Are you in the 99% or 1%

[david_carnell]

An interesting interview with Prof. Danny Dorling reveals that:

income inequality has now reached a new maximum

when you exclude the top 1%, income inequality within the remaining 99% is now lower than at any time since Thatcher was PM

the IFS confirms that the Gini coefficient (the measure of income inequality) is 5% lower now than it was in 1991

members of the 1% attempt to portray state schools as the problem and suggest grammