Labour doesn't want "Social Mobility" / Grammer Schools because once most people get better educated, and perhaps "get on" they no longer vote labour - this is why poor education and Labour in power go hand in hand - and the Labour Party and others who prey on the uneducated are well aware of it.

Marty, London,

All the worlds best performing educational systems select but they select into not out of. The question should be what is this childs strength? how does the child learn? Which sort of school would suit this child? Of course to offer variety the State would have to let go. No party wants to let go.

Jean, Ingatestone, UK

There's a word that aptly describes what egalitarianism (euphemism for the politics of envy?) is sometimes about. The Malays here call it 'dengki' ie. "If I can't make it, then no-one else should!" Mediocrity is preferred to meritocracy.

SD Goh, PJ, Malaysia

This article makes complete sense and fits the evidence. Don't forget that Education Minister Thatcher closed more grammars than anyone.
School size is another issue - UK State schools are far too big. This is false economy.
Schools have also suffered from having sixth forms taken away.

Kim Penfold, Wilmslow,

The assumption that education is enough to ensure high earnings (and hence social mobility) is unfounded. Most highly educated people today are relatively badly paid. Look at thew really wealthy and high earners: who are they? Sports stars, entertainers, salespeople, traders, "entrepreneurs".

Tom Welsh, Basingstoke,

If memory serves, Baroness Thatcher served as Secretary of State for Education and encouraged the replacement of grammar schools with comprehensives. The factual claim here is based on the misunderstanding that only the Labour party supported the abolition of grammar schools in the 1970s.

John Scott, London,

In 1957 my Black Country Grammar school had about 60 boys in the two fifth forms. About twenty carried on into the sixth. About a third of them went on to university where at least two dropped out. So around 10% graduated! The system failed most working class kids.

Wodenian, Consett, UK

I went to a bog standard, comprehensive school, had excellent teachers, did well academically with 10 O and 4 A Levels and a Masters Degree. Steven Pollard presents negligible evidence to justify hisargument. In fact he gives up on the stats after 1967. Not a great advertisement for his education

Paul, London,

To suggest that the problem is Thatcher's fault because she failed to reverse a process started by Labour is perverse.

You can only do so much and she had a long shopping list in 1979.

The fact remains that the abolition of grammar schools was a Labour policy, not a Conservative one.

Iain, London, UK

At last, the truth about the destruction of a truly world class education system. Long gone are the days when half the world paid a lot of money to snd their children to the UK for schooling. Now they go anywhere but here.

Andrew Thompson, Dartmouth, Devon

As a guineau pig in the grand socialist experiment at the dawn of comprehensives, the quality of education receded before my eyes as I followed the last year of grammar education with my year of comprehensive'education. This was a 'class war' production and that is not a pun. A mediocracy was born!

Alan, Luton,

I went to a girls SecMod in SE London. By today's standards it would be a sink school. I left in '76 with 7 O levels inc. Eng, History, Law, French & went on to a good career. The Govt just needed to fund SecMods & Techs properly - not do away with them to pursue a dream of equality with Grammers.

Donna Walker, Effingham, England

Mum went to grammar school, Dad didn't but was apprenticed with BR, ended up as senior manager with LT. All three children went to grammar school, but my husband didn't but still successful. Believe good 1st and 2nd school most important. 3 R's needed for life, then it's down to ambition and luck

Lyn, Zebbug, Malta

I work in a bog standard comp. It's a one size fits all policy which means a staggering amount of kids can't wait to leave and feel they are wasting their lives in a system that bores them to tears. The academic kids aren't stretched properly either and can't compete for places at top universities.

Charlie, Newcastle, England

Well, I'll just tell my comprehensively-educated, A-grade student children that their school was rubbish. But of course - good grades from their type of school are due to "dumbing down", while excellent results from grammars or independents are evidence of wonderful teaching. Sorry I forgot.

Alison, Markfield,

Stephen Pollard is right, but who do those who support grammar schools vote for? The three main parties oppose them and the Lib-Dems even voted to abolish those that still remain. Mr Pollard's co-author of "A Class Act" - Lord Adonis - could do something about it, but I don't suppose he will.

Geoffrey Warner, Didcot, UK

Socialism ensures the equal distribution of miseries. They have wounded this country, but perhaps not fatally. Even if this is the case, the question remains: do we deserve any better after electing these spiteful and weak-minded fools? No, we don't. But future generations do.

