Why poor white children fail
The root of poor educational outcomes is cultural demoralisation
This is an expanded version of my column in today’s Times (£).
Once again, an aspect of Britain’s cultural emergency has been laid bare without any real understanding of its nature and scale.
A new report has revealed that poor white working-class children in England, who make up around 15 per cent of the total school population, experience some of the worst educational outcomes in the country across all stages of education.
The report is the result of a year-long inquiry by the former Labour education secretary, Estelle Morris, and Sir Hamid Patel, co-chair of the Star Academies school chain.
By the end of secondary school, it notes, only 36 per cent of them achieve grade 4 or above in English and Maths GCSE, compared with 72 per cent of pupils not on free school meals ( the accepted marker of poverty). Nearly two-thirds of poor white working-class pupils finish compulsory education without the minimum qualifications needed to access most further education and employment opportunities.
Such children, says the report, feel the education system is not for people like them. Some say this is because school is too exam-oriented; but that demonstrably false explanation — it’s always been exam-oriented, but it’s only in recent years that social mobility has gone into reverse — is just the usual chaff thrown up to obscure a deeply unpalatable reality.
The Labour government reacted to the report’s findings by displaying its habitual class-war response. The Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson — who has been described by the Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, as a “spiteful class warrior” — said that white working-class children must possess either “exceptional” talent or “luck” to achieve success in Britain today. In an earlier interview, Phillipson said: “Class is a huge driver of outcomes, never mind in our politics, but right across society.”
She misses the point. It’s not all poor working-class children who are failing to thrive at school. It’s poor white working-class children. The ones that progressive circles like Phillipson’s denigrate for “white privilege” and ignore.
