One would imagine that a report into ‘White Working Class Educational Outcomes‘ would largely cover white working class educational outcomes. In fact, the otherwise excellent report commissioned by the Star Academies, funded by the Christopher and Henry Oldfield Trust and authored by Public First, largely concerns the educational outcomes of the children of the white benefits class – the literal opposite of working class. By using imprecise language in the title and publicity around the report, the white working class is yet again slurred and a fundamental element at play in dreadful education outcomes – that of generational welfare dependency – is improperly examined.
The report states:
For the purposes of analysing national educational outcomes data, the inquiry primarily uses white British pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) as the best available pupil-level proxy for identifying white working class disadvantage within national datasets.
Children are eligible for Free School Meals if their net household earnings is less than £7,400 per year under Universal Credit criteria and there are planned changes to increase eligibility to all children in households receiving Universal Credit from September. White British FSM pupils make up around 15% of England’s total school population (1.25 million of 8.45 million pupils).
The report includes many devastating findings:
By the end of secondary school, only 36% of white British FSM pupils achieve a grade 4 or above in English and Maths GCSE, compared with 72% of non-FSM pupils. These patterns have remained remarkably consistent over time.
Other stats are equally troubling: 38% of white FSM pupils are persistently absent, 52% of white FSM pupils don’t reach a Good Level of Development by the end of Reception, only 63% meet the expected standard in the Phonics Screening Check, vs. 83% of non-FSM pupils, only 43% achieve the expected standard in Reading, Writing and Maths at Key Stage 2, vs. 69% of non-FSM pupils.
The report, though basing the majority of its figures on FSM pupils (the children of parents on benefits) has also extended out the scope of its research to low socio-economic groups, and it is this wider grouping that has been named in the report as white working class:
While educational attainment analysis in this report uses white British FSM pupils, wider polling and qualitative research undertaken uses white British C2DE socio-economic classifications, allowing the inquiry to understand a broader range of experiences, attitudes and perceptions amongst white working class children, young people and families.
The report makes valid and accurate reflections that this cohort does not value education or sees it as offering a pathway to economic flourishing:
While poverty [benefits dependency?] remains the strongest predictor of educational underachievement across all ethnic groups, white British FSM pupils (who make up over half of all FSM pupils) experience the weakest educational outcomes of any major ethnic group in England. This suggests that white working class underachievement cannot be understood solely as a question of poverty, but reflects a distinctive combination of socioeconomic disadvantage, place, culture and educational experience.
I concur with this. Yesterday I was driving between students and listened to coverage of the report while meeting the sorts of children the report features. In the morning I saw a girl who has been out of school for 18 months. Her complex family household is entirely state funded. During our tutoring session, an aunt came over to help gran fill in some SEND forms for a cousin in order to increase her Disability Carers Allowance. Additional money is made via car boot sales and cash in hand cleaning and gardening jobs. There is no connection at all between education, work and income. Similarly, in the afternoon, I saw a student in social housing whose mum said, and I quote: “We don’t value education in this family. Never have, never will.” Her estranged husband is a traveller who periodically bungs her thousands of pounds in cash, and otherwise, she and her three children live on benefits (Mum and her children have a series of confusing/confected health issues.) The longer I do this job, the less and less I think it possible to support any of my students out of their limited worlds unless the financial benefits incentive system is broken.
The report does recognise this problem of educational malaise within such groups:
For many families, these perceptions are shaped by multigenerational experiences of education and work. Parents frequently described their own lives as evidence that success is possible without strong academic qualifications, while others reflected on generations of insecure employment, limited local opportunity and poor educational experiences. Participants repeatedly described communities where belief in education as a reliable route to success had weakened over a very long period of time.
While it is to be applauded in shining a light on this particularly grim corner of crumbling Britain, the report avoids analysing the benefits system’s role in families’ approaches towards education. A pity.
Mary Gilleece is an education support worker and her name is a pseudonym.
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Please no more articles about kier. Write about the handful of dynamic people in your country in different walks of life. Politicians are rarely dynamic or bright. Thanks.
Isn’t it a bit racist to lump white working class people into a group and make sweeping generalisations about them?
And if it isn’t, then, presumably we can talk about the lower IQs (collectively) of black people and the higher IQs (collectively) of East Asians, right?
The intention and success of the Socialist Welfare-state, to make future generations entirely State-dependent drones.
