Introduction

The previous three chapters have charted how a system of school admissions premised, in theory at least, on parental choice came to supersede a system centred on admissions policies determined and managed by local education authorities (LEAs). The two different models appear to represent contrasting responses to the wide range of expectations, values and priorities underlying debate regarding school admissions. Competing for priority, in this context, are agenda items relating inter alia to equality, equity of treatment, national economic needs, local democratic expectations and individual choice. The LEA-centred and choice-based models discussed previously will inevitably give different priorities to these and other factors implicated in decision making about admissions. In general terms, while the LEA-centred model might be expected to emphasise collective and local democratic values, on occasion to the detriment of individual preference, the choice model (with choice exercised unevenly) may be likely to prioritise individual choice over collective planning agendas. As will be clear from previous discussion, neither approach can be considered wholly successful on its own terms and, inevitably, both will be subject to heavy criticism from alternative perspectives.

With little if any sign from any major political party of plans for any return to an admissions system centred on local authority powers, attention in recent years has inevitably focused on perceived failings in the parental choice model introduced from 1988 onwards, and on proposals for its reform. In this regard, criticisms come from two prominent and quite distinct perspectives. The first is from parents disappointed at their children not having been admitted to an oversubscribed school of their choice. As noted in previous chapters, though relatively small in numbers, complaints from disgruntled parents, especially perhaps those from affluent and articulate groups who may have bought a house in the proximity of a popular school only to find a place not available for their child as a result of oversubscription, are persistent and prominent in the popular media, even if coverage might be thought to overstate the degree of dissatisfaction. It should be unsurprising if the rhetoric of choice in schooling perpetuated since 1988 leads to genuine feelings of frustration and anger when choices are not met. The second is from commentators concerned with questions of equity and equality of opportunity who point towards the clear tendency, discussed in Chapter Five, of the parental choice system to reproduce social stratification and segregation.