Elephantstrunk

Tory policy group moots scrapping school catchment areas
“If youre living on a rather poor estate, let us say, with one rather failing school on it, or one very unpopular school on it, then you dont really have a choice of good education unless you can go outside your catchment area,” co-chairwoman Baroness Perry said.

The peer, a former chief inspector of schools, told Today: “What I would like to see is that the same choice that middle-class parents have, when they can sell their houses, move and get near a good school, I want that same choice for everyone.”

I’m sure that Baroness Perry is also quite keen on motherhood and apple pie and bussing surprisingly has some respectable defenders but there is little acknowledgement of the difficulties and costs involved or description of the admission system it is meant to support. The interviewers may have a lot to do with that.

Bussing, sending kids from poor parts of town to schools in places where there are good schools and at least threatening to send kids from posh parts of town to poor areas is locking a stable door after a horse has bolted and causes as many problems as it solves. Is a child’s commute of no importance? Why bother supporting a school if its shortcomings can be dealt with by choosing a different school? Who is going to ship kids to the schools that other kids are being shipped out of? Schools only have so much potential as tools for social engineering, look at A levels for example. As this Guardian piece suggests she seems to be rather behind the times.

Still, whatever they say about Southbank University, she has a track record that demonstrates a commitment to fair access and it is refreshing to see Tories coming at the issue from this direction. It is certainly better than the Labour Party rebuttal which made me feel dirty just in the reading. Criticising the opposition for supposedly having the same policy for three elections isn’t really engaging in debate and although related and possibly part of the Tory agenda not touched on in the BBC interview, the surplus places rule is not what Baroness Perry was talking about. They didn’t make the point that the surplus place rule is at least in part a funding issue. Real flexibility will only come when there is at least temporarily funding for excess places.
Now Alan Milburn, (why does anyone listen to him?), is suggesting vouchers. Fiona Millar, again, makes good points but I think that it is important that the reason that good schools don’t want students from poor areas is not directly because they are poor but because many of them will not be good students.