Memorandum submitted byJohn Fitz, Chris
Taylor and Stephen Gorard, Cardiff University School of Social
Sciences (SA 1)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Admission policies can be characterised
as a mosaic of practices. They represent local attempts to balance
the sovereignty of parental rights to choose with the statutory
duty of LEAs to provide places for all secondary students in their
boundaries.
2. While the 1944 Education Act established
the principle of parental choice, the 1988 Education Reform Act
and the subsequent Greenwich judgement effectively meant that
parents can express a preference for any secondary school, regardless
of LEA boundaries.
3. The creation of self-governing schools
(GM schools, CTCs), alongside existing voluntary schools, all
with control over their own admission policies, expanded choice
and diversity but also made school choice more complex and more
risky for parents. Some parents found they could no longer obtain
places in their local secondary schools.
4. The School Standards and Framework Act
1998 attempted to ease the complex administration of admission
polices and address parental concerns about access to local schools,
but has not entirely succeeded in doing so. Indeed, some LEAs
report it has made their task more difficult.
5. LEA guidance to parents on local admissions
policies "frame" and can also constrain parental choice
in a variety of ways. The high proportion of parents (about 90%)
reportedly achieving their first preference may therefore be misleading.
6. Appeals have risen dramatically. In the
period 1993-99 the number of appeals more than doubled, from 24,581
to 60,454. The largest number of appeals occurred in the London
area.
7. The prevalence of admissions via catchment
areas suggest they are attractive because they appear to be fair
and are relatively easy to administer. They also lead to, and
consolidate, "selection by mortgage" and thus they can
sustain and reproduce the social stratification of secondary schools.
8. Extending diversity, via specialist schools,
city academies and language colleges, also expands the number
of schools with control over their own admissions polices. However,
schools that control their own intakes tend to segregate away
from adjacent maintained schools by recruiting more advantaged
intakes.
9. Banding, where schools are allocated
roughly equal shares of high, middle and low performing students,
is an effective strategy for the reduction of the social stratification
of schools. In LEAs where this occurs, levels of segregation or
about half of what would otherwise be expected.
10. Alternatives to current prevalent admissions
polices include:
(a) Employing a single application form,
and handling all responses on the same day nationally would help
prevent multiple place allocation and wasted spaces, and it would
reduce bureaucracy.
(b) Given the limitation of residential segregation,
and its interaction with school segregation, incentives, such
as council-tax exemption, could be provided for high-attaining
primary pupils to attend designated secondary schools in poorer
areas (Schoon, 2001).
(c) Schools in difficult areas could receive
higher levels of preferential funding.
(d) Authorities might be encouraged to fund
surplus places, allowing popular schools to grow past their planned
admissions numbers, rather than an increasing number of appeals,
and rationalise their school provision through closures where
necessary, rather than having a larger number of schools tied
to rigidly defined residential areas.
(e) The arrangements for free travel should
be the same across Local Education Authorities and between different
school types.
(f) A return to all-school banding by ability
in urban areas, whereby children are tested before entry to secondary
school and each school is then constrained to admit students proportionately
across the ability range, would help to further decrease socio-economic
segregation.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The current system for secondary school
admissions is the product of nearly a century of schooling—from
the original conception of mass schooling to the comprehensive
era and now to the current "quasi-market" and the emphasis
on "diversity" in education provision. Each phase of
major reform to school provision and organisation in the UK has
brought about associated changes in the dominant form of school
admissions. However, there has never been a single system of school
admissions that has operated in every school, or even across an
individual region or Local education authority) LEA. Instead,
the history of school admissions in England and Wales can be characterised
as a complex mosaic of practice and local interpretation. For
example, while the comprehensive era is associated with the use
catchment areas in the allocation of pupils to schools according
to Dore and Flowerdew (1978) 27% of LEAs during the 1970s operated
a system of "parental choice". By the early 1990s, the
era of supposed "parental choice", approximately 58%
of English LEAs surveyed still allocated school places by catchment
area (Morris 1993). Furthermore, throughout both periods of reform
many schools and LEAs operated a "feeder school" system
whereby the allocation of places to secondary schools was determined
by the primary school a child attended. Schools with powers to
recruit their own intakes further frustrate the idea of parents
freely choosing schools. The remaining 160 or so grammar schools
have retained the ability to select their intake on academic aptitude
since the origins of the tripartite education system, while more
recently, CTCs, technology and language schools and specialist
academies are also able to select a proportion of their students.
