Every few years, the grammar school debate resurfaces. It arrived in the Conservative leadership contest, it appears in think-tank publications, and it generates more heat than almost any other education policy question.
The debate is striking for the disconnect between the strength of feeling it generates and the weakness of the evidence marshalled by its proponents.
What the Research Shows
The evidence on grammar schools is unusually consistent for an education policy question. Selective systems do not improve average educational outcomes. They improve outcomes for those who attend grammar schools while reducing them for those who attend the secondary moderns or comprehensives that serve the non-selected majority.
Since the selected group is socially unrepresentative — wealthier children are dramatically over-represented in grammar school places, controlling for academic ability — the net effect of selective systems is to transfer educational advantage from poorer to richer children.
The International Comparison
Britain's highest-performing schools — Michaela, King Solomon Academy, and a handful of others — operate within non-selective systems. The highest-performing national systems in the world, from Finland to Singapore, use selective elements sparingly and strategically.
What the Proponents Actually Want
The persistence of grammar school advocacy, in the face of evidence that should long ago have settled the debate, suggests that the real motivation is not educational improvement but class reproduction.