It’s a shame the report doesn’t give the actual percentage of FSM pupils who are white British, over half could be 51% or over 90%. If it’s close to 50% this would show that parents who aren’t white British are far more likely to be on benefits since well over half of parents are white British, unless we’re being outbred even faster than I thought we were. If non white British parents are more likely to be on benefits it’s highly unlikely to be due to systematic racism, as the loony lefties would claim, and is far more likely to be due to allowing huge numbers of poorly educated/low skilled immigrants, a lot of whom will end up on some form of benefits, into the country and allowing them to remain here even if they can’t support themselves and the large families a lot of foreigners end up having.
The evidence must be overwhelming for the influence of culture and parenting in educational achievement. We know some social or ethnic groups hold educating their children as of utmost importance, others can have an anti-education attitude and social culture. Perhaps some parents fear that were their children to achieve results in the education system they would become socially separated from them ? Perhaps rather than aspiring for their children to have different lives from themselves, they want to make sure their children stay inside their own social grouping ? We are us and they are them, my child should be one of us.
It would be interesting to see a thorough survey of parental attitudes by social grouping. Would success as a Man United striker be approved by some, yet the same parents not want to see their children become Doctors, Lawyers of Accountants ?
https://youtu.be/8gfipuaIA68?si=Bxh4YYQtqY6h9Xn4
Of course very few people in positions of power are interested in the white WORKING class other than as a source of tax revenue and as whipping boys.
They also need a proxy, or more accurately, fall guy for the far right extremists who pose such a threat to national security
Yes the terrorist threat from Nazi Plumbers.
I tend to agree with many of the views of Theodore Dalrymple. An overview of his thinking can be found here: https://www.historyofsocialwork.org/eng/details.php?cps=31&canon_id=175
A couple of quotes from the article:
“Dalrymple turns around some of the fundamental views in social work. In his opinion professionals are diverting people in social needs away from their own individual responsibility for the situation they are in. People are also made too dependent on institutions. As a consequence, the way these social professionals and their services work keeps the underclass in existence.”
“In the views of the pioneering social workers, poverty was often the result of poor choices, wrong habits and thus personal responsibility. Hence, they argued, people should be helped to change their lifestyle and get rid of their bad habits.”
If we continue to dole out money to people who are not working and incentivising them to have more children (and to not live in 2 person relationships) – how can we expect the numbers of long term benefit claimants to ever reduce?
Interesting article. Its clear message is: ‘The only way to solve the problem of state dependency is cold turkey for the benefits class. To start by ending state dependency, and thus allowing the weakest to go to the wall.’ Please correct me if I am wrong.
I was thinking about this the other day. If you believe in it, natural selection caused humans to be amazing. Natural selection has now more or less stopped, because of our ingenuity and compassion. Somewhere between exposing naked children on freezing cold hills and endlessly indulging dysfunctional people when they would be better off with a kick up the arse, there is a happy medium.
Worse. The system is selecting for the low IQ “poor”, non-producers by paying people to have babies, providing them with food and shelter. These babies grow up into permanent non-productive, welfare dwellers.
This is paid for by taking money from higher IQ, producers who as a consequence cannot afford to have as many children. Many leave the UK.
Overall the system is diminishing the population’s IQ – and bring in millions of low IQ welfare dwellers from the cesspits of the World.
You’re completely correct. However children don’t choose to be born to feckless work shy parents and are therefore innocent victims and stopping the parent’s benefits would only make things even worse for the children.
The only solution I can think of would be compulsory abortions for women who become pregnant when they and the father, if he’s even still around, are on benefits. To avoid huge numbers of abortions forcing women who aren’t in a position to financially support children to have a contraceptive implant would help but a lot of feckless women would slip through the net.
Interesting view and I can’t say I disagree but compulsory abortions is not really a good look, if you think about it
Strange isn’t it. The WEF rails against “useless eaters” …. but then the WEF puppets in the governing class do everything they can to create more of them and incentivise their production.
Not wrong.
Abolish the welfare system entirely, return the public services including NHS Leviathan back into the private and voluntary sector.
Everyone is on welfare, not just the benefits class, everyone: “free” health, State pensions, “free” public services, child allowance, maternity allowance, sick pay, free or subsidised child care, etc.
The whole population is on the take. £3 trillion debt… and climbing.
“Welfare” used to be called charity, the voluntary sector, until Labour nationalised it post-war.
eg: in 1948 when the NHS was launched, there were over 1 100 hospitals with 90 000 beds in the voluntary sector for people on low/no incomes. No money from taxpayers – all charity. The Government nationalised it. Took over all the hospitals and funded it out of taxes.