The big divide is whether you benefit your own child or sacrifice it for principle (principle which in my view is a wrong principle anyway). Most of us seek to benefit our own children. That's where our moral duty lies.
There are a lot of comps which select by house price anyway so those parents buying in the leafy suburb are doing exactly what those of we women who pay school fees do - which is the morally good thing - benefiting our child.
The papers today have some articles about more and more comps having entry by random lottery which is the logical conclusion of one side of this argument.
" Tens of thousands of children face losing the automatic right to a place at their local secondary school amid a surge in the number of comprehensives using lottery-style admissions policies.
Figures show that around one-in-12 schools employ rules designed to engineer a more balanced student body and break the middle-class stranglehold on places.
Research by the Telegraph reveals that the number of highly oversubscribed secondary schools employing lotteries or “fair banding” systems rises close to 100 per cent in parts of London.
Across England, half of councils confirmed at least one school used them.
The shift is being driven by an increase in the number of academies and free schools that control their own admissions policies – independent of local council control.
The head of one major academies chain told the Telegraph that it was no longer “inherently fair or good for our society” to allow parents to move into the catchment area of a top school to secure a place.
Just a week before almost 600,000 children across England are allocated secondary schools for September, Sir Daniel Moynihan, chief executive of the Harris Federation, said it was wrong for an academy in an affluent area to “take its entire intake from right next door because it would be socially exclusive”.
A report to be published this week by the Sutton Trust will also reinforce the case for dismantling traditional catchment areas, saying access to the most popular comprehensives should “not be limited to those who can afford to pay a premium on their mortgages or rents”.
But the disclosure will provoke an outcry among parents who fear children’s futures are being dictated by the “roll of a dice”, with pupils often being turned away from a nearby school in favour of one several miles away.
Janette Wallis, senior editor of The Good Schools Guide, said: “Lotteries for school places are unpopular with parents. It makes school allocation feel excessively random and you end up with the awful cases of children who live on a school's doorstep being given a school across town.
“Most parents we talk to prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't.
The Department for Education said admissions were run by individual schools or councils but insisted places “should be allocated in a fair and transparent way”.
Parents will find out which state secondary school their children have been allocated as part of National Offer Day on Monday, March 3.
Most schools have traditionally allocated places based on distance between a pupil’s home and the school gates. It has allowed wealthier parents to buy property close to the best schools to secure places, with research suggesting that living in the catchment area of a highly sought-after institution can add an average £31,500 “premium” on to house prices.
But admissions guidance first introduced by Labour allows institutions to employ a series of measures designed to break the stranglehold.
Lotteries – or “random allocation” – involve some or all applicants having their names drawn from a ballot, giving pupils living several miles away the same chance of a place as those next door.
The “fair banding” system sees all applicants sit an aptitude test, with a set number of bright, average and low-ability pupils being admitted. Schools usually use distance or a lottery to decide who gets a place within each ability band.
Mrs Wallis said many parents "find fair banding complicated", but insisted it was preferable to straight lotteries because "its goals are clearer".
Last week, the Telegraph obtained data on the admissions policies of more than 1,400 schools – 43 per cent of those nationally.
Half of local authorities surveyed said at least one school in their area used lotteries, fair banding or both.
In total, eight per cent – one-in-12 – of the schools identified employed these admissions policies. Twice as many used fair banding as lotteries.
Extrapolated nationally, it would result in more than 260 schools using them.
Controversially, Brighton Council introduced rules in 2007 requiring all local oversubscribed schools to allocate places using random allocation.
The Coalition has since banned local authorities from imposing city-wide admissions lotteries.
But figures obtained by the Telegraph show that lotteries or banding systems are used by large numbers of schools in some areas to allocate places for this September.
In Hackney, east London, 10 out of 15 schools employ fair banding and two – The Petchey Academy and Mossbourne Community Academy – use both systems.
Ten out of 13 schools in Greenwich and 13 out of 17 in Tower Hamlets use banding. In Southwark eight schools use banding and two use lotteries, while in Kensington and Chelsea, three out of six schools use banding and two employ lotteries.
Outside the capital, it emerged that six school in Northamptonshire are using banding. This includes two – Northampton School for Boys and Northampton School for Girls – that use both banding and random allocation.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Sir Daniel said all Harris secondary academies used banding and two also employed lottery systems.
“I don’t think there is anything inherently fair in saying, ‘if I live right next to a school I need to get a place’,” he said.
“We have got some schools in quite affluent areas where there are multi-million pound homes – think Crystal Palace – and it would be wrong for that school to take its entire intake from right next door because it would be socially exclusive.
“So it uses fair banding and a lottery to take its children from a wider spread and that seems fair.
“I don’t see why it’s fair for someone living a quarter of a mile away to have a smaller chance of getting in than someone who’s next door because they can pay higher house prices.”
This week, a report from the Sutton Trust will show the full extent to which random allocation and banding is employed within England’s state education system.
It will recommend the adoption of a national banding exam for schools that choose to use the system – ending the current policy in which secondaries use a myriad of different tests.
Conor Ryan, the trust’s director of research, said: “Access to the most popular comprehensives should not be limited to those who can afford to pay a premium on their mortgages or rents. Banding or random allocation can allow pupils to access these schools from a wider area, and this can mean fairer admissions in heavily oversubscribed inner city schools.”
The latest issue of The Good Schools Guide – released this month – says lotteries “are starting to appear in popular city schools”, adding that there is “no known way of working this system to your advantage and when lots of schools in an area ballot for entry it can lead to parents having no effective influence on where there child goes”.
A DfE spokesman said: “More and more parents have the choice of a good school place thanks to our reforms – the number of children in failing secondary schools has fallen by a quarter of a million since 2010.
“We have turned these schools round by allowing outstanding sponsors and brilliant heads to lead them. We have given our teachers the freedom to teach the way they know works best. We are introducing a rigorous new curriculum and tough new exams that will match the world’s best. We are also allowing good schools to expand and great new schools to open where parents want them.
“The new admissions code is clear that all school places should be allocated in a fair and transparent way.” "
www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10654688/Lotteries-used-to-break-middle-class-hold-on-school-places.html