1.2 LEAs are pivotal in these discussions
because they remain the arena within which the majority of parents
choose maintained secondary schools for their children and because
they also frame the kind of choices that parents can make via
organisation of secondary schools in their boundaries and because
they have a statutory obligation to provide sufficient places
for secondary pupils in their area. It is for that reason that
we begin our discussion with an overview of LEAs and their responsibilities
under successive pieces of legislation and how this relates to
the development of admission policies. Drawing on our research
which has looked at the impact of school choice policies over
a 14 year period (1989-2003 we will then discuss the implications
of some of the admissions policies found in operation (Fitz, Taylor
and Gorard 2002; Fitz, Gorard and Taylor, 2002; Taylor and Gorard
2002).
1.3 There is insufficient space here to
describe the methods used in this study of the impact of choice
in England and Wales. It commenced with analysis of the annual
school census returns for all secondary schools from 1989 to 2001
(supplemented with figures from PISA). From these, around 80 Local
Education Authorities were selected for further consideration
of their published and reported admissions policies. From these,
23 LEAs were selected in three contiguous areas for further intensive
study, including interviews with LEA officials, and then schools
within these. Representatives of all these bodies took part in
taped interviews. The datasets were analysed using spatial models,
and a segregation index, based on family poverty, ethnicity, first
language, and special educational needs (Gorard, Taylor and Fitz,
2003).
2. SCHOOL ADMISSIONS
POLICIES AND
THE LEAS
2.1 Since the 1944 Education Act parents
have been able to express a preference for the school(s) they
wish their child(ren) to attend. That legislative right has been
balanced by the LEAs' statutory responsibility to provide places
for all children of compulsory school age, and to manage their
resources efficiently. Parents, historically, have been able to
choose between state and private education, between LEA and church
schools, between single sex and co-educational schools, and, in
some areas, between selective and non-selective schools, and between
LEA comprehensive and "specialist schools", though not
all parents have had the same degree of choice. Nevertheless,
some form of allocation of children to school places has operated
in LEAs in order for them to fulfil their statutory obligations.
The allocation procedures have always varied across LEAs and they
have shifted modes over time. For example, from 1944 until the
late 1960s tests at 11 plus distributed secondary school children
between schools on the basis of ability. With the development
of all-ability comprehensive schools, which about 92% of all state
secondary students in England and approximately 99% in Scotland
and 98% Wales presently attend (Benn and Chitty, 1996), allocation
has featured geographical proximity through school transport policies
that generally encourage families to use the nearest schools.
While these allocative procedures are very different in their
educational values and in their consequences for families and
for students they can both be interpreted as ways of balancing
choice and the LEAs planning responsibilities. The balance between
these modes has been shaped to a considerable degree by the political
affiliation of the elected members making up city, borough and
county councils, with Conservatives most closely associated with
the retention of selective education.
Open enrolment
2.2 The 1988 Education Reform Act introduced
the principle of more open enrolment which required schools to
admit students up to their Planned Admission Number, which in
effect meant up to their physical capacity. LEAs were also required
to inform parents that that they could express a preference for
a school and confirmed their right to appeal against LEA allocation
decisions, a right first established in the 1980 Education Act.
In addition, the legislation enabled schools to opt out of LEA
control and become grant-maintained (GM) schools. These initiatives
were designed to increase parental choice between diverse kinds
of schools. Moreover, this legislation linked admissions to resources
via an age weighted per capita funding formula that determined
school budgets. GM schools controlled their own admissions and
could, and did, ignore existing LEA admissions principles and
procedures in pursuit of recruits (Fitz, Halpin and Power, 1993).
