National scandal of grammar schools is revealed at last...

AND finally, the proof.

For years we’ve debated the merits of grammar schools. We’ve listened to a million phone-in shows between those whose lives were made or put paid to, by selective education.

We’ve been ear-bashed by a succession of Michael Caine yanked-up-by-my-bootstraps types about how grammar schools lifted them into a world of new possibilities. There’s rarely any air time for those whose lives were consigned to one of no possibilities by the finality of the 11-plus exam.

But now, at last, academics at Durham University have found the “apparent success” of grammar schools is simply down to their brighter and more advantaged pupils.

So let’s get this straight... they choose the cleverest kids with the cleverest, most engaged parents and biggest bank accounts. And guess what? They turned out the best grades.

The academics’ report reveals the schools themselves are no better once pupils’ natural ability and family wealth is taken into account.

The only effect they do have is to select the brightest kids in an area ensuring that all the other schools nearby are left with more than their share of the poor pupils and those struggling to learn.

It’s an institutionalised form of “I’m All Right Jack”. And yet swathes of the country still look back on grammar schools through the rosy spectacles usually used for viewing Woolworths and red phone boxes. Which although may sound wonderfully nostalgic now, were both pretty rubbish.

The Tories have temporarily abandoned plans for new grammar schools since the general election. But they remain dedicated to allowing existing ones to expand.

For through those shortsighted rose-tinted Tory specs, this is what social mobility looks like. The fact that today’s grammar schools are largely filled with middle-class kids whose parents have tutored them within an inch of their lives is conveniently ignored.

And the reality that loads of these kids have parents who can afford private education but wouldn’t darken the door of a state school is forgotten too.

Just 3% of grammar school kids are on free school meals – compared with almost 15% in nongrammar schools. And 13% of grammar school kids have previously attended private schools.

If selective education was just retaining the advantage of those already born into advantage it would be galling. But it’s worse than that. Far worse. Because grammar schools are actively diminishing the education of those who live nearby but don’t make the grade.

And that is a national scandal. Always has been. The only thing that is different now is we have the proof.

This is what social mobility looks like