Do Cameron's critics really want grammar schools?

Are David Cameron's critics really in favour of introducing a grammar school system? This may seem an odd question to ask, but reading their words carefully, I am not sure that they are.

So what, exactly, is this argument all about?

David Willetts' speech, arguing against the creation of new grammar schools, made some people very angry. But not really because they want grammar schools everywhere. Ben Brogan has it right:

His densely-argued speech, as always elegant and interesting, has terrified MPs who believe he has passed a death sentence on the existing 164 grammar schools by making a strong case for their abolition. If, as he suggests, grammar schools are no longer justified, why should they be allowed to exist? The fear is his assessment will be used by campaigners to launch a fresh wave of referendums for closure.

The activist anger about the speech is strongest where people already have grammar schools, not where people want to have them.

On Saturday, for instance, the Daily Telegraph, whose columnists have been strongly critical of the Willetts/Cameron position, set out its position in an editorial. And did not argue for a grammar schools system to be introduced.

Here's what they said:

Mr Cameron has never been keen on the old model of secondary education: the words "grammar school'' may work wonders in Tory seats, but folk memories of the brutal 11-plus have the opposite effect on crucial Lib Dem swing voters. So if David Cameron wants to criticise and change the old "sheep and goats'' system, that is fair enough.

What is not fair enough is for the Tory education spokesman to appear to trash the ethos of aspirational education. The Conservatives should come up with a new model of state school, offering maximum parent choice and streaming at all levels.

As they must surely be aware, this is exactly what David Willett's has announced.

Comments

[michael]

Fine Daniel. Willetts is an elegant thinker and does get down to detail very well. The issue for many of us grammar school graduates from the old days is that there are fewer grammars than their used to be - and they worked better than the current offerings. In my home town of Salford, the CofE Salford Grammar ceased to exist over 30 years ago and the Catholic De La Salle Grammar ceased admisssions in the late 1970's. Nothing of a comparable standard has replaced them in the borough. These schools educated poor kids and told them they were gentleman (probably for the first time). Unless private education is scrapped, comprehensive methods will fail the poorest. Rather than raising, comprehensive education has razed standards. Willetts is right that independence will help. But believe me, the words grammar schools would work wonders in Labour seats too.

[David Moss]

On 16 May, David Willetts announced an education policy which, according to you, Conservative supporters like, and there was a train wreck.

On 17 May, Alistair Darling announced the closure of 2,500 post offices, a decision no-one likes, and yet there was no train wreck.

Why the difference? Conservative supporters hadn't had their expectations properly anchored? The education policy wasn't properly framed between less attractive alternatives? Perhaps. One way and another, it was a marketing disaster.

It's hard to remember, but only 19 days ago the Conservatives did rather well in the local elections and Labour did very badly. A return to multi-party politics in England seemed, at last, to be on the cards.

Since then we have had David Cameron telling his own supporters that they are delusional and not to waste his time in pointless argument and you telling them that they have no right to be angry.

Back to the business school case studies with you, Sir, to work out how to deal with the marketing disaster. Hint: Perrier did not try to tell people that they really wanted poison in their water.

And if you don't get it right quickly, the one-party state beckons.

http://dematerialisedid.com/BCSL/Hilton.html

[jimmy]

Peter Hitchens does a good job on this subject at http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2007/05/lessons_in_gram_1.html I recommend reading it all, since the analysis continues well beyond the anecdotal piece at the start.

As it appears to me, the Conservatives are being controversial for no better reason than that it gets them in the news.

Obviously they hope the coverage will help their image in the sense that they are seen to be thinking new thoughts, and leaving their "old ways" behind. But this is pure media music.

Common sense says that if you have a school system that is proven to have good result, the way forward is to repeat the pattern, not invent a new one.

Or, in Hitchens' well-judged analogy:

"The grammar schools worked well for those who went to them. But not enough children did go to them. To look at the old tripartite system in 1965 and to conclude that the best cure was to shut the grammar schools is like looking at a patient with gangrene in his right leg, and proposing to cure him by sawing off his healthy left leg."

Kind regards

[William MacDougall]

You're mistaken. The manifestos for the last three elections permitted an increase in selection. That is highly desirable, and that policy has now been reversed. And it is a step too far for conservatives whose patience has been wearing thin.