2.3 In some of our study areas, such as
Brent, Gloucestershire, Essex and Hillingdon where the majority,
if not all, the secondary schools "opted out", LEAs
were in effect left "minding the store" through the
task of monitoring, as they were still required to do, whether
new intakes of children had acquired secondary school places.
As one official told us, because of the large number of GM and
voluntary schools in the area, his LEA was composed of 192 admissions
authorities. Not only did multiple admissions authorities diminish
LEA capacity to match students to places, the 1989 Greenwich judgement
enabled parents to express a preference for schools outside their
own LEA and thereby made admissions policy more complex to administer.
Key beneficiaries of the judgement were the GM and voluntary aided
schools, who were given an unrestricted capacity to expand their
catchments.
2.4 While most LEAs persisted with catchment
areas as a primary means of allocation, there were visible hot
spots, notably in Bexley, Bromley, Barnet, and Hammersmith and
Fulham (among others) where local children were not obtaining
entry into local schools as places were now going to out-of-borough
families. These cases occurred most frequently in the London area
where the LEA size and population density meant that boundary-crossing
was relatively straightforward and cost effective. They also occurred
in areas which still have selective schools and in areas where
GM schools operated rigorous selection procedures, or both. Our
evidence suggests that the Funding Agency for School (FAS) did
not concern itself with admissions but only with the planning
and provision of places.
School Standards and Framework Act 1998
2.5 This admission loophole was addressed
in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (Sections 84 and
85) where an incoming Labour government determined that the problem
was of such a scale that it was prepared to devote a part of its
flagship legislation in order to curtail GM schools autonomy in
the recruitment of students. We have discussed the Act in detail
elsewhere (White et al 1999) but primarily it placed a duty on
the Secretary of State to issue a Code of Practice on School Admissions.
The subsequent Codes published in England and Wales contained
measures to design to ease the admissions confusion. We deal with
these briefly here as these have been discussed more fully in
previous research reports (White et al 1999, White et al 2001).
2.6 The guidance contained in the Code sets
out the duties and responsibilities of LEAs, the governing bodies
of grant-maintained schools and appeals panels. It made similar
prescriptions for admissions authorities (whether individual schools
or LEAs) who must now publish their admissions arrangements for
the benefit of parents. In addition to the Code, the legislation
introduced three new elements into the schools admissions framework.
Appeals Panels replaced appeals committees, LEAs were required
to establish Admissions Forums to oversee and advise on local
admission arrangements and the legislation also introduced ministerially-appointed
Adjudicators with powers to consider and resolve admissions disputes
between parents and admission authorities.
2.7 In general, the legislation confirms
the duty of the LEA and other admissions authorities (foundation
schools and church bodies) to publish details about the characteristics
of their school(s) and their admissions procedures. It also requires
all admissions authorities within an LEA, and, in cases where
students cross borough boundaries, adjacent admission authorities,
to consult with each other about their admissions procedures.
2.8 In other papers we reported that legislation
is ambiguous in a number of key areas (White et al 1999, White
et al 2001). First, we noted that there still remains in place
the 1944 delicate balance between the sovereignty of admissions
authorities and the right for parents to express a preference,
laid down in the 1944 Act (White et al 1999). It remains the case
that admission authorities can exercise a good deal of control
over their admissions criteria, always provided these are published
and available to parents and that they do not overtly infringe
equal opportunities legislation. Second, measures to end the remaining
fully selective systems of education are very muted. While parents
may ballot for an end to grammar schools, the Code at the same
time promotes admissions criteria which include partial selection,
based on specific aptitudes or abilities. This is in line with
Labour's agenda of modernising the comprehensive ideal but may
well also go against the grain of other desirable outcomes such
as balanced intakes. And on this last point, there is no overall
steer in that direction in the legislation or Code. Admissions
authorities are permitted to work directly against that principle
in their admissions arrangements and in the "over-subscription"
criteria.