James, Newcastle, UK

10 years of labour rule have stifled optimism in Britain. Try and improve your lot, and get taxed to hell and back for your troubles. God help you if you want to be married, own a detached house, not have kids and drive a car - you'll be the ultimate cash-cow of this regime.

W Smith, Manchester,

Clever or not, ALL children whose parents cannot afford private education or a good catchment area are at risk of a poor excuse of an education. Please also recall that one M H Thatcher was minister for education in the Heath administration that destroyed more grammar schools than any before it.

David, Stone,

Those who didn't get into grammar schools at 11+ had more chances when they were a bit older (as some posters here say). They certainly weren't "written off"! And qualifications, while fewer, signified more. The whole point was the embedding of aspiration and social mobility within the system.

Neil, Galloway, Scotland

The reforms of the '70s were an attempt to dumb down our children. It happened here in the US as well. It's promoted lower standards as a norm. That is why there is less social mobility. We must return to the classics, and tutoring.

Jenny, Grand Rapids , MI US

Why, if you failed your 11 plus you were "on the scrapheap"? There was a system in place that allowed pupils who had narrowly missed getting in to a grammar at 11 to sit another exam at 13. If you aspire to succeed you will - comp. school standards need to improve along with students' attitudes.

WA, Oxfordshire,

My uncle was part of the stroppy '60's teaching generation committed to abolishing grammars.

He said the best education a precious little child could have was to be placed in a classroom with a bunch of neanderthals causing havoc. It would teach them to look after themselves apparently...

Arthur, Hadstock, England

My parents owned a sweetshop on a council estate. I got into Grammar school, went to university and became a teacher. Labour forced Comprehensives on us, but sent their own children to the Public schools. They have guaranteed that working class children cannot escape their backgrounds.

Marion, Budapest, Hungary

There are both good & bad comprehensives, & many mediocre ones. A problem with grammars is that late developers can miss out. But the root cause cause of our educational failings is the left's hatred of 'elitism' - high educational & cultural quality. Hence its constant meddling in schools.

Dave, Wrexham,

The whole idea that 'one size fits all' is preposterous. We are all different and each of us has different needs. Each of us must be educated together with those of similar ability and needs, in classes academically homogeneous. Only like this can all fulfill their potential. I

George Ross, London, United Kingdom

By abandoning Grammar schools the government has simply denied the ability for people to escape social and educational deprivation. In todays educational vacuum you stay where you are and practice for SATs. No more, no less. Simply a machine to score meaningless points for useless schools.

Brian Hellyer, Quarrington, UK

Grammars are too crude. Far better to free schools to select as they see fit then we would have a range of schools to fit the range if children. as in the private sector; some for the super bright, most in between and some at the other end. Add boarding for the dysfunctinal and we are there.

R Mason, London, UK

Jade Goodie isn't socially mobile?

On a more serious note - there is only one identifiable class these days, let's call it "consumer class." The handful outside it are misfits. Within such a society it's a struggle to even define "mobility." Which may be why op-ed journalists love the phrase so.

Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK

When are the 'silly self-righteous socialists'going to wise-up?Paying people to stop smoking, take their children to children's centres, look for a job or, simply to stay on at school is not the answer.
The best incentive to improve one.s life,is the ability to earn money-and keep it!

paul, Tongue, Sutherland

One thing I cannot tolerate about these do-gooding socialists is implying that slowing down faster/better students is anything other than unhealthy and dangerous.

I was slowed down academically whilst accelerated a year in substandard schools. My voice broke at nearly 16. I wasn't AVERAGE.

Rhys Jaggar, Leeds, UK

The fact that the UK is still having this debate shows it has got education all wrong. Do they have this problem in Germany, France or Holland? Are their children poorly educated and less socially mobile? Let's BENEFIT from the EU one time and COPY their educational systems, and keep politics out.

John Webster, Aylesbury,

Comprehensives are a PC sham devised to deny opportunities to the working class. Grammar schools were too successful in creating opportunities and improving income earning potential. The smoke and mirrors arguments of the Labour elite, (priviliged backgrounds!) were swallowed hook line and sinker.

Terence Park, Burnley,

Never let politics and education meet. The former will always pollute and distort the latter.

John, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

I was sent to an appallingly bad comprehensive. It has caused me untold difficulties ever since. If there had been a grammar school for me to go to I have no doubt that my life would have been very different. Why, after over a century of public education, do some of us still have to teach ourselves?

