Selective Schools and the Four Types of Silence

I’ve long felt that allowing some schools to choose which children they admit, based on the results of an intelligence test, is something of an elephant in the room. It’s clearly not right, but no-one seems to want to talk about it. So it was with great interest that I read John Bercow’s great ‘coming out’ in the Guardian last Saturday as an opponent of academic selection and supporter of comprehensive education. It's notable firstly because this is someone who has nothing to gain from taking this stand. As he himself points out, “vast swathes of the local electorate [are] pro-grammar schools, particularly my Conservative voters”. He will not endear himself to many people with this article, and will anger quite a few. But what struck me most is his frank astonishment at how little attention anyone was giving the matter.

“In retrospect, it is extraordinary how very few representations I received against the selective system in my 22 years as an MP, given that only 25% of any cohort of children will pass the 11-plus. I received barely a handful of letters protesting at the system and was lobbied directly only once, by two Labour supporters who did not have children. When parents did approach me, it was usually to seek my help to get their child into a grammar school.”

Every year tens of thousands of children from affluent middle class homes are ushered through the doors of prestigious schools that get the highest grades in the country. Local children who don’t pass the test, including many with learning difficulties and other special educational needs, are not permitted to attend. To families living nearby, families who have struggled financially, educationally, the doors to these selective schools remain firmly closed. Their children are told they need to look elsewhere, go further afield.

It should be illegal. I sometimes wonder if it might be. I hope that one day we will look back on this segregation of children the same way we now look back at racial segregation of children in 1950s America. But for now, Bercow's comments point to a deafening silence on the matter. Why?

I’ve recognised four types of individual in this debate, and four reasons why they are keeping quiet. I see them in a crude quadrant, showing on one axis the type of school they attended, and on the other whether or not they were successful there. 

Type 1 went to a selective school and have done well. Even if they disagree with it, they are evidently not predisposed to fight against a system that has benefited them up until now and will continue to do so in the future. They are very likely to send their own children to a selective school themselves, and so wouldn’t want to be left open to the charge of hypocrisy that seems to be levelled against people who speak up against a system that advantages people like themselves. They will have close friends and family who are putting their kids through various entrance exams, which could make things awkward. Even though I think the ‘hypocrisy’ argument is deeply flawed, it is probably enough to silence parents who deep down recognise that the system is unfair but who would rather avoid being dragged personally into this fight. So they keep quiet.

Those in Type 2 went to a state school and did well despite the odds perhaps being stacked against them. These are some of the most vocal proponents of selective education. The ‘I didn’t let it stop me’ attitude, ‘if other people did what I did…’ the desire to, having fought their way up, to hold onto the power and status they have earned. The desire to distance themselves from their state educated peers who failed to prosper. Whether they themselves prospered because of or despite the system’s inequity is irrelevant to some extent. The fact is they have ‘earned’ their success, and so it makes sense for them to hold strong to this notion of individual as opposed to societal responsibility. As with the first group, these people are also likely to be very keen to take advantage of any opportunities to selectively educate their own children. If they do have any misgivings about the system, they are keeping quiet about them.

Type 3 is a very small group. The vast majority of people who attended a selective school have come out of it with the success and status that the system is designed to protect for them. If these people are out there, they are keeping quiet. I have yet to come across someone who did not succeed having attended a selective school, who blamed the system rather than themselves. So they keep quiet.

Which leaves Type 4. Those from predominantly working class backgrounds who were never able to attend a selective school, and who have not since accrued anything like the same level of influence or status as their peers who did. This in and of itself makes them voiceless in a society in which the biggest platforms are given to those with the greatest means. This group is not going to line the lobbies of parliament, or media organisations. People are not queuing up to give these people a voice. If anything, they are mocked and infantilised. To the point where, as Owen Jones articulated very well in ‘Chavs’, they are more likely to turn on each other rather than on the system that stacked the odds against them. Structures that used to exist (remember unions?) to give a much more powerful voice to relatively powerless individuals, do not serve this function any more. Instead we are fed a diet of media narratives that emphasise the tremendous success of those who have earned great amounts of money and influence, along with the personal failings of those who haven’t. This group is demonised, atomised, cynical and largely voiceless, and in no position to launch a campaign against an education system designed to keep things this way.

So, as Bercow pointed out, it is currently only a small number of people who are speaking out about the inequity of selective education, and these words don’t appear to be falling on fertile ground. Anything I post on the matter tends to receive far less attention than most of the other stuff I write about. In fact it’s amazing you’re even still reading this.

Comprehensive Future are a very impressive organisation who campaign tirelessly to keep this matter on the agenda. Their forthcoming webinar on December 10th will feature John Bercow. I’m very much looking forward to it. As speaker, he had to use his booming voice to cut through the loud and raucous din of parliament. Let’s see if he can now use it to cut through the deafening silence around selective education.