Admission policies
2.9 One crucial aspect of admissions authorities—LEAs
and individual schools—is the published guidance they offer
to parents about their admissions arrangements and about their
over-subscription criteria because this relates directly questions
about the proportion of parents who secure their first choice
school. While it may be the case that about 90% of parents nationally
(but just over 70% in London) are said to achieve their first
preference, this has to be placed in the context where admissions
authorities lay down a variety of markers that indicate to parent
where they are most likely to be successful in gaining entry to
a school. "First preference", we argue may well not
reflect parents "ideal choice" because first preference
is mediated by their assessment of the chances of getting into
their version of a "good school", based on factors such
as the LEAs admissions policy.
2.10 For example, it is not unusual for
LEAs to indicate both the size of secondary school in their areas,
which were oversubscribed and the extent to which over subscription
occurred. It is left to parent to assess the risk. LEAs also use
the proximity criteria to signal which school catchment area applied
to what household and then require parent to make a case in writing
for an alternative to be considered. Some parents are more able
to do this than others, and there are special difficulties here
for those families whose first language is not English. It would
be fair to conclude that many authorities published their intended
allocation of schools and waited for objections, with a null response
treated as approval. In the case of over-subscription in any school,
a variety of discriminatory criteria were used (including medical
and social reasons).
2.11 LEAs have adopted a variety of application
procedures for children transferring to secondary school. Some
use single form applications, others multiple form applications
where parents are required to make a separate application to each
school they wish to be considered for. Some LEAs require parents
to state only one preferred school while others allow parents
to nominate several schools and state their order of preference.
The overriding consideration here is that parents who state any
kind of preference will be give priority over those parents who
may accept the "default" school but who do not state
their preference. LEAs also set out their over subscription criteria.
The same criteria are broadly used by all LEAs (parent/sibling
connection, proximity, catchment area/feeder primary school, first
choice, age, single sex or ethos, medical, social or special educational
need). The order in which these are applied, however, varies and
has important effects. Parental/sibling connection, for example,
constrains choice and can also ensure that high and low performing
schools retain their previous characters.
Can we gauge levels of parental satisfaction
with these general arrangements by reference to the numbers of
those who appeal against the decision to allocate their child
to a particular school?
Appeals
2.12 Parents frustrated at not achieving
entry to their preferred secondary can lodge an appeal to the
appeals panel associated with an admissions authority. Appeals
over school places have risen dramatically since they were first
introduced. In the six years between 1993 and 1999 the number
of appeals lodged by parents for secondary school places has more
than doubled, from 24,581 (4.2% of all admissions) to 60,454 (9.6%
of all admissions). The numbers of successful appeals expressed
again as a percentage of all admissions has risen in the same
period from 1.36% to 2.08%. Not surprisingly, the number of appeals
varies by LEA and by region, with London recording the largest
number of appeals. It also provides an interesting illustration
of our point about geographical variation.
2.13 Within London there would appear to
be two particular "hot-spots" for appeals and parental
dissatisfaction: Enfield and Westminster. In the case of Enfield
over half of all admissions end up in appeal. The most notable
features of this authority are the presence of grammar and Foundation
schools. Westminster, on the other hand, contains a large number
of Voluntary-Aided schools. It has been shown elsewhere that the
number of appeals is related to the combined effect of a large
proportion of parents choosing an alternative to their nearest
school and the number of schools that have autonomy in the organisation
and design of their admission arrangements (Taylor et al 2002).
Even though the number of appeals lodged have generally increased
over this period several LEAs in London have actually seen a fall.
In particular, the number of appeals lodged has declined considerably
in Newham and Islington. Inversely the number of appeals lodged
has increased in Hillingdon, Kensington and Chelsea, Camden, Barking
and Dagenham, and Redbridge.
