the new school year has been a turbulent one. Many headteachers are angry that Ofqual, the exam regulator, regraded GCSE English papers downwards midyear. Teaching unions are threatening a work-to-rule protest over pay and pensions. And many more schools have become academies, with more control over funding, governance and the curriculum.

This is the battleground of English education. But another piece of news this week was even more significant. On Tuesday the OECD reported that our schools were the most socially segregated among advanced economies. This underlines the biggest problem facing England?s schools: the close relationship between family income and how good a school a child goes to. The result is that children from poorer backgrounds have fewer opportunities to move up the ladder.

English education has improved under successive governments. Standards of teaching, and especially school leadership, are better. There have been significant improvements in London schools, particularly for some ethnic communities. But this is not good enough. We have to outpace other economies, particularly in Asia, that have improved faster. The UK languishes in 25th place in the OECD?s league tables for reading and in 28th place for maths, where Shanghai is now the best in the world. This does not reflect the position of all our young people. Rather it is a stark reminder that levels of social mobility have worsened since the 1960s and remain very low, despite government investment and reform in education.

I believe one reason for this is that governments have focused on structural reform, such as creating academies or free schools, rather than on improving teaching. Yet it is good teaching that really matters. Teachers? salaries account for four-fifths of a school?s costs and this reflects the value they deliver. Research by McKinsey has shown that the world?s best-performing education systems are those with the best teaching. The OECD now rates leadership in English schools highly, but we still have much more to do to improve teaching.

First, we need to attract more of the best graduates to the classroom. Ten years ago I helped establish the Teach First programme in England, modelled on the successful Teach for America programme. Teach First is recruiting almost 1,000 graduates this year from top universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, to teach in inner-city schools for a minimum of two years. Approximately half then leave to pursue other careers.

It has been a great success. But with 36,000 teachers recruited each year, it is only a part of the solution. In Finland and South Korea there are 10 applicants for every teaching place. Here we regard it as a success if every place is filled.

Even more important will be to improve the quality of the existing 440,000-strong workforce. Sutton Trust research shows that English schools could move into the world?s top five education performers within a decade if the performance of the least effective 10th of teachers were brought up to the average.

While improving teaching is crucial, we also have to address inequality in our education system, which has a substantial cost to society and the economy, since it prevents many of the most able children from non-privileged backgrounds from achieving their potential.

The best schools in England are world-class. But they are also socially exclusive. Seven per cent of English pupils go to fee-paying independent schools, which are out of reach for the rest of the population. Another 4 per cent attend the remaining selective grammar schools, which draw just 2 per cent of their pupils from the poorest households. The top-performing comprehensives ? mainly faith schools and comprehensives in well-off areas ? take just 6 per cent of their pupils from the poorest households. This compares with a national average of 16 per cent.

We should address this inequality in three ways. First, we should use random ballots to determine admissions to our urban secondary schools, rather than basing admissions on how close you live to the school or how religious you are. This would ensure a good social mix. Second, grammar schools should select more fairly, attract able students from poorer backgrounds and provide them with the extra help that better-off pupils get in prep schools or from private tutors.

Third, we must open independent day schools to all. Their students are 55 times more likely to win an Oxbridge place and 22 times more likely to go to a top-ranked university than a state school student from a poor household. The absence of poorer students from these universities is a shocking waste of talent.

My independent day school was totally funded by the local authority. Indeed, seven out of 10 independent day schools were principally state funded until 1976 through the direct grant scheme and local schemes.

Between 2000 and 2007, I co-funded a pilot scheme at Belvedere, an independent girls? day school in Liverpool, replacing fees with admission based on academic ability. Parents paid according to means. As a result, a third of pupils paid no fees. Academic standards improved and it was a happy place for pupils of all backgrounds. Moreover, the cost per pupil was less than at the average state school.

More than 80 leading independent day schools would back such a state-funded scheme, which would benefit more than 30,000 able students, whose parents could not afford full fees. It would require selective admissions, which political parties oppose. Yet far from creating new selection, such a scheme would democratise existing selective schools and break down the barriers between the independent and state sectors.

Taken together, I believe that these measures to improve teaching and reduce inequality would transform social mobility and unleash a wealth of talent to fuel our economy. And they would put England in the education premier league.

