21 Sep 2016

Class Politics: Why is Theresa May putting grammar schools at the top of her political agend

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The past two weeks have seen the first signs of an end to Theresa May’s political ‘honeymoon’ as UK Prime Minister. This has not really registered in the opinion polls, where she continues to enjoy a commanding lead over Jeremy Corbyn as the preferred Prime Minister by the electorate, but there has been a shift in mood among certain actors at Westminster and media commentators.

Much of this relates to her decision to make educational reform – including allowing the expansion of and an increase in the numbers of grammar schools – central to her personal political agenda. This was not a stance which Whitehall watchers had anticipated and it has not been executed as effectively as it might have been. It even allowed Mr Corbyn to achieve a rare victory at Prime Minister’s Questions. It was cited (rather implausibly) as a reason for David Cameron’s decision to stand down as an MP.

The bemusement of the chattering classes is, at one level, easy to understand. This is an area of life where a perhaps uneasy but seemingly solid form of peace had been secured. The Education Act 1998 prevented additional grammar schools being created but made no attempt to abolish those that already existed. More of the focus in education over the past two decades has hence been on how best to raise standards in the mainstream comprehensive schools, with, first, the academies, as initially championed under Tony Blair, and then Free Schools, courtesy of David Cameron, being seen as fundamental to the solution. There was a brief attempt earlier this year by George Osborne, then Chancellor, and Nicky Morgan, then Education Secretary, to oblige all comprehensives to become academies but it was swiftly abandoned not least because of opposition from Conservative councils.

Why then would Mrs May want to enter this seeming political quicksand? Media sentiment is that it is ‘out of character’ for an individual who they normally see as a ‘cautious’ soul, is very politically risky in that the Conservatives appear to be divided on the merits of the proposals while all the opposition parties are (for once) absolutely united in their hostility to them, and they may well not be able to acquire a majority to be enacted in Parliament. Justine Greening, the new Education Secretary, does not look wild about the idea either. This initiative is thus deemed to be a ‘mistake’.

Why then has Mrs May, with a majority in the House of Commons of just 12 seats, taken this on?

She believes in it

It is not difficult to be sceptical, even cynical, about the motives of politicians and political parties. There are, though, individuals and innovations which are truly best explained by their intellectual convictions. This is more so for Mrs May than it is for most. She is a politician who has a disdain for those who treat public administration as if were a game or just theatre.

She strongly believes that the outright abolition of the grammar schools in the 1960s and 1970s did more harm than good and led to a polarisation of education, and with it personal opportunity, between the elite public schools, which invariably charged high fees for their places, and underwhelming comprehensive education. Her instincts in this regard are reinforced by the strongly held convictions of her chief adviser (and Joint Chief of Staff) Nick Timothy who is a radical, verging on a revolutionary, on education policy.

There is some evidence to support her convictions

There are few areas of policy in which there is more controversy than attempts to explain varying levels of educational attainment. This is not made more straightforward by the fact that there are relatively few grammar schools in the UK (164 in England and 69 in Northern Ireland) and they are geographically concentrated. There is, nevertheless, some evidence to suggest that if attainment in Buckinghamshire (which has grammar schools apart from in the Milton Keynes area) is compared with that of Bedfordshire and Berkshire (which have comprehensives), then not only do grammar schools outperform the top comprehensives (as one would expect) but that secondary moderns in Buckinghamshire do better in league tables than the typical comprehensive in the other counties.

So while it may be true, as their critics contend, that a grammar school/secondary modern system has a wider performance gap between them than is broadly true of comprehensives (they are less equal), the average performance of both grammar schools and secondary moderns is comparatively high. Similar conclusions can be drawn from Northern Ireland where grammar schools were not scrapped and which consistently does better than any other part of the UK in both GCSE and A-level results.

The initiative is not really ‘out of character’

The notion that Mrs May is ordinarily an ultra-cautious politician who must have had a sudden rush of blood to the head to grasp at the grammar school nettle does not stand up to close analysis. She certainly has a cautious political style but no one at the Police Federation who had to deal with her during a six-year tenure at the Home Office would conclude that she was a risk-averse figure.

The think tank Reform, which campaigns for bold change in public services, consistently considered her to be the most effective minister at delivering change during the life of the 2010-2015 Government. Education policy will not be the only aspect of policy where she will happily ruffle a lot of feathers.

Nor is the Conservative Party that ‘divided’ on the question

A crucial aspect to understanding Mrs May is to appreciate that she is very close to dead centre in terms of the parliamentary Conservative Party and the wider Conservative Party in the country. She also thinks that the collective views of Conservative MPs and of Conservative Party members are consequential and should be respected if not always followed. This places her in stark contrast with her predecessor who was to the left of his parliamentary colleagues and party members on a host of issues and left the impression that he agreed with Arthur Balfour’s remark (on Tariff Reform) that he would rather take advice from his valet than a Conservative Party conference.

There is certainly a section of Conservative MPs, closely associated with the previously dominant Cameron-Osborne circle, who are not in natural sympathy with this shift in policy but whether they would actually be willing to defy their leader, the vast majority of MPs and almost all Conservative Party members and vote with Mr Corbyn and the Labour Party in order to block a change in legislation is very doubtful. They would more probably allow the Bill to go through and hope the House of Lords derails it later.

And in wider political terms it might well be a winner, not a ‘mistake’

When the public is asked whether it supports the essence of this policy, namely that the current grammar schools should be allowed to expand and that councils should have the legal option of building more of them should they wish, the answer has consistently been in the affirmative. Put simply, the policy is popular. It is overwhelmingly popular with Conservative-inclined voters (not a shock) but is also strongly approved by former Conservatives who shifted to UKIP from 2010 and by a notable minority of traditional Labour voters who have been alienated by Mr Corbyn’s leadership

As an issue to assist Mrs May electorally at a time when UKIP may find itself having an existential crisis as Brexit is delivered, when it has replaced a well-known leader with an almost unknown one, and with the Labour Party seemingly destined to endure the agony of the division triggered by the split between Mr Corbyn and the overwhelming majority of his MPs, allowing grammar schools to expand might prove to be a shrewd move and not the ‘mistake’ that many in the media assume. From what we know of Mrs May she is unlikely to allow criticism from such a quarter to deter her.

Tim Hames, Director General, BVCA



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