Labour’s latest ruse on education is to draw attention to the secondary modern schools. They imply that the sector is in need of rescue because of poor examination results. Once again Ed Balls, the Education Secretary, claims that this is not an attack on secondary moderns but a consequence of the grammar schools reluctance to just go away and permit Labour to claim education Nirvana.. These efforts are risable. What Mr Balls fails to understand is that secondary moderns exist because of grammars, they are the complementary partner in a selective system but collectively their results outperform the comprehensives.
Why is it that Mr Balls is attacking the two best performing sectors of the state education system while ignoring the problem child?
First because of inherited bias. His father, a teacher, hated grammars.
The second is to attempt deflection away from the failures of the city academies and specialist schools programme.
Out of 638 failing schools, 436 are specialist schools.
26 are academies.
The rebranding of cpmprehensives as academies and specialist schools, foolishly backed by the Cameron Tories to hide their difficulties over failing to backgrammars has produced the same familiar picture – one of an education system floundering under poverty of aspiration.