2.14 It would also appear that parents in
London are the least likely to get the decision overturned. In
particular, parents in Inner London are very unlikely to be successful
in their appeal. Whether this is a failing of the appeals process,
a failure of the school admissions system or actually an indication
that the original decision was the "correct" one is
unclear (see Taylor et al 2002). However, if the number of appeals
upheld in the parents' favour is considered against the total
number of admissions then London would be similar to the rest
of the country.
2.15 While the rate of appeals can be interpreted
as an indicator of market awareness ie the growing propensity
of parents to act as consumers and thus attempt to "exit"
the system via the appeals process—they more likely reflect
other underlying characteristics of the local educational system,
namely urbanisation, travel networks, population density and the
presence or absence of surplus places. In urban and metropolitan
areas for example a larger numbers of schools, close together
and with good transport networks mean that parents can realistically
think about alternative schools to those allocated by the LEA.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the rate of appeals is greater
in these areas than in rural ones. There are other factors that
contribute to the rates of appeals. Those LEAs which operate a
"first preference" system appear to have higher rates
than those which privilege catchment area allocation. The larger
function of appeals though is that they confirm and secure the
parents' rights to express preferences in a system which can be
interpreted as heavily bureaucratised.
An overview
2.16 Many of these earlier concerns that
led to the introduction of the 1998 School Standards and Framework
Act and the Code of Practice for School Admissions were isolated
to London, providing some evidence that the situation in London
may have been unique. Indeed, many rural local authorities outside
London believed that these legislative changes only applied to
a number of London Boroughs. One LEA officer explained "It
does seem a lot of it is aimed at solving problems in London that
don't exist in other parts of Britain" (Rural LEA Officer).
Another noted, "Just because there is a problem with four
London boroughs with different types of schools... why impose
nationally a system to deal with that, and it has been a total
and utter waste of money" (Rural LEA Officer).
2.17 However, reports of similar frustrations
grew across many parts of England and Wales throughout the 1990s,
particularly in urban areas. It is also worth noting that the
introduction of these new measures coincided with the phasing
in of new unitary (urban) authorities. Many such new local authorities
took this opportunity to alter their admission arrangements from
their County counterparts with great momentum (eg West Berkshire
and City of Bristol LEAs). Even a number of long-established LEAs
were quick to take the opportunity to address issues of inequality
and injustice in admissions with the Admissions Adjudicator (eg
Hertfordshire).
2.18 While the introduction of the 1998 Act
and subsequent Code may have been an attempt to address the frustrations
and organisational difficulties in London they have certainly
been of some benefit in other areas of England and Wales. However,
four years after the Government's attempt to intervene many fears
and concerns still remain, particularly in London. Some Local
authorities still have great difficulties in ensuring that they
find a school place for their children. One interviewee noted,
"People who are living 0.6 or 0.7 [miles], above half way
[of a mile], aren't getting in . . . and consequently have to
travel 2 or 3 miles across the Borough to another school."
(Inner London LEA Admissions Officer). In another LEA' "there
are cases now you know where [school name] is full up in that
year and we are phoning around other authorities and trying to
get them in elsewhere." (Inner London Admissions Officer).
2.19 There is some indication that the interventions
of the Labour Government have only added to the problems that
local authorities have in the admissions process, even in London.
For example, when discussing the introduction of admission forums,
meant to alleviate tensions between the admission policies of
local authorities and schools, a typical response was "oh
that, the bureaucracy of it all?" (Inner London LEA Admissions
Officer). Many LEAs felt that they have always had good relationships
with schools with autonomy in their admissions, and had regularly
met informally with neighbouring LEAs. The new legislation simply
increased the administrative workload of LEAs without easing any
of the limitations and problems of the open enrolment system.
