Civitas has just published an interesting book called The Ins and Outs of Selective Secondary Schools. Edited by Anastasia de Waal, it’s a collection of essays by the usual suspects in the never-ending argument about grammar schools.
De Waal points out that the two sides have more in common than you’d think. In particular, they share a common goal, which is to sever the link between a child’s socio-economic status and attainment. In 2009, according to the OECD, the variance in the scores of British children in the Pisa international tests in maths, reading and science that could be explained by their backgrounds was 13.8 per cent. By this measure, the best-performing region in the world is Macau (2 per cent) and the worst is Peru (27.5 per cent). Britain is close to the OECD average of 14 per cent.
As you’d expect, those who believe in school selection, such as the Conservative MP Graham Brady, argue that clever children from poor families are likely to do better at grammars than comprehensives.
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