No child left behind

The Conservatives think that education is about selecting the lucky few, says Ed Balls. But there is no reason why excellence and opportunity shouldn’t be for all

It’s just over a year since David Willetts made his thoughtful but ultimately fatal pronouncement: ‘academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it’. Those nine words — anathema to most Conservatives — led to a civil war inside the party, a messy U-turn and the reshuffling of Mr Willetts to a new job.

The issue of whether the Tories would change the law and support new grammar schools being built — such as the one being proposed in Buckinghamshire — remains unresolved. So far the shadow schools secretary Michael Gove has carefully avoided giving a clear answer that would reopen last summer’s wounds — though we keep asking.

I won’t dwell on the grammar schools row — but the question of whether you should seek to entrench advantage and opportunity or spread it more widely remains the crucial debate in education policy today.