3. ADMISSION POLICIES:
PROBLEMS AND
PROSPECTS
3.1 In this section review briefly the admissions
policies and examine their effects. We also suggest alternatives
that might be considered. In devising admission policies LEAs,
under a statutory duty to be efficient, have to address on number
of value, demographic and school organisational issues in order
to decide what is appropriate in their situation. In our experience
these include:
(a)
achieving efficiency via reviews of the oversupply
of school places and related issues such as the consideration
of closure or amalgamation of schools and, matching the distribution
of secondary school to the geographical distribution of the secondary
school population;
(b) consideration of selective or non-selective education;
(c)
achieving balanced intakes thereby evening out the
social composition of schools and consequently school performance
across the borough;
(d)
responding to demographic changes via the mix of
religiously affiliated schools and in Wales determining the balance
between English and Welsh language schools;
(e) reviewing arrangements such as all-through 11-18
schools or 11-16 plus 6th form colleges, encouraging specialist
schools and the maintenance of single sex schools; and
(f) accommodating the existence of foundation schools
in the area.
Against this background some of the policies
LEAs can adopt include:
Catchment areas
3.2 Deciding allocation by the proximity
of family residence to schools, so that each school has a designated
catchment area, is attractive because it is a transparent policy,
seemingly equitable, offers the possibility of "local school
for local children" and relatively straightforward to administer.
These factors probably account for its prevalence. However, this
approach is not unproblematic. For example, catchment areas, the
most used form of allocating places in comprehensive schools during
the 1970s can lead to a reinforcement of residential segregation
and differentiation. One effect, for example, are cases where
there is the strong social segregation of schools on peripheral
housing estates from other schools in the same LEA . It also leads
to what is known as "selection by mortgage", the use
of catchment areas in the allocation of school places into popular
schools has led to inflated house prices since demand for housing
in these areas increased. In a recent study in Coventry it was
estimated that the "premium"' for house prices in the
catchment areas of popular and high-performing schools ranged
between 15% and 19% (Leech and Campos 2000). This is still relevant
to the current admissions system since Coventry, for example,
continues to use designated areas in the allocation of oversubscribed
schools (see Taylor and Gorard 2001 for further discussion on
this). Where the housing market and the educational market are,
mutually reinforcing, LEAs wishing to move, say, to balanced intakes
in their schools will find it difficult to achieve. Pre-conditions
would include political will and changes to, or investment in,
low cost transport policies that would enable students to travel
more freely across the borough.
3.3 Catchment areas work in a number of
ways, via nominated feeder primary school, where attendance is
automatically linked to priority access to a designated secondary
school, but now more frequently via measured distances from the
family home to the nearest secondary schools. One overall effect
however, is that LEAs that employed catchment areas have levels
of school segregation (that is concentrations of socio-economically
disadvantaged students in particular schools) 20% higher than
would be expected.
Guided parental preference
3.4 Hertfordshire typified admissions policies
based on the invitation to parents to nominate their preferred
schools but at the same time offers strong guidance on where they
are likely to be successful. In the case of community schools,
families in Hertfordshire are required to complete the Secondary
Transfer Form (STF) and name three preferred schools. Published
admissions criteria for all schools give parents a clear indication
of which schools they are most likely to gain admission. The LEA
admission brochure (Hertfordshire, 2000) provides parents with
considerable information about the number of applicants to all
secondary schools, postcode data of successful applicants to schools,
vignettes of families choosing schools, and fairly straight forward
advice on maximizing chances of obtaining a place at a preferred
school. It explicitly advises them to list their local school
amongst their preferences.
3.5 The current admissions rules, which
apply to oversubscribed LEA community and voluntary schools, prioritise
children with statements of special educational needs, children
with medical or social reasons for attending a particular school,
siblings in the school at the time of application, and geographical
proximity, determined by the shortest designated a route. In the
case of single sex schools, priority for secondary schools is
determined by postcode and by what is called the "traditional
area", identified by proportions of families who have in
the past selected that school as their first choice.
3.6 Hertfordshire is distinctive in its
proactive employment of the School Standards and Framework Act.
