A False New Dawn for Grammar Schools

It is being incorrectly stated by many media that a new grammar school is to open in Kent. That would be illegal, and the ���new school��� is only allowed in the form of an ���annexe��� to an existing school. In most of the United Kingdom, where academically selective secondary schools were vandalised and destroyed by egalitarian fanatics 40 or 50 years ago, this dodge is impossible. There is nothing to which to ���annexe���. In any case, David Cameron and Nick Morgan (both privately educated)  are themselves opposed to academic selection. Mr Cameron himself (like many influential left-wingers who use exceptional and anomalous parts of the state system to preserve their political image) has managed to get his child into a wholly untypical and highly selective single-sex London secondary school, of a sort wholly unavailable to 90% of the population.

 

 

For a full explanation of the ���selection by ability versus selection by wealth or public piety��� argument, please go to page 167 of this excellent Civitas pamphlet, where I ask 'Why is Selection by Wealth better than Selection by Ability?' and demonstrate that (though selection by wealth and public piety is the preferred policy of our elite) it is not better. 

 

http://www.alansmithers.com/reports/InsAndOuts.pdf