The writer is chair of the Sutton Trust and of the Education Endowment Foundation "

Frankly, I have no idea whatsoever what class I'm supposed to be in and don't care, but people seem to use upper middle class, middle class and working class these days as a lazy way of more or less saying wealthy professional in a job requiring an academic education or generally wealthy person, preferably with a posh accent, someone doing paper or computer work in which they don't have to get their hands dirty, and someone doing the sort of work that most people would rather avoid plus unemployed people from a working class background.

Oh, and upper class stil means having some kind of impressive title.

I don't think most of us think anyone is unworthy or wrong or despised whether they have a very low IQ or are a different colour or class. However it is facile to suggest that everyone is the same. Obviously some people run faster than others. Some are pretty, some as ugly as sin, some very good at brain surgery, some useless at just about everything. This is just how things are. What one hopes is that we all treat with respect and kindness everyone we come up against. I certainly judge people on how they treat those people from whom they will gain nothing and it is a very good test.

Anyone who thinks others don't categorise them is just plain wrong. The Indians even have brought their caste system over to the UK. All cultures have pecking orders. There's no problem with that as long as you don't peck nastily at those who help you.

Jabed -- 'No one wants to work in a school with loud, outspoken, over familiar, thuggish, disdainful, rude, crude and generally poorly behaved pupils who disrupt learning for everyone. That is the reality of most classrooms in the state comprehensive system these days and it?s caused by the culture of the children, not poor teaching.'

For once, I am inclined to agree. I went to a school that had its fair share of this kind of student, people with a chip on their shoulder against school and teachers and anything to do with literate culture. The teachers were great, well trained, enthusiastic, and a good mix of seasoned vets and newcomers to the profession. All of that was wasted on about one third of the intake. Two thirds flourished.

However, the comments about working class women are sexist and take no account of the issue of incredibly male centric working class society, the effect of that on women's aspirations, or the effect that can have on men's self perception when blue collar jobs disappear.

Communities that have been traditionally disadvantaged are not necessarily the ones where children will do badly. In NI for instance there is a noticeable difference between the performance of working class protestant and Catholic boys, with Catholics doing quite a lot better. They never had a shot at the solid working class jobs but traditionally had to rely on subsistence/labourer jobs, being sahds before the term was invented while Catholic women worked in the linen mills, or Plan C - working hard in school and trying to get a job within the avenues open in the RC community (because doors were closed in the other half and in the civil admin and justice areas). The solid working class jobs that protestants walked into after putting in their time in school, shipbuilding and manufacturing, have disappeared. There is no long-standing culture of academic ambition arising from desperation to sustain that group. Getting places through education, or avoiding starvation through education was always part of the RC culture in NI.

Interesting tables here showing comparative levels of achievement among different ethnic groups in Britain.

The idea that there is only so much room at the top or in the 'middle class' is crazy (and very peculiarly British imo) and amply disproved by the Irish, Finnish, German, American, Russian and Chinese experience during the 20th century (and there are hosts of others). When an economy grows, when people leave traditional subsistence areas of work and move to the paid economy, middle class income and lifestyle follows. (Not necessarily in Communism though Russians were arguably more comfortably off in the 60s, 70s and 80s than in the 90s). The engines that drove those economies were many and varied but education was important for all especially in science and maths for the achievement of the various policy goals, no matter what the motivation of the governments involved.

A big problem is lack of meaningful choice in a multi tiered system.
If you are stuck in a system where catchment areas are rigorously observed and you can't afford to move then you are left facing a very grim reality for your children. Only those who can afford it really have educational choice.

Solutions:
1 - Catchment areas and school fees should be abolished -- people would be free (obv with travel constraints) to choose whatever school they wanted for their children.
OR
2 - All schools should be free and only those that are oversubscribed would be allowed to discriminate among entrants. This would create an informal hierarchy among schools but parents would have something to aspire to for their children and there would be a trickle down effect.
OR
3 - All schools should be free and operated on an inclusive basis, with excellent teachers who are extremely well trained, ample remedial backup and counselling services available (see Finland for example), and nobody would think twice about sending a child to the closest school because everybody did it and it wouldn't mean a child would be at a disadvantage -- and obv no faith or special philosophical interest schools to mess up the inclusiveness.