Nora, London, UK

EBS, London: The changes didn't fix the problems of the other schools - they simply spread them throughout the entire state education system. Whether comments here come from grammar school products or not is a red herring.
Philip, Cantab: The ESRC in 2006 knew which side its bread was buttered on.

Neil, Galloway, Scotland

My comprehensive employed a grading system where pupils attended classes that suited their ability. This could be viewed as a grammer school within the school except that it had the advantage and flexibility of allowing you to move up (or down) grades if you matured later on than say at age 11.

Duncan, Leeds,

Labour took the easy option - instead of fixing the technical colleges they just scrapped the grammars and threw everyone in together. There needs to be a technical stream - not everyone's cut out to be a doc and a doc doesn't get too far without plumbing! You need BOTH (instead of neither)

Ricardo, Cambridge,

I failed my 12+ and I believe that was a good thing for me as I was strong in the sciences and maths, but weak in english which the secondary modern could better address. Grammar schools tailor for those who are not particularly weak in any area and stretches them. I got to the grammar for A-levels

David, Winslow,

As one who is so thankful for my grammar school then university education, may I make a point that hasn't been mentioned. The grammar school system was more flexible than has been said. I personally know a number of 11-plus failures who developed intellectually later and achieved A-levels and PhDs.

gerry, exeter, england

"For all the problems with technical and secondary modern schools, grammar schools did a fine job of lifting children out of poverty and into opportunity. "

But what about those children who didn't make it to a grammar school?

Ms Horoborowitz, London,

Socialist ideals are wholly incompatible with raising standards. I attended a comprehensive school and the one thing that sticks in my mind is the phrase 'lowest common denominator'....

NS, London,

I come from a society where education was valued and people were rich or poor but not class-ridden. My family were poor but aspiring. We came to England as political refugees. At fifteen, I continued my ( good) education at a grammar school. It was my key to social mobility.

Margarita, London , England

My three children have been through the comprehensive system (although I went to a grammar school myself) with great success. I contrast this with neighbouring Kent, whose parents are absolutely desperate to get their children into the grammar school because the alternative is so ghastly.

Mr Dubbing, East Grinstead ,

Absolutely spot on.
To the list I would add the abolition of student grants (which allowed people like me to go through university) and the removal of adequate funding for the Library system.
The alternatives to escape the mould remain the same - rock star, footballer or a life of crime.

Martin, Dubai (ex North Shields), UAE

"those who can afford to do so leave the state system for private education or move to a middle-class catchment area. The rest are stuck with what they are served up".

How would this change for the majority if there were grammar schools? Only by making schools independent can we offer choice to all

HJ, Reading, UK

You correctly identify the loss of social mobility with the loss of the grammar schools. However, 18 years of Tory rule didn't reverse the policy. Indeed Cameron's commitment to preserve this endangered sector has been lukewarm at best.

Dave, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Until the government accept some kids are brighter than others, and not every child is as advanced an able to learn as some, the system will always fail.

Arthur, Newcastle,

Why can't we set up different types of schools, grammer, technical, vocational and let the parents/children do the selecting? Give children the opportunity to swap schools if they are unhappy. If you're doing the education that suits you, you'll participate.

Jane, London,

Sorry - disagree, I and many friends went through the comprehensive system in a very large school in the north. We all have very good jobs, we all have played our part in the world, we are all well mannered and have stable family relationships. The status of the school made no difference at all.

Mike G, Cardiff, Wales

The Labour shibboleth of comprehensive (communisation of) education should be smothered for all time. This elite does NOT want poor , very well educated people, questioning their lot in life. Far better to fail them early and keep them in their places! A listening Prime Minister? Deaf ear indeed!

Jack, Glasgow, Scotland

Madness' masterpiece "Baggy Trousers" always springs to mind when I recall my own Comprehensive 'education'.

I have no reason to doubt that those lyrics are as true today as they were 25 years ago.

JC, London,

Labour adopted comprehensive education PRECISELY
to prevent upward mobility and solidify
its electoral base. Fatal educationally
but devastatingly successful electorally. Northern cities which once had both Grammar schools
AND Conservative MPs now have neither.

Francis Johnson, Rickmansworth,

'...a “lost generation” of “Thatcher's children” who were denied the chance to progress...'
Is Buggins familiar with the term NEET as currently applied to around two million young people? Are they also 'lost' or simply resting between career opportunities?

m collins, Leeds,

My daughter went to a Comprehensive School. She is now a successful research scientist with BSc and PhD degrees. It is a total myth that Comprehensive schools are all bad. It would be very wrong to go back to a selection system which virtually wrote off the majority of children at the age of 11.

