My mother went to the local catholic church during the early years of my life. Though she had some vague belief in an afterlife and on that reason would call herself religious, the reason for her sudden uptake of church participation had little to do with her belief in the divine. What caused her sudden interest?
The real reason was because she wanted to get me into one of the best primary schools in the town which favoured applicants who were raised catholic. My mother wasn’t alone in this tactic – almost a third of professional parents say they know someone who had attended church services in order to get into religious schools.
Those in higher social brackets use more extreme tactics in order to get their children into the best state schools. One fifth of parents from the highest social group say they know someone who had bought or rented a second home in the catchment area of a good school. Furthermore, a total of 16 pre cent of parents said they know someone who has used a relative’s address in order to get their child into a top state school.
Peter Hitchens encapsulates this in his book, the Cameron Delusion:
“As many middle-class parents know – The Blairs among them – there is a good deal of secret selection in the officially comprehensive school systems. The simplest way to take advantage of this, if you have the money, if to move into the catchment area of one of the few remaining first rate state schools, usually former grammar schools. This is what one powerful and wealthy London Left-wing couple did. They relocated from Bayswater to Camden, at enormous cost, so their daughters could attend the Camden School for Girls, whose catchment area is roughly a quarter of a mile from the school gates.”
To quote Milton Friedman:
“One of the greatest mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results”.
Despite the attempt to create a school system which would value every student equally, in practice these egalitarian reforms have just led to even more inequality between low income and higher income students. The attempt to create an equal education system has unintentionally led to further segregation.
The utopian belief that every single student can receive education of equal quality is simply unrealistic as there will always be natural disparities. However, instead of these disparities being based on intelligence and hard work, they are now based on their parents’ income and postcode.
This disadvantages low-income students and students whose parents aren’t aware of the secret selection processes in order to get them into a good school. We still very much have a system where a student’s education quality is based on their parents’ income, however much the champaign socialists try to veil it as otherwise.
How is this system where students are subject to a postcode lottery fairer than an entrance exam which determines their education? At least with entrance exams, any capable student from lower income background would receive a higher quality education. Instead, the current system sees the effects of a policy that strives towards equality over meritocracy.
