AIM FOR EQUALITY, ACHIEVE MEDIOCRITY:

Bright pupils let down by state schools (Tony Halpin, 5/23/05, Times of London)

THOUSANDS of comprehensive schools are still failing Britain’s most able children, Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, has been told.

Research, commissioned by a key government adviser, shows that pupils rated among the brightest prospects at primary school go on to under-achieve at GCSE, The Times has learnt. Some do only nearly half as well as their peers in good schools.

The most politically explosive finding was of a direct relationship between the number of bright children in a school and individual achievements. [...]

Professor Jesson found that nearly 6,000 pupils who took the tests in 1999 were admitted to 167 selective grammar schools and 5,800 went on to 223 high-achieving comprehensives. The remaining 16,500 went into 2,407 comprehensives, many in urban areas, with lower achievement.

When the same students took their GCSEs last summer, many had effectively been lost because schools failed to push them to reach their potential.

Professor Jesson found that success rates declined in line with the numbers of bright children in a school, and dipped sharply when there were fewer than five.

Public schooling isn't compatible with excellence.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 23, 2005 8:21 AM