If You Really Know Best, Mr Balls, Why Are There Still So Few Good Schools? ; as Thousands of London Children Are Denied Their School of Choice, the Former Head of Ofsted Argues That Social Engineering Is Holding Back the Fight for Higher Standards

Woodhead, Chris, The Evening Standard (London, England)

LAST Friday I stopped for fuel in a garage in Wandsworth.

"Didn't you use to work in education?" the cashier asked.

I confessed that I had. "Well", she said, "things aren't getting any better, are they? My boy did really well at primary school. Now we've been told that the secondary school we wanted for him is full. They offered him a place in a lousy school miles from where we live. He doesn't want to go. We know he's not going to make any progress there." She seemed close to tears.

"There's nothing we can do, is there?" I commiserated and, muttering that it might be worth appealing against the decision, beat a hasty retreat. But the truth is that there …

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Publication information: Article title: If You Really Know Best, Mr Balls, Why Are There Still So Few Good Schools? ; as Thousands of London Children Are Denied Their School of Choice, the Former Head of Ofsted Argues That Social Engineering Is Holding Back the Fight for Higher Standards. Contributors: Woodhead, Chris - Author. Newspaper title: The Evening Standard (London, England). Publication date: March 16, 2009. Page number: 15. © Not available. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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