[A response to a Daily Telegraph article, Grammar schools needed to raise standards, on 25th June 2007]
Children are born with an IQ that largely depends on what they inherit. We cannot hope to improve a dull child by sending it to a grammar school, but we ought to send a bright child there.
The science of statistics tells us that about two thirds of children have an IQ between 85 and 115. About a sixth are above 115, and the remaining sixth below 85. This means about one sixth of children should go to a grammar school, and a sixth to a special needs school. The middle four sixths should go to midstream schools.
Therefore, of the 600,000 children born each year, 100,000 should go to a grammar school. If each grammar school admits 100 children per year, as mine did, that means we need a thousand grammar schools.
Not 164, Mr Cameron and Mr Willetts, but 1000. Your wittering about keeping existing grammars is totally inadequate.
The policy outlined here means that each midstream school can run classes of viable size with an annual admission of 100 pupils. This means a school size of about 500 pupils, much easier to manage than the enormous comprehensives that we currently put up with.
A final refinement would be that one in four midstream schools be allowed to charge top-up fees. Such schools could be called Didactic Resource Centres, or DRCs; but everyone would know they were for Dim Rich Children. We need such schools, partly to take the pressure off the proper grammar schools.
Posted by Michael Gorman on June 25, 2007 3:44 PM