I like 3. However, for this sort of school system to work in the UK a change in attitude, or providing more counsellors/school psychologists than teachers, and a massive amount of outreach and parental training would be necessary. The first two years of primary would have to be almost entirely given over to social/emotional training, with formal ed beginning at 7 (as in Finland).

My children hugely benefited from a system where social and emotional development was the focus of school until age 6-7 (in the US). They were all early readers and could have moved ahead academically from age 4 but they would have been in a class where the bulk of the teacher's attention was paid, throughout school, to behaviour problems of the other children. Everyone would have been a loser in the end. This approach is a massive leveller of the playing field right from the start. All academic efforts and reforms of the educational structure at later stages are the equivalent of rearranging the deckchairs.

The rush to begin formal academic education in British schools is completely counter productive, and without a rethink of this misguided policy no structural changes can hope to be effective.

3 is good but what about the independents? If you leave them then there will always be those who choose to go down that route as they do in the US, abolishing them is not practical; being 1. impossible to enforce and 2. those who truly believe in independent education especially boarding will take their children to countries where they can get what they want Marlborough has set up a school not a franchise in Malaysia (I think). If independent ed were abolished in the UK others would do the same some already have extensive links with leading academic independent school abroad and it is also not appropriate in a free society. The independents whether in the UK or abroad will sell themselves as different offering better exam results betters university entrance and better extra curricular activities etc oh hang on a minute thats what they are doing now!

I agree with Happy.
You will never abolish private selective education.
China did - that is why all of the top politicians' kids are at school here !

All I ask is that schools that are funded by the state should NOT be allowed to select on academic or religious or any other grounds.
They have to take the children from their local area - and yes, that means some schools will be better than others and house prices will vary - that is the way of the world.
BUT it will stop the insanity that happens in London of kids being driven half way across the city - past lots of other schools - to get to the first choice.

If you want any of those, you have to pay.

"All I ask is that schools that are funded by the state should NOT be allowed to select on academic or religious or any other grounds."
This has to be the solution and working to ensure that all schools raise their anti and improve what they offer to all.
If this ideal was achieved then many I suspect would move their children back into state ed and many two pin independent schools will close leaving just the top I dont know 20, 50, 100, 200 senior schools and associated preps. Then just let people who want to pay pay thats their problem. Ok so the children at these elite institutions will get more opportunities and probably many will come out with better exam results uni places etc but in the grand scheme of the things they will remain in a very small minority.

More state school pupil hating from Jabed, there's a surprise.

Unfortunately, our society has an excellent track record of not treating everyone with respect and kindness - from the top to the bottom of society, we have a long history of finding ways of looking down on each other, one way or the other. People frequently do not respect each other for their different roles - just look at politicians abusing policemen, policemen covering up mistakes and blaming football fans, "hard working people" attacking disabled people for being scroungers, non-teachers telling teachers they have a cushy job with long holidays and whinge too much and are entirely to blame for the current culture in society (as if that's the perception we want teachers to have of their jobs?!!!... do we want to attract people who agree with those sentiments?), indigenous British people making rude comments about Polish workers taking over, employers taking advantage of foreign workers by paying them a pittance to do dangerous work without complying with health and safety regulations, etc. We don't have lots of rules and regulations and red tape for nothing - we have them because people have again and again asked to be trusted and then often deliberately, not accidentally, let down the people who trusted them.

So, what is the best way of creating a respectful society where we can genuinely trust each other, if education is supposed to be the best route, but nobody can actually agree on how to educate anyone else and we all want to be free to choose and be trusted to make the right choices and not just use those choices to perpetuate our prejudices and petty justifications?

And saying everyone has to use their local school doesn't solve anything much at all when society is already as divided as it is - it will probably speed up the process of separation between the rich and interested in education and the poor, regardless of interest in education and thus entrench inequality of opportunity even further. Mind you, the Tories have already started helping there by moving poor people right out of areas with expensive housing, so perhaps soon more people in London will indeed begin to think their local schools are safe... and wonder why their hospitals are so dirty, as the people supposed to be cleaning them are living 100 miles away.