This arose from the legacy of the former grant maintained schools
and voluntary schools creating their own admissions policies,
and recruiting out-of-county students. The result of this was
that local families were unable to obtain secondary school places
in local schools. Ofsted noted in its inspection report, for example,
that in 1998 nearly 1,000 children had not secured a place by
February for the coming academic year. As a result of its new
co-ordinated admissions arrangements this figure had fallen to
just over 100 in the following year, and most of these were in
the south (Ofsted, 2000). Under the new arrangements, foundation
schools feed back to the LEA which applicants they have admitted
to their schools and this then allows the LEA to inform parents
of unsuccessful applicants of alternative places. Hertfordshire
has also vigorously challenged foundation and voluntary schools
admissions' policies before the Schools Adjudicator. It has applied
to the Adjudicator on 26 occasions to seek changes to the admissions
policies of foundation schools. It succeeded in forcing them to
add geographical proximity to their admissions criteria, and,
in some selective schools, force those schools to admit fewer
children by academic selection than had previously been the case.
Diversity and selection
3.7 Although diversity has been achieved
via policies that have promoted different kinds of state secondary
schools since 1988 (inter alia, GM schools, CTCs, technology and
language schools, specialist colleges and city academies and through
area based interventions such as Education Action Zones), in policy
terms it is a viable option for LEAs to consider. It may be answer,
for example, to the seemingly intractable social stratification
of school within LEAs operating catchment areas. Our research
however suggests that this would displace the problem rather than
solve it. The evidence is that where individual schools have autonomy
over their own admissions policies and this includes religiously
affiliated foundation, former GM foundation and specialist schools,
the trend is to segregate away from, or, take fewer socio-economically
disadvantaged students than adjacent schools. In 2000, for example,
16.5% of the total school intake was eligible for free school
meals (FSM). For specialist schools the figure was 14.4%, though
specialist language schools it was 10.2%, and for selective schools
it was 2.1%. Segregation is high and is increasing in the great
majority of LEAs that have persisted with selective education.
3.8 The implications of this, in the light
of the current expansion of specialist and faith-based schools,
should be immediately apparent. Whatever merits these schemes
have (and the evidence for these merits is far from conclusive),
they also present a real danger of creating greater socio-economic
division in the education system. However, the same argument applies
to areas with relatively high proportions of Foundation (opted
out) schools (and to Welsh-medium schools in Wales), even where
these schools are not specialist, faith-based or selective. What
all of these minority school types have in common is the ability
to act as their own admission authorities, and perhaps it is this,
rather than their marketing identities, that is the chief determinant
of increased segregation in their local areas. The presence of
fee-paying schools is also related to increasingly segregated
Local Education Authorities. This may be related to their admission
arrangements, such as the use of selection and the ability of
some parents to express their commitment to a particular religion.
Diversity drives segregation by giving people a reason other than
perceived quality, rightly or wrongly, to use a school other than
their nearest. That is, diversification of schooling can override
fairness in the distribution of school places.
3.9 If a policy of increased diversity is
deemed desirable in the U.K., and that is present government policy
(Smithers 2001), then our analysis argues that it should be organised
fairly. If advocates of diversity and specialization are convinced
that this is best route to raising standards then in all fairness,
to test whether their policy options are the right ones, specialist
and the faith-based schools should not receive preferential funding.
Nor should they be allowed to select, or to use a different admissions
process to the schools with which they are in competition. Then
we will be able to see the strength of their advocates' arguments.
Two Local Education Authorities in our sub-sample have specialist
schools that are based on catchment areas just like the remaining
schools in the Local Education Authority (Gorard and Taylor 2001).
These specialist schools take approximately their fair share of
disadvantaged students, and they do not have superior public examination
results.
Banding
3.10 Banding involves the allocation of
students so that secondary schools each have a fair share of able
and less able students as measured by primary school assessments.
In the former ILEA, for example, a large LEA that adopted this
policy over a considerable period of time, students were placed
in three ability bands, and theoretically, each secondary school
admitted approximately equal number of students in each band.
