We need to be honest with ourselves. The educational prospects of white disadvantaged boys make for uncomfortable reading.
This starts in the early years. Some can barely string a sentence together by the time they start primary school. The proportion of Year 1 pupils meeting the expected standard of phonic decoding is 13% lower than it is for black disadvantaged boys, and 23% lower than it is for Asian disadvantaged girls.
As they continue to stumble uneasily through the rest of their education, their life chances dim further still, until what remains is just a faint impression of what was once an outline of promise and potential.
This is clear to see in GCSE results, where all disadvantaged ethnic groups outperform their disadvantaged white peers. For example, the average Attainment 8 score per pupil is just 29.5 for white boys eligible for free school meals, compared to 40.5 for Asian disadvantaged males.
The picture is equally bleak in higher education. Disadvantaged white pupils are 40 per cent less likely to go to higher education than disadvantaged black peers. And disadvantaged Asian students are twice as likely to attend the most selective institutions than disadvantaged white students.
While we have seen encouraging improvements in the performance of other social groups in recent years (including disadvantaged Chinese, Bangladeshi and black African pupils), white disadvantaged boys have not enjoyed the same rate of progress.
2 There are many reasons for the underachievement of disadvantaged white boys
Some people like to talk about a lack of aspiration. I disagree.
It is not that white disadvantaged boys themselves do not want to succeed.
Who doesn’t want to prosper in life?
In fact, studies show that aspiration is high in all social groups.
Rather than obsess about lack of aspiration, we should instead focus on lack of social capital
Social capital allows people to identify opportunities and realise them.
And yet many disadvantaged children miss out on what their wealthier peers are so fortunate to draw on.
They do not have access to the same know-how, extracurricular opportunities and social networks as their peers, which allows the latter to play the game and build soft skills that boost their prospects in the labour market.
We must also understand what is driving disengagement with education
As front-line charity experts point out, culture, norms and values in schools do not always match those at home in white disadvantaged communities.
And disadvantaged white communities do not always make the link between educational success and getting a good job.
Once this perception is embedded, it undermines educational performance. Parents’ lack of engagement with education is associated with worse attainment.
However, rather than point the finger, as some unhelpfully do, we must understand what is driving disengagement. The reasons for this are, again, complex:
Parents who themselves had a negative experience of education in poor quality schools are less likely to feel confident that schools can equip their kids with the skills they need.
Lower literacy and numeracy make it harder to help children with homework.
Parents who experienced job loss and breakdown of community in the old industrial heartlands are more likely to lose faith in the status quo.
But educational failure is not all about social capital and disengagement. What happens inside the school gates also matters enormously.
Educational underachievement also reflects geography and poor access to good schooling.
Schools in many deprived areas struggle to attract experienced teachers and leaders, who are so instrumental in driving up quality. Instead, more experienced teachers tend to gravitate towards less disadvantaged schools.
And while careers advice can help level the playing field when it comes to accessing knowhow and opportunities, our schools perform dismally when it comes to delivering this.
To illustrate the difference that investment in good schooling can make, we only need to look at what has happened in London in recent years. Previously riddled with underperforming schools, London now proudly boasts an education landscape that has helped transform many disadvantaged children’s’ lives.
And white boys in London who are eligible for free school meals perform better than those in other parts of the country.
3 There are so many things we can do to stem underperformance for white disadvantaged children
But to do so, we need a proper, focused government strategy.
This doesn’t necessarily mean a uniform strategy, to be applied rigidly in all areas. After all, white working-class communities are not homogenous, and different areas and schools face different specific challenges.
But it does require a concerted and focused effort to support a social group that is clearly struggling to find its feet in our education system.
What might such a strategy include?
Well, it should start with the early years.
We know that from a very young age, white disadvantaged children have poor educational outcomes, and that this becomes very hard to turn around.
Good quality childcare can help enormously. Children who attend high-quality provision for 2–3 years are around 8 months ahead of children who attend none.
But many parents struggle with affordable childcare and meanwhile, we are giving major concessions to wealthier families. The upper eligibility threshold for both 30 hours of free childcare (3-4-year olds) and tax-free childcare is, staggeringly, £100,000 per parent.
It is simply not justifiable to provide a couple earning £200,000 with 30 hours of free childcare (and tax-free childcare on top) when disadvantaged children need support. We should reduce the current thresholds for 30 hours/tax-free childcare and redirect funding to help disadvantaged parents with childcare support.
We must also make sure that all schools in disadvantaged areas are good.
We know that disadvantaged students tend to do better when they attend better schools.
And we know that around two thirds of pupils who are eligible for free school meals at GCSE level are white.
This means that addressing disadvantage more generally, by making sure all schools in disadvantaged areas are good, would be a very helpful start.
Good schools need good teachers. But schools in disadvantaged areas are less likely to have teachers teaching subjects in which they are qualified, and more likely to have higher teacher turnovers.
We spend £72 million on opportunity areas, although we don’t really know exactly what impact they are having. How about using this money on things that are proven to improve failing schools, like great teachers?
Currently, access to top quality initial teacher training varies by geography. We should spend this money on supporting and incentivising our elite initial teacher training providers to set up shop in the most disadvantaged areas in the country.
Teacher training must also provide teachers with a better understanding of the obstacles, including negative stereotypes, that some groups face.
And we should improve the professional development of teachers in disadvantaged areas, to retain and nurture home grown talent. This is not necessarily about new money: according to one recent estimate, we already spend around £1billion a year on training and development, and not all of this achieves a great deal of impact (according to one study, just 9 per cent of teacher training and development actually results in teachers embedding new ideas).
