Iain Mansfield’s controversial new research on grammar schools does not pull its punches.
It directs explicit criticism at the academic community which he accuses of having an “unconscious bias driving the [selective education] research agenda”. Yet it appears to be Mansfield’s own bias – presumably not unconscious – that leaves this research open to easy and extensive criticism.
Selective evidence
The report – The Impact of Selective Secondary Education on Progression to Higher Education – is selective in its citation of previous research on grammar schools, and stretches back over ten years to The Sutton Trust’s 2008 report to find supporting evidence for its hypothesis. More recent research that it conveniently disregards includes reports by Education Datalab (2018), Professor Stephen Gorard (2018) and Professor Simon Burgess (2017).
The report is also selective in the quotations it chooses. Despite highlighting polling data that “more than twice as many people support proposals to bring back grammar schools than opposed them”, the report ignores findings from the same poll that nearly two-thirds (of the same respondents) opposed the idea of selection and a warning that “views differed markedly between people according to their social and demographic characteristics”.
In addition, support for selective education was “significantly associated with being older, being male, voting Conservative, being more highly educated and living in certain regions.” Overall, it seems that Mansfield has fallen into exactly the trap that he accuses others of – “a failure to engage properly with evidence”.
FSM alternatives
This is also true of the methods that are used in the report’s primary data analysis. Previous research is criticised for having a narrow view of disadvantage by using free school meals (FSM) as a proxy. Whilst FSM is not a perfect analysis category, it ought to be acknowledged that this is the proxy used by all government departments, including DfE and Ofsted. There was an attempt, and even a consultation, to move beyond this to a new definition labelled ‘just about managing’ – but no reliable measure was found. Mansfield’s attempt at creating a new measure in order to make the data fit an argument is naive.
What about SEND?
The report also seeks to broaden the category of disadvantage by including specific disadvantaged groups, but again this is selective in its focus. While the analysis includes students with English as an additional language (EAL) and black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds, it does not include students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Nearly a third of disadvantaged students have SEND, and this group are significantly under represented in grammar schools.
The percentage of SEND learners with statements or education, heath and care (EHC) plans is less than 0.04 per cent in grammar schools, compared to 1.7 per cent across all schools. A similar pattern exists for those SEND learners without a statement or an EHC plan, such as children with dyslexia, who are over 200 times less likely to attend a grammar school. This data, if included, could have significantly altered Mansfield’s conclusion that grammar schools provide a ladder of opportunity for disadvantaged pupils.
While academic debate is to be encouraged, and think tanks such as HEPI have an important role to play in this, sadly the only thing that we can say about selective education based on this publication is that it is selective in the evidence it offers.
It isn’t just that think tanks like HEPI have an important role to play in advising the debate over education policy, it is the fact that they have a DUTY to do so. Their utmost efforts have to be employed to make sure that any and all conclusions attached to their research are based only on the most robust, reliable and unbiased information at their disposal. Iain Mansfield has failed on all counts. What really puzzles me is why HPEI agreed to publish. My only thought is, they came to this decision in an attempt to expose its conclusions to… Read more »
Thanks John, You can accuse us of lots to things but you can’t (accurately) accuse us of not responding to the critiques. Iain, the author has done so on Wonkhe. I have done so for Schools Week. In addition, I seem to have spent most of the past week engaging with people about the report on Twitter (including with the author of this piece to which you are responding). We will have more to say in due course – perhaps even an event. But, for now, a few quick thoughts. First, HEPI is a policy body and my frustration is… Read more »
Thanks Nick for engaging and addressing some of the issues raised in response to the report last week. It’s certainly got people thinking! I’d like to just respond to a couple of things as you ask some important questions. The question: “if selection is wrong at 11 but widely and (largely uncontroversially) practised at 18, when does it become wrong?” is a good one that I’ve thought about before but has largely been in the ‘must think more about this when I have a minute’ category! I still need to think about this further but my initial feeling is that… Read more »
Thanks Matt. I am mulling all this over. I have been told that it is unnecessary and unhelpful for this debate over grammar school provision to be happening. But I don’t believe that to be the case. Debating such issues helps shapes opinions, especially when there is judicious use of data, evidence and research. So I welcome your thoughts wholeheartedly. I am not completely convinced by your (tentative) responses to my questions though. The few people, including you, who have grappled with the question of when selection becomes acceptable have alighted on the age of 16, either because that is… Read more »