Neil, Gloucestershire, England

Crosland...exactly. The triumverate from Hell: Crosland, Williams and Crossman. The history of their destruction of the UK is yet to be written, for now it can only be lived.

An Accountant, Stockton,

Minor factual point; was it not Margaret Thatcher, in Ted Heath's government, who signed so many Grammars into oblivion ?
A political necessity for an ambitious junior minister perhaps, but still a blemish on the Great Lady's record.
( Mine survived, thankfully).

BrummyDoug, Birmingham, England

So true.
In their absolute determination to create a uniform society, the successive governments have played with the aspirations of the gifted. Result is for all to see. An average society, with average individuals, with average aspirations and even more average future.

Prabhat, UK,

It may be difficult for you to imagine a policy to aggressively and systematically hold back the potential of the british people - sadly though with the plethora of means tested benefits and sea of taxes that maze us that is exactly what Mr Brown has imposed in us.

edward green, Upminster,

As the son of a joiner, I went through grammar school to university and became a lecturer. Now that I am retired I can say with confidence that education is useless without a commitment to truth. Yet the fundamental Socialist belief that intelligence is "socially conditioned" is an utter falsehood.

Edmund Burke, Kingston upon Thames, England

For a generation, from the forties to the seventies, the professional middle class was forced to recruit from below, as it expanded with the growth oif government and large-scale business. Grammar- school children and successful secondary modern school children alike benefitted. Then came Thatcher.

Malcolm , Swadlincote, UK

You can always hear doctrinaire crap when it comes to the abolition of grammar schools.Of everything done in the name of 'education' seems crystallized in this act of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

starright, birkenhead, England

How does one get David Cameron to publicly acknowledge the truth of the above,given that,with his background,he is fully aware of it?

colin, Hong Kong,

30 kids in a compre class does not work, and for all the good will in the world shoving the special needs kids in main stream may be nice for them but draggs all the other children down, the only way forward is selection 100% of the way.

Specail schools for special kids is the way forward!

MR W jones, Liverpool, England

Interestingly almost every comment is from someone who went to grammar school and then did well. What about all the others (the vast majority) who didn't have this chance? Your article has a give away phrase about the problems the other schools had, it was to fix this that changes were made.

EBS, London, London

If a child is less able, how would they do better in a comprehensive than at a technical or secondary modern school? Why treat everyone the same when there is a huge spectrum of ability and talent? Why not offer better opportunities to people once they leave school such apprenticeships?

Nicola Mullett, Lightwater, UK

My grandson went to Grammar School and is now an articulate, well mannered, and hard working young man.

I have no doubt that had he gone to the local comprehensive where bullying and thuggish gangs were rife, much of the same sort of behaviour would have rubbed off on him. Thank God he didn't!

wooram, alicante, spain

"For all the problems with technical and secondary modern schools . . ." Now, that really begs the question. Three-quarters of children were "educated" in such schools and most left them without any qualifications. The main purpose of the Tripartite System was to reinforce existing class divisions.

Stewart, London,

Killer fact - most of the Cabinet were privately educated - that's all you need to know about modern socialism.

john miller, london, uk

Going to grammar school has been a great help to me. I am totally against super classes where pupils of all ages will eventually all sink into the same quagmire. It is not fair to any child of any ability.

Nat, Kent, UK

Comprehensives bring everybody down to the same low level.

Socialists will never admit this, even though the facts are staring them in the face.

Jon Leigh, Southern, France

Comprehensive Education is how Public Schoolboys were able to smash competition from Grammar Schools. Almost every Secretary of State for Education since 1944 went to Public School and presided over the destruction of Grammar Schools.

TomTom, Leeds, England

I am from the slums of Birmingham , passed the 11 plus and became a successful business man. Probably about 60% of my class mates fared similarly.
In an otherwise excellent article the Thatcher commentc is not appropriate.
She was in Power long enough to restore the Grammars destroyed by Labor

Charles Daniels, Lady Lake, Florida

The best laid plans of mice and men and all that... One of the (many) problems with leftist thinking is that it never looks more than one step ahead and therefore falls frequent victim to the law of unintended consequences. Like a chess player capable of playing only one move at a time. Losers.

