ABSTRACT

So far I’ve talked exclusively about private education. That’s where the conflict between parental partiality and equality of opportunity is most acute. Some parents can and some cannot afford to buy their children a better education than is received by those attending state schools. If children’s schooling depends on their parents’ ability – and willingness – to pay for it, children of similar ability and motivation do not have equal chances. But I was triggered to write this book by the Harriet Harman affair. She sent her son to a selective – not a private – school. And it was grammar v comprehensive, not private v state, that exercised me when I was at school myself. (Then I thought it was obvious that private schools were beyond the moral pale.) So how do grammar schools fit in?