No parents wish for a school to be put into special measures under any circumstances, but that does not mean that they wish to have their right to express their view about the future of the school ridden roughshod over by a Bill that does not even allow alternatives to be considered, even when those alternatives have been proven to be successful. That is the point. Under the Bill, the Secretary of State will be tied to one single course of action, even when other alternatives are available locally that are supported by parents. We want to ensure that parents have that opportunity. It is clear from the Minister’s attitude—in fairness, he has always been clear about this—that he views any objection to anything the Government propose with regard to academies as being ideologically driven by troublemakers, which is his definition of a parent.
To put it generously, there is no evidence that academy conversion is more likely to lead to improvement in an inadequate school than the adoption of other school improvement measures, which is why we should use evidence to determine the best way forward in what I would hope is a shared desire and passion to improve the quality of education in our schools.
There is a case in general terms for consultation. There is also a case for consultation in particular. Parents should not have particular solutions imposed on them without having some say in the matter. We know from Ofsted—this is despite the efforts of Ministers to prevent Ofsted getting at what is really happening in chains— how inadequate some academy chains can be. Parents are entitled to say that that is not a particular regime that they want for their local schools.
Schools are not gifts that can be dished out to Ministers’ friends, supporters and party donors. Government should not leave themselves open to the charge that they have favourites and will support them regardless of any evidence that has been put forward, because that is what this Bill does. Ultimately, it may be that, after consulting the Government, schools may decide that it is right to follow the initial path that they propose, but not to consult at all is wrong in principle.
Finally, I have a few words to say about amendment 11. I do not have time to comment on many of the other new clauses and amendments, but I will comment on amendment 11, tabled by the hon. Member for Altrincham
and Sale West (Mr Brady) and others. It is about the creation of new selective schools, albeit in the form of academies.
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I wish to make it clear that it is the Opposition’s view that a system of selection at 11 is not the way to raise school standards or to promote social mobility. I think that that is also the Government’s policy—I am sure that the Minister will tell us whether that has changed. Instead we should focus relentlessly on supporting schools to raise standards for all pupils regardless of their backgrounds. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby said, the most effective way to do that is through high quality teaching and leadership.
Clear evidence internationally, particularly from the OECD and Andreas Schleicher—whom the Government often quote and who oversees the OECD programme for international student assessment scores—shows that school systems with selection for children at the age of 11, and all that that entails, perform less well than non-selective school systems. Far from promoting social mobility, selective systems entrench social division. The difference in the average domestic wage between the top 10% and bottom 10% of earners is much wider in selective areas than it is in non-selective areas.
Schools that select at age 11 are also highly socially selective institutions. Almost all of the remaining 164 grammar schools in this country have fewer than 10% of pupils eligible for free school meals. In 2010, 96,680 year 7 pupils received free school meals from a total of 549, 725 pupils in state schools. Of the 22,000 grammar school pupils in that age bracket, only 610 were receiving free school meals. It is undeniable that the poorest children lose out, and that is partly because, in some areas, almost everyone who passes the 11-plus has had private tuition of one sort or another.
I will not go into great detail about the evidence from the past: suffice it to say that the rose-tinted view of the selective system in the past is not true. At its height, at the beginning of the 1960s, a third of grammar school pupils got only three O-levels, and only 0.3% of grammar school pupils at that time with two A-levels were working class. It is therefore a myth that grammar schools were great engines of social mobility. There are many reasons for the great surge in post-war social mobility, but selection at 11 is not one of them. That is why the current Prime Minister was absolutely right in 2007 when he said that those who wanted to expand the number of grammar schools were
“splashing around in the shallow end of the educational debate.”
He went on to say that if his party got into this area, it would be in danger of becoming “a right-wing debating society” rather than an aspiring party of government. That is why the current Government have largely held on to the policy of not allowing more schools that select at the age of 11, although they have permitted a loophole to those that he said were
“clinging on to outdated mantras that bear no relation to the reality of life.”
The Government created a loophole to allow the expansion of selective provision by stealth to locations many miles away from existing grammar schools. We wait with interest to see whether, as the press has speculated, the
Secretary of State intends to use that loophole. Given the damage that it does to children’s education overall, we oppose selection at 11 and amendment 11.