How to raise attainment in our schools

An MSP recently challenged me on how to raise attainment in Scotland’s poorest urban schools. My first defensive response was, beware the statistics. The recent work of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland on Principal Component Analysis poses major questions about the “under-performance” hitherto assumed in such schools (See Once a Teacher… SecEd 327, September 27, 2012).

Second, you cannot easily create success in schools where large numbers of the learners operate in contexts where expectations are miserably low. Parental choice has created, in many of our poorest communities, schools battling against the odds. Poverty, unemployment and low expectations are common in the community; some of the most ambitious parents enrol their children in schools in more affluent areas. A downward spiral of low expectations and decreasing attainment inevitably follows. There are two choices open to our politicians: abolish parental choice or create schools with genuinely mixed catchment areas.