Introducing the practical realities of choice

The harshest critics of admissions arrangements within the quasi-market for schooling offer much, often blunt, comment. When it is reported in the quality media that ‘An insidious mix of selection by ability, faith and postcode is wreaking havoc on the entire schools system’ (Fiona Millar, The Guardian, 12 April 2010), or that ‘School leaders are calling on politicians to end what they call “the misleading rhetoric” of school choice – which they say cannot be delivered’ (BBC, 2008), we have cause to consider seriously whether the outcomes of the system are consistent with democratic and constitutional expectations, and indeed the extent to which choice of school is a reality rather than an aspiration or empty promise.

The oversubscribed school is the precise point at which the rhetoric of parental choice meets the stark reality of limited places in popular schools, and in this context the power to choose seems to shift from parents to those managing the admissions process. Operating within a quasi-market context, there will be strong pressures on, or temptations for, those exercising the power of selection (in ‘non-selective’ schools) to prioritise choosing those pupils who will best serve the interests of the individual school, rather than any broader social priorities, a phenomenon implicitly recognised and addressed by policies such as the ‘pupil premium’ (see Chapter Four) and ‘fair banding’ (see Chapter Six) espoused by the 2010 Coalition. Though schools are required to state publicly their admissions criteria, in situations of oversubscription there is the possibility of the occurrence of what Chitty (1992, pp 96–7) identifies as informal selection, or what we might term ‘covert selection’, where published policies on admissions are not followed or factors or practices additional to published criteria are adopted, by schools claiming not to be ‘selective’. As Whitty (2002, p 130) suggests, ‘The covert forms of selection … may … produce greater inequalities, as socially advantaged parents learn to decipher the “real” admissions criteria’. From constitutional and democratic perspectives, equity and accountability in the exercise of such power of selection will be imperative. It might also be expected that such practices would on occasion be found to be unlawful. In the time since the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA), reviewed in this chapter, came into force, the legal requirements, guidance, practices and routes of appeal have all changed significantly.