Quote Originally Posted by Furunculus View Post
if you believe that comprehensive education has achieved its 'equality' of outcome precisely by dragging everything back to a lowest common denominator then anything that might improve the situation can only be a good thing.

at the very worst free schools will not make the net average of educational achievement worse in this country than they already are.

if they make things better then we can finally have a sensible conversation about the failure of the comprehensive system and utter moronic stupidity of closing high-achieving grammar schools.
You discredit the comprehensive system for failing to provide top end results without acknowledging the wreck that selective schools make of children who do not enjoy the support and pressure of their parents. You state that nothing can be worse than the comprehensive system but you are blind to the absolute inequality and downright elitism of the system precedant to the comprehensive one.

The fundamental issue is who do you focus on, the worst off who can't help themselves, or the well off who can and will help themselves. There are equally good reasons for assisting either but ultimately any system that does not support and enable both is defficient.

The "free" schools initiative gives more power to middle class parents. If these schools maintain a body of children from mixed backgrounds, then they should provide decent education for all.