"we don't have lots of rules and regulations and red tape for nothing"
I have recently changed jobs and have left my public sector job the reason; I and my colleagues were and are drowning under the over whelming weight of rules regulations red tape and paper work. When I started many years ago we didn't have all of this stuff but we were trusted and we didn't let down the people we trusted. Dont get me wrong were sections that did but they were places that could operate behind closed doors but most us practiced out in the open under the watchful eye of those we served and dedicated knowledgeable managers. Things were wrong but now things are very wrong!

I see nothing wrong with selective schools. I think trying to abolish grammar schools is the mistake that the government made. They did not complete the job and created the situation we see in London right now where thousands scramble, tuition and test for the few available places. I would want to see MORE free selective schools. Selective on ability. Then class would not matter. More children may be motivated to do well to get into a good school. Or school with the elite intelligent children.

We also as a society learnt to value those with a skilled trade rather than seeing it as the destination for the less able it should be seen as something to be proud of and a destinations for the very able. Schools of all persuasions encourage their children to go to university and get a degree but there are many trades e.g cabinet maker, stone mason, ornate metal worker which are crying out for intelligent capable people to become apprentices. These are dying trades but we will need manufacturing if we are to compete with China and India in the future.

Yes, red tape is harmful for trustworthy people, and defensive medicine is harmful for patients and doctors, but untrustworthy people and bad doctors are also bad for everyone. Ironically, red tape is supposed to try and persuade people to regain trust in a damaged reputation, but it normally just hangs around like a painful reminder of the past history of your chosen profession and takes up so much time and energy that people can no longer do their jobs properly, so people then have reason not to trust you (but at least you have a paper trail...).
A lack of checks and balances and too much trust has done colossal harm to the banking industry and in turn to the whole world. Time and again we swing from removing red tape to replacing it with different types of tape, all to protect ourselves from people who abuse trust to benefit themselves.

It would be interesting to see what sort of proportions of stone masons, cabinet makers, ornate metal workers, animators etc, come from private schools and what proportion come from state schools and how they managed to get to be doing what they are doing.

I had a lovely time going around the WB Studios tour of the Harry Potter set a couple of months ago and was amazed at some of the fascinating working lives that some people have carved out for themselves.

Chinese pols' kids are in the UK for the brand value and to learn to communicate well in English before heading off to Harvard. Would British kids really end up elsewhere and if so, where -- S Korea? Shanghai?

Look at Finland for an example of egalitarian ed plus a sane approach to early childhood ed. Plus doing away with the 'what about independent schools?' by act of legislature.. It depends to a high degree on a shared egalitarian ideal to work, so possibly Britain, which is so class ridden, and where nobody wants to give up whatever tiny advantage they think they can gain by retaining the stratified system would not be the best candidate.

'Unfortunately, our society has an excellent track record of not treating everyone with respect and kindness - from the top to the bottom of society, we have a long history of finding ways of looking down on each other, one way or the other.'

Britain in a nutshell.

Good points, mathanxiety.
Are there lots of Finnish children in British independent schools?

Maybe Eton could move to Moscow.

As a country we built our fortune on the back of gross inequality and sold it as a winning package to the rest of the world. Provision for the grossly wealthy is one of our best earners, so it's quite hard to create a more equal society when that's not what we're trying to sell to everyone else.

I Don't think we would like communism ( create a more equal society). We want a more fluid society where class can be overcome by hard work. Something more like the opportunity America gives to its citizens would be good.

There are good things about the US, but it sucks in many, many ways. I do not think it would be at all good to be like the US - the more like the US we become, the worse people seem to behave. Mind you, it is very profitable for the illegal drug trade and arms manufacturers.

We don't have to take everything the USA has to offer. Just because we take their free trade and opportunist culture does not mean we need to buy guns along with it and abolish the NhS.
Not every society is perfect but we can try and make ours that way by taking the best bits that work for us and our culture to make ours even better.
Life is not black or white or all or nothing.

I would also take the us immigration system. The points system where educated. Immigrants are encouraged but poor skilled are discouraged.

Maybe the US is the victim of its own success. It has expanded as it has let immigrants in and given people opportunities and now realises it can't expand forever and has the little issue of a growing number of people who don't contribute much and won't leave, because only the get-going get going.