IT HAS taken a few years but Conservative ministers are beginning to utter the long forbidden words "grammar schools" in the debate about the proper mix in education reform. Nick Gibb, the schools minister, says that existing state grammars would be able to take advantage of new rules to admit extra students without seeking the permission of local authorities. Even more controversially, he has suggested they encourage social mobility.
His colleague, David Willetts, now universities minister, enraged the Tory ranks and lost his job as education spokesman in opposition for saying exactly the opposite. Mr Gibb was pointing out that, among the 158,000 children in the rump of grammar schools in England, poorer children perform almost as well as their peers. What he didn't dwell on was Mr Willetts's central point: that a combination of selection-by-house-price and middle-class parents tutoring younger children for 11+ entry effectively means that the social selection takes place rather earlier. This is something that those who want to expand grammars tend to neglect.
More usefully, Mr Gibb called on existing grammars to form partnerships with local comprehensives to encourage the teaching of difficult academic subjects. One very positive thing happening in education today is the breakdown of the old barriers between types of schools and sectors. The government wants something in return—namely that grammars opt into becoming academies. This will create an anomalous situation in which existing selective schools "would be able to take advantage of crucial freedoms" (Mr Gibb) and continue selecting their pupils. Other academies, while enjoying freedoms in organizing themselves, are obliged to stick with the existing comprehensive approach to intake.
Why transform grammars into academies? Because Michael Gove and his education team are well aware that their major expansion of the academy programme must be seen to show results a lot better than the remaining comprehensive schools. No one has quite explained what will happen to them. They feel like the unloved residue of previous policies—which they are. Having grammar schools within the academy fold helps ensure that the exam passes will look good when we come to assess the impact of the Gove-ite reforms. It does, however, leave another riddle for perplexed parents deciphering the system. When is an academy not an academy? When it's a grammar school.