We can learn lessons from countries that have a strong record in teacher development. Like Singapore, which gives classroom teachers more flexibility to hone their stock in trade and gives schools HR grants to cover gaps in supply; places an unusually strong emphasis on peer support (around four fifths of teachers are either mentored or a mentor); and has a clearly defined ladder of career progression.
Schools can also help level the playing field by plugging gaps in social capital.
Not enough white disadvantaged kids see education as a route out of poverty. It is crucial that the relationship between good education and sound employment outcomes is made clear.
Sound careers advice and guidance, and meaningful work experience, are core to this.
At the moment, we are way off the mark. Around one in five schools does not even meet any of the eight Gatsby benchmarks - a series of international markers of sound careers advice.
We must transform careers advice into careers and skills advice. We must avoid duplication and redirect the many millions of pounds that support careers advice into a one-stop-shop - a National Skills Service, with a UCAS for Further Education and Apprenticeships.
And schools should bring successful role models into their support for their pupils. People who have gone to similar schools. Lived similar lives. And who have used education as a launch pad for a better life.
We need to look at how character is being built outside education.
A lot has also been said about the National Citizen Service (NCS). The sentiment behind the scheme is right. Building soft skills, resilience and character is fundamentally a good idea. But the NCS only lasts for four weeks. And it costs a lot more per place (£1,863) than other programmes, like a place at Scouts (which costs £550 for four years). We need to invest wisely, and we should explore whether the voluntary, charity and community sector could achieve more impact in disadvantaged local communities.
We could also redirect spending on grammar schools to support disadvantaged students. £50 million has been earmarked for the expansion of grammar schools between 2018-19, with a further £150 million to come. Is this really the best use of funds to promote social justice? It is highly doubtful that every penny of this money will benefit disadvantaged pupils.
A far better use of these funds would be to spend them on targeted tuition for disadvantaged pupils. A typical effective one-to-one tuition programme (30-minute sessions, five times a week, for 12 weeks) delivers around five months’ more progress over a year, compared to a similar performing pupil who does not receive this. Such a programme could be extended to 285,714 people for the same money that is being spent on the expansion of grammar schools.
We can reach out to parents without being overbearing.
Children spend almost four fifths of their time outside the school gates. Any assessment of educational failure must also look at what is going on outside of school.
When done well, boosting parental engagement is associated with higher attainment.
And some schools do this brilliantly. Like Reach Academy Feltham, which has a very high proportion of pupil premium pupils and a highly impressive Progress 8 score of 1.11, placing it 15th nationally. The school recruits dedicated family experts and offers support sessions - there is currently an 85 per cent take-up of these sessions in the early years, which demonstrates that many parents appreciate the offer of constructive support when it is done in the right way.
But we need to find a way to spark further parental engagement programmes across the country.
A lot has been said about Children’s Centres. But Family Hubs make more sense if we want to support parental engagement for disadvantaged pupils. They take the principle of Children’s Centres even further by providing support to the whole family, and they build hubs for children from every age group, including teenagers.
And supporting the expansion of organisations like Home Start in the country’s most disadvantaged areas would also be a great leap forward – this charity enlists 16,000 volunteers to help 30,000 families with issues like post-natal depression, physical problems and isolation, offering a beacon of hope to those who are struggling.
Finally, it is crucial that all educational routes - not just the traditional academic ones - are top notch.
In other advanced economies, technical routes are a well-respected, and well-oiled, part of the educational machinery that exists.
In Switzerland, for example, around two thirds of students in the final part of their secondary education choose a vocational pathway – mostly doing courses that combine classroom learning and on-the-job training.
All children, regardless of background, should have access to easily accessible technical routes that will lead to good job opportunities. But this is even more important for individuals who currently tend to choose technical routes.
Like disadvantaged white pupils, who are more likely than other disadvantaged ethnic groups to go into apprenticeships. (They are, for example, more than twice as likely to do so than black disadvantaged students.)
When done well, apprenticeships change lives - they allow people to grow their skills, increasing employability and earning potential.
But for more people to benefit from them, we need to make sure that our apprenticeship offer is world class.
To do this, we need to be smarter about how we use the new Apprenticeships Levy. Many employers are frustrated. And focusing on three million starts risks compromising quality. The Government should introduce more flexibility in how the money can be used (for example in the supply chain), and it should use some of the underspend to help businesses offer higher starting wages and provide discounted travel for apprentices.
And degree apprenticeships could be the crown jewel in a revamped technical offering. Students earn as they learn, they do not incur mountains of debt, and they get good quality jobs at the end. I hope that one day, half of all university students are doing them. The Government should incentivise their growth and they could do this by drawing down on the Apprenticeships Levy. However, this is not just an issue of supply. Few families are aware of degree apprenticeships, especially from disadvantaged families where the returns could be most profound. Both the existence of apprenticeships and their value should be hard-wired into careers advice.
So, a fairer distribution of funding to boost access to quality early years provision; spending money more wisely to bring great quality teaching to all schools; revolutionising careers support to compensate for lack of social capital; steering money away from the expansion of grammar schools to schemes that focus exclusively on disadvantage; constructive engagement with parents; and putting rocket boosters on technical learning.
These should be the core pillars of a concerted and focused government strategy.
The plight of white disadvantaged boys is a stain on all our consciences.
We must urgently focus our minds, and energy, to sweep aside the hazards that prevent their safe passage through education and beyond.
We know that, now more than ever, people must have a good education to climb the ladder of opportunity.
And it is well within our collective ability to make sure this happens.
