Absolute nonsense. This is reverse discrimination at it's worst and is extremely patronizing to those people who have a different skin color or name or education than what the bureaucrats see as "normal". Why is there an assumption that working class parents are too stupid to figure out "bureaucratize" or will be REFUSED information because they "might not be able to understand it"?

And these same bureaucrats write that working class parents "do no understand bureaucracy". They need to check their own educational backgrounds if they didn't see that glaring error.

alice, salado, us/tx

For goodness sake don't blame Labour for this fine mess. Study the history of education since 1988 and remember where it all began;which government it was that started us all down the road of competition, choice and diversity; who emasculated the Local Education Authorities and put power in the hands of parents; who decided to create the quasi-market in education. The only surprise was that the Left was caught off-guard when New Labour took over these Tory policies and pursued them with a vengeance, doing things that even the Thatcherites baulked at. So now, having reaped the whirlwind, they are desperately trying to find a way to minimise the worse effects of the market. The only trouble is, the genie's out of the bottle and it won't go back in again. It would take real leadership, real guts, and not a little humilty to admit that it was all wrong in the first place; that schools are schools, not markets, and that the model doesn't work. Not likely with an election on the horizon...

Robert, Loughborough, England

Why don't you British just go ahead and turn over your country to the Muslims and the minorities without going thru with all this bureaucracy? It would save you a lot of trouble.

The "middle class families" can move to the USA. We need y'all right here!

Derek, Seattle, USA

More than anything this will lose Labour the next election.
The vague evil of the notion of 'social segregation' does not compete with the horror of sending my sweet four year old into a state school regime so imbecilic that the headteacher is prevented by law from into gaining an insight into whether his charges have parents who are interested in their children's education.

Andy Laurillard, Brighton, UK

Typical bureaucracy gone mad. It wont stop the pushy middle class parents who will be the ones most able to employ a good lawyer to sort out who said what and then sue. The entire admissions system should be changed to a lottery within a catchment area and all parental choice removed. Within 10 years this will reverse the trend of good pupils gravitating towards "good" schools and the bad ones ending up in so called "sink" schools. The law of averages will take over and schools performance will even out.

Nik Bartlett, Chippenham, UK

Yet another example of how this Labour Government are intent on dragging everyone down to the same level.

Jim Scott, Prestwick,

It would appear that it is a common bain of the middle class in all English speaking countries that the education of our children and more specifically the administration of that education , has been entrusted to a clique of overpaid idiots with strings of letters following their names. BS,MS and Ph.D. short for bull,, more and piled higher and deeper. We hope to send our kids to institutions of higher education but find we receive only an education of higher institututions.

Earl Dewey, Wallingford, CT/USA

If such individual measures as described above are necessary, there is something very, very drastically wrong with the way in which school places are allocated. There are only two workable systems: (1) neither parents or schools have any choices as to whom to admit, and school admission is based on locality (and, in the case of children with special needs, those special needs); or (2) there is a fully free market, where both parents and schools have a choice fettered only by the right of the other to choose. Anything in between creates catastrophic perverse incentives incapable of achieving any worthwhile social ,educational or efficiency goal.

The sort of oppressive micromanagement described above is wholly unjustifiable under any circumstnaces, bar none. If it is proper to leave the decision to schools, it is is wholly improper to oppress the manner in which they decide by such an extreme degree.

James E. Petts, Burnham, England

This will in fact increase and deepen segregation as people will chose areas and towns where all the schools are good. Middle class flight from the city will become a flood.

Labour are idiots who learn nothing from the past and hardly pause to think things through - and off course ensure their own children are special cases going to private or near private (London Oratory anyone) schools.

Man in a Shed, Woking, England

Stand back and watch the fireworks....and the horrendous drop in standards. Already in my school it costs thousands every year hearing appeal after appeal then fighting litigation after litigation. The whole thing is ridiculous, chaotic and already causing massive resentment and the worst thing is, that this won't achieve non segregated schools because it is quite often black families, not white, that stick together and send their kids to the same school. Meddling Labour have to go...quickly.

judy, Liverpool, England

What ever happened to parental choice???
Pushy parents (and I am one) want the best for their children, we dont want to be part of a social engineering to create 'bog standard comprehensives'. Having attended a bad secondary school myself, I dont want the same for my children. My nearest school has a GCSE pass rate of 20% compared with 80% at another nearby school.

