A random ballot may be the best way to allocate places at oversubscribed schools, according to a new … [+]
Up to half of school places should be allocated by ballot to ensure fair access to the highest-performing schools, according to a new study.
Wealthy families often monopolise places at the best schools, pushing up house prices as they move to live near schools where most of the places are allocated on the basis of proximity.
As a result, many of the best performing schools accept fewer students from disadvantaged backgrounds than the national average, increasing school segregation and hindering social mobility, according to a report published today.
And holding a ballot to allocate up to half of places may be the best way to provide a level playing field for oversubscribed schools, the study’s authors conclude.
The report is accompanied by a survey – also carried out for the Sutton Trust, a charity dedicated to improving social mobility through education – which finds half of all high school leaders feel socio-economic segregation is a problem in the school system.
But more than four in 10 (43%) say they take little or no account of the socio-economic make-up of their community when designing their admissions system.
Students from wealthy families are much more likely to attend high-performing schools, with a ‘substantial’ gap in the academic quality of the school attended by poor and non-poor students, according to today’s study into school choice in England, written by academics at Bristol and Cambridge universities.
‘If a student’s chance of attending a high-performing school is determined by their family income, this will act as a major brake on social mobility,’ the authors say.
While this is often seen as a result of different levels of parental engagement in school choice, the study found this was not the case.
Families where students are eligible for free school meals on the basis of low income make as many choices of school as wealthier parents, are just as unlikely to choose the local school and take account of school quality in making their choices.
The gap is largely the result of school admission policies which favour students living nearest the school, putting up house prices as parents manoeuvre to get their children into the best possible school and creating greater social segregation in schools.
‘The problem is that the core element of our school admissions system, allocating places by proximity to the school, favours the wealthy,’ said Simon Burgess, professor of economics at Bristol University and one of the authors of the report. ‘Better off parents can essentially buy access to high-performing popular schools through where they can choose to live.’
This can create a spiral as high-performing schools often appeal to the best teachers, while those at the other end of the scale can struggle to attract and keep teachers.
‘Addressing this segregation and enabling more mixed and balanced pupil intakes are likely to be beneficial, not just in terms of social cohesion, but also balancing out the attractiveness of schools for teachers,’ the report says.
The authors propose a number of options, including reserving a number of places for disadvantaged families, and operating a banding system, where schools admit a set number of students from each ability band. As students from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to perform lower on banding test, more are likely to be admitted than if admission was decided on proximity alone.
But the authors conclude that the best option may be a marginal ballot, where at least half of places are allocated as normal – by proximity – but the remainder are allocated through a random draw.
This would give all unsuccessful applicants an equal chance of being admitted to the school, the authors say.
The survey accompanying the report found a disconnect between the views of school leaders and teachers and the reality in their schools.
And while many believed schools should be more inclusive, most did not think that applied to their school.
Half of school leaders said social segregation was a problem in the school system, but seven in 10 teachers in the most socially selective schools said their school had no problem with the balance of its intake.
And almost three quarters (74%) of teachers in the most socially selective schools said their intake had average or higher levels of disadvantage than their local neighbourhoods, even though the reverse was actually the case.
But the survey found support for an overhaul of admissions policies. Almost two thirds (62%) of high school leaders said they were open to a review of admissions policies, and 68% of teachers and 72% of school leaders said improving the social mix would have a positive effect on schools.
There was also support from parents to reducing social segregation in schools. Eight out of 10 said schools should have a mix of students from different backgrounds, 76% said intakes should reflect the local community, and 69% said high-performing schools should make more effort to admit students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
But views on changing admission systems were more mixed, perhaps reflecting the unwillingness of more affluent parents to give up their advantage. Just 42% of middle class parents said it was fairer to use a ballot of allocate places at oversubscribed schools, rather than a proximity measure.