We have no evidence of the extent to which an equal spread of
abilities was actually achieved in that authority. However, the
policy has the merit of explicitly aiming at balanced intakes
and thus aiming for some evenness in school performance. Our research
suggests that LEAs which operate some form of banding (eg Greenwich,
Hackney, Lewisham and Tower Hamlets) have levels of segregation
running at half of that which would be predicted. On this evidence
banding would appear to overcome the stratification of the schooling
system driven by residential segregation and catchment area policy.
4. ALTERNATIVE
FUTURES
4.1 Given that the "Choice" genie
is out of the bottle, it is very likely that some measure of parental
choice of school will remain part of any future policy. Nevertheless,
it is worthwhile giving consideration to alternatives to the admission
policies prevalent in the system. These include:
(a) Employing a single application form,
and handling all responses on the same day nationally would help
prevent multiple place allocation and wasted spaces, and it would
reduce bureaucracy.
(b) Given the limitation of residential segregation,
and its interaction with school segregation, incentives, such
as council-tax exemption, could be provided for high-attaining
primary pupils to attend designated secondary schools in poorer
areas (Schoon, 2001).
(c) Alternatively, schools in difficult areas
could receive higher levels of preferential funding.
(d) Authorities might be encouraged to fund
surplus places, allowing popular schools to grow past their planned
admissions numbers, rather than an increasing number of appeals,
and rationalise their school provision through closures where
necessary, rather than having a larger number of schools tied
to rigidly defined residential areas.
(e) The arrangements for free travel should
be the same across Local Education Authorities and between different
school types.
(f) A return to all-school banding by ability
in urban areas, whereby children are tested before entry to secondary
school and each school is then constrained to admit students proportionately
across the ability range, would help to further decrease socio-economic
segregation.
REFERENCES
Benn, C and Chitty, C (1996) Thirty Years
On, London, David Fulton)
Dore, C and Flowerdew, R (1981) Allocation procedures
and the social composition of secondary schools, Manchester
Geographer, New Series 2, 1, 47-55.
Fitz, J Halpin, D and Power, S (1993) Grant
Maintained Schools: Education in the marketplace (Kogan Page:
London).
Fitz, J, Gorard, S and Taylor, C (2001) School
admissions after the School Standards and Framework Act: bringing
the LEAs back in? Oxford Review of Education, 28, 2-3,
373-393.
Fitz, J, Taylor, C and Gorard, S (2002) Local
education authorities and the regulation of educational markets:
four case studies, Research Papers in Education, 17, 2,
125-46.
Gorard, S and Taylor, C (2001) Specialist schools
in England: track record and future prospect, School Leadership
and Management, 21, 4, 365-381.
Gorard, S, Taylor, C and Fitz, J (2003) Schools,
Markets and Choice Policies, London, RoutledgeFalmer.
Leech, D and Campos, E (2000) Is comprehensive
education really free? A study of the effects of secondary school
admissions policies on house prices, University of Warwick
Economic Research Paper 581.
Morris, R (1993) Choice of School: A survey
1992-93 London, Association of Metropolitan Authorities.
Schoon, N (2001) Making the best of the worst,
Times Educational Supplement, 5/10/01, p 15.
Smithers, R (2001) Church plan for 20 new schools,
Guardian, 15/6/01.
Taylor, C, Gorard, S and Fitz, J (2000) A re-examination
of segregation indices in terms of compositional invariance, Social
Research Update, 30, 1-4.
Taylor, C and Gorard, S (2001) The role of residence
in school segregation: placing the impact of parental choice in
perspective, Environment and Planning A, 33, 1829-1852.
Taylor, C, Gorard, S and Fitz, J (2002) Market
frustration? Admission appeals in the UK education market, Educational
Management and Administration, 30, 3, 243-260.
Taylor, C, Gorard, S and Fitz, J (2003) The
modifiable areal unit problem: Segregation between schools and
levels of analysis, International Journal of Social Research
Methodology, 16, 1.
White, P, Gorard, S, Fitz, J and Taylor, C (2001)
Regional and local differences in admission arrangements for schools,
Oxford Review of Education, 27, 3, 317-337.
September 2003
|