I am an ethnic minority who has work very hard to get to university and I want to make life a little easier for my children.

Gordon Brown, you should concentrate on making all schools good instead on bring good school down to a low level.

Linda, Hastings, UK

The "pursuit of excellence" seems to be a goal that this one size fits all government fails to want to encourage. The USA is wealthy because those who can afford a good education get one, and the actions to lump every one together are seen now to have been a failure and educational segregation is being accepted as normal, as it always was. After all, someone has to "sweep the streets" so why not let those that are suitable do so, but being paid a reasonable income and be treated generally well. The "everyone must have a degree" pursued by Nu Labour is a failure with plumbers, etc earning in many cases much higher incomes than, for example, media specialists who are in a market place where there are just too many.

B J Deller, Marbella, Spain

Is this a ploy by the government to further stretch hard-working middle-class families and force them to educate their children privately? Very underhand and very clever. Another stealth tax. . I strongly believe the good schools will be dragged down rather than vice versa. What about parent choice in such a vital decision?? All this about patient choice in the NHS is political claptrap set to further the governments aims. Double standards everywhere...

Rachael, , bristol,

so i can send my kids to a faith based school without any questions being asked of me. If parents cant speak english they should not be resident in this country.
Yet again its PC gone mad lets bow to the lowest common denominator in society and leave our best and brightest to rot. Give our immigrant friends the best of everything and let the indigenous population fall by the wayside. The government are so afraid of insulting the religions that they run from any kind of confrontation on our door step yet cant wait to invade other lands. We worry about the rise of nationalism in the country and yet we are no longer able to be patriotic. I cant fly the flag of my country outside my door for fear that l may be prosecuted for offending people who have come to shelter under the blanket of security it provides.
The government should not be worried about being PC they should however be worried about bishops who get death threats

simon, newcastle,

This is just really really scarey!

Ian Anderson, Knutsford, Cheshire

I am sure I am missing something but could we not forget about catchment areas, social engineering and the like and just let parents apply to any school they like? Then all the good schools will flourish and expand and the bad ones will have to close down.

John, London, UK

The main offenders in covert selection are Voluntary Aided and Foundation Schools.

All admissions should be administered by Local Authorities.

Norman Harris, Stalybridge, UK.

Bemused by the ruling to stop parents whether they support its ethos because this might be considered "patronising" to less well-educated or ethnic minority parents. Many so called "ethnic minority parents" would be aghast at being lumped into this category. Many among these communities -- among the first generation migrants -- are likely to have attended top schools in the countries where they come from. They would strongly support and value a school's "ethos" , standards and traditions. A good education for a child is major priority among "ethnic minority parents".

Seren Thomas, Watford,

I may be incorrect, but didn't this government promise parental choice in selecting a school for their children? Now this has been shown to be the impossible aim it always was in reality, surely they should now strive to raise the standards in schools which are underachieving and attempt to give an education which suits youngsters of all aptitudes. Why not bring back technical colleges which would give skills education to youngsters who are not academically inclined. Then we may have enough plumbers, electricians etc. without the need to look overseas for these tradesmen.

Rod, Preston, UK

So that element of population that funds these schools is now being barred from sending their children to them.

martinG, reading, UK

The harsh reality of life and I mean LIFE, is that if you are malnourished, and a large proportion of white working class Britain is, you mind will be starved of the nutrients required to reach any level of intellectual capacity. So, if we are to create an even playing field, then we need to improve the diet of those who are currently so stressed about other things they lose the will to eat well.

Azitiz, Oxford,

Don't they have better thing to do like employing more teachers instead of a bunch of adjudicators? Maybe then the school standards and education would rise.

Nick, miami Florida, USA

This is typical - an education system that aspires to A-levels in burger flipping is beneath contempt!

Dick, London,

Parents feeling they are being denied the school they prefer should " strike" keeping their children away from school, forcing the government to sue them all one by one. Will probably take a 100 years.

David Vinter, Louth Lincs,, UK.

This article makes me, a lifelong Anglophile, glad that I live in the People's Republic of New Jersey - not in Britain.

Allan Bilder, Hammonton, New Jersey USA