Billy Barnett, HK,

Born in 1942, I grew up in a poor, fatherless, family. My mother was uneducated but believed in education and high moral standards. Grammar school led us to higher things, with the next generation going even further; I was an economic adviser to PMs, kids are doctor, engineer, etc, and fulfilled.

Faustino, Brisbane, Australia

It's wrong to say that 'Margaret Thatcher did not create the problem'. As Minister of Education in the seventies she approved more comprehensive reorganization schemes than anyone else.

Paul, Sydney, Australia

The author quotes a study from 1996. He could have cited the 2006 study by the ESRC showing that education policy plays no part in social mobility. In any case the middle classes have no interest in downward mobility whatever education system is in place. This pie has only so many slices.

philip, cambridge,

My father was the youngest of 16 children, all born into poverty. I was born 1944, the year of Butler's Education Act. I escaped a similar life of poverty due to 2 life changing events. I was the first in my family to go to a grammar school & then university & I left Oldham forever!

Jack, Leatherhead, England

I went to a grammar and have taught in one. Fab, but they are not as good for social mobility as they used to be, as primaries in working class areas often ignore the entry tests for ideological reasons. But new grammars located in poor areas would lift aspirations and bring in the middle classes.

Jason, Chelmsford, UK

[cont.] "specialist colleges" where schools can select a certain number on the basis of musical talent or something and call themself a specialist school! I wouldn't have met many of my grammar school friends had we lived in another area - they would have been privately educated. Mobility, eh?

Amy Allen, London,

Everything you say here is correct, except for the suggestion that this was a case of error. Just read the quote from Crosland.

The destruction of education was about as much a mistake as Mao's Great Leap Forward.

In each case the aim was to sacrifice results in pursuit of equality of poverty.

jon livesey, Sunnyvale, CA/USA

wish I had my time again, my career would have turned out so differently in a grammar school
Instead I went to the local comp where the education was one size fits all approach. Bored rigid with the regime left 5 yrs later as one of the biggest under acheivers of 1979

karen, cheshire, uk

The comprehensive principle is now being applied to the university sector where, before long, 50% of young people will take degrees. But there are already too many students who lack the ability to study at that level. It's not their fault, but the universities encourage them in order to earn fees.

Dr. Denis MacEoin, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

About time someone spoke up! My grammar school turned comprehensive after one year in 1971. The result was a large comprehensive in which lack of order allowed bullying and general disorder such that I could not wait to leave. Comprehensive drags down good pupils - it does not pull up.

Richard, Plymouth,

Absolutely right. The situation was made worse by the creation of 'mass' higher education, and the consequent substitution of the student loan, with its ever-increasing burden of debt, for the student grant. Far from increasing social mobility, this policy has reduced it.

RM Blaber, Wellingborough, UK

I started life in poverty in a rented basement flat with working class parents and ended my career as a medical professor. I hold the grammar school responsible.

Terry Hamblin, Bournemouth,

Your article is excellent and accurate, except for one point.

The fault does not stop with Brown, as David Cameron has adopted the same stance. Even though he knows this is wrong, he, or his advisors, do not have the balls to do the right thing and risk losing votes.

Tim Devereux, Esher, Surrey

Well said, but too late I fear. Meritocratic educational opportunities are the best route off the bottom of the ladder, but a route denied to recent generations by left wing ideologues. Half baked social engineering shows the laws of unintended consequences at their most immutable.

gordon w, Didcot, England

Spot on. And egalitarian policies have failed in the wider sphere too, by creating a dependency culture. However Gordon need have no fear, the non-egalitarian nature of the global future will force a true worldwide meritocracy, and we had better participate!

Paul Freeman, London, England

Couldn't agree more!

40 years ago, my best friend at grammar school was the son of a shepherd who lived in a tied cottage.

He and I (the son of a managing director) both received the sort of free education that now costs thousands per term at private school.

Where would my pal go today?

Mike , Newbury, UK

My grammar school education made me see a world my parents had no knowledge of. I remember my Mum used her redundancy money to get me the uniform. We are not all academic so why do we force our children down this route? If Technical education was what it should be, a grammar school would be what?

Lynda, Bournemouth, Uk

Of course Comprehensives are a rubbish idea. Children can be academic, or good at technical subjects or science,,or hands on crafts, or arts, or.... they are fragile and need small classes.
Children should be offered an education to suit them not made to fit in with someones political dogma.

Angus, Milton Keynes, UK