Schools and social mobility Simon Burgess

1. Centre for Market and Public Organisation Schools and social mobilitySimon Burgess www.bris.ac.uk/cmpo

2. “There was nothing in my story that would land me here. I wasn't raised with wealth or resources or any social standing to speak of...” “If you want to know the reason why I'm standing here, it's because of education. I never cut class. … . I liked being smart. I loved being on time. I loved getting my work done. I thought being smart was cooler than anything in the world.” Michelle Obama, visiting Elizabeth Garrett Anderson school, London, 2009. www.bris.ac.uk/cmpo

3. Plan • Schools and persistent disadvantage • Schools matter • Who goes to which school? And why? • Preferences? • Constraints? • “Early years” and all that • What should we do? www.bris.ac.uk/cmpo

4. Schools and persistent disadvantage • Persistent disadvantage: your life chances depend on your background. • Education: • possibly the most important policy-amenable channel? (skills and qualifications; not genetic endowment) • What roles do schools play in perpetuating disadvantage, and privilege? • Admissions • Teachers, ethos and rules, leadership. www.bris.ac.uk/cmpo

5. Schools matter • Obvious? • Not necessarily ... Its hard to distinguish schools’ effects from families’ effects • But robust evidence suggests that they do: • Using Hurricane Katrina to reallocate students ... • Harlem Children’s Zone • Effective teachers versus ineffective teachers make a huge difference • Engaging student effort matters (KIPP, Charters, Academies??) • Evidence from Brighton and Hove in a year’s time ... www.bris.ac.uk/cmpo

6. Who goes to which school? • Students from poorer families go to low performing schools • Of students in the same full postcode, the poorer one will on average go to a lower performing school. • But that is a small part of the overall gap • Most is about location – living near a good school; yet most have a good school within feasible travelling distance. www.bris.ac.uk/cmpo

7. And why? • This could be due to preferences. • Our evidence for England suggests that rich and poor have similar preferences for academic quality versus distance; but hard to tell decisively. • US evidence suggests rich have greater preference for academic quality. • Or it could be constraints. • Our evidence suggests that the poor have access to less effective schools than the rich www.bris.ac.uk/cmpo

8. The role of the proximity criterion www.bris.ac.uk/cmpo

9. “Early years” and all that • Slightly redress balance ... • Evidence for very effective early years interventions are: • being revisited because of compromised randomisation; still positive • typically small-scale and intensive rather than large-scale and universal • Scope for substantial changes during school years. Evidence on: • Teachers • Effort • Neuroscience evidence on “sensitive stages” for brain development • Need to think of the whole chain: • [impact of policy on environment]* • [impact of environment on brain]* • [impact of change in brain on life outcomes] • And to think of first link as well as second. www.bris.ac.uk/cmpo

10. What should we do? • Raising social mobility is “principal goal of our social policy” • Raising attainment of students in deprived neighbourhoods; real valued skills and qualifications. • Social mobility strategy says “disadvantaged children need the best possible opportunity to get into the best schools”. • Serious look at school admissions: • Lotteries? Evidence of convergence in dual-catchments in Brighton and Hove • Experimental interventions ... Effort and engagement • Intensive local reforms like the Harlem Children’s Zone • Understand and channel the assignment of effective teachers. www.bris.ac.uk/cmpo