Recently articles have appeared in the press and parent groups have demonstrated in front of Asda – this is Clapham – the new front line between the classes! Poor people are outraged that Ark, a very respectable charity run by bankers (more later), has opted to exclude from their “feeder” school list a school full on the wrong side of the tracks. Why don’t Ark just bring them in to the list of feeder schools? Simple – problem solved.
This is what you may think. The unmentioned consequences of this would be that the charity that helps the disadvantaged may jeopardise it’s record and actually come up against the reality that poor people do worst at school. Is this really the case? I honestly don’t know. Check out this interesting BBC program called “Who get’s the best jobs”. Are other factors at work?
To be frank the chances of Ark attracting the middle classes to a school that has pupils from a much worse performing school are zero – no one will risk it. Why is this? What does this say about the Government’s education policy? It is about time that we were honest with ourselves – if parents do not value education then their children are very unlikely to progress or jump a social class. Watch the program!
