No, Jeremy Corbyn does not owe it all to a grammar school.
A highly intelligent, thoughtful and articulate man who is known to be very well-read, he left that institution with two Es at A-level, and he never graduated from the polytechnic to which it sent him on.
He came up via the real old ladders of opportunity, which were powerful local government and powerful trade unions.
We all know when those were destroyed. And we all know by whom.
Social mobility was destroyed by Antony Crosland in 1964-the final nail in the coffin was when they disgracefully shut poor children out of private schools, too, by abolishing the Direct Grant and the Assisted Places Scheme.
ReplyDeleteThat grammar schools drive social mobility is beyond refutation; as Sutton Trust found this year, of the 15 top Local Authorities in England, Wales and Scotland (in terms of getting state-educated children to Russell Group Universities), 12 are fully selective. Including the only one in the North to feature in the top 15; academically selective Salford, Greater Manchester.
Despite only 38 Local Authorities retaining any selection.
How can trade unions be a ladder of opportunity since, by definition, they only represent people who are members of their trade union and who already have a job? Are you thick?
Education is the only proper way of lifting people out of poverty and creating a strong middle class. Always has been, always will be.
Except that that is demonstrably untrue.
DeleteCorbyn is Leader will show that the grammar schools were not that good even for many of the people who got into them.
But the unions and the municipal institutions were there, so that was all right. It was the loss of those, and not of the grammar schools, that was the end. We all know who did that.