Why can’t we just accept the harsh reality of school exam results? - Yorkshire Post Letters

The front page of The Yorkshire Post today (August 11) treats us to the annual government announcement that they will address inequality of outcomes in school exams.

It's a disgrace, the government tells us yet again, that poor ‘white’ children under-achieve at GCSE and A-level and they are going to sort this out. The official line is that GCSEs and A-levels are not norm-referenced; there's no quota, apparently, to decide what proportion of the students will be given pass grades.

Baloney. Apart from the Covid years, one third have always ‘failed’ and two-thirds have passed. They try very hard to convince us that everyone can pass if the schools just teach well enough - try reading the waffle they use to ‘explain’ how the pass-mark is set each year for each subject - but the stark truth is there.

Why can't they just admit it? Why can't they admit that, if the schools did manage to improve the proportion of ‘white working class’ students passing the exams this could only be achieved by reducing the proportions of other social groups passing?

A more honest public dialogue would make it clear that schools' duty is to provide the opportunity for learning but parents' and carers' duty is to get the children to grasp those opportunities. "You can lead a horse to water."

Or come out with it, openly and say "schools are there to make up for weak parenting".

That's what teachers are told - but not the public at large. Instead, we just get fudgy-wudgy flannel trying to tell everyone what they want to hear but no honesty.

As a society we are not tough enough to accept harsh, blunt realities - and so we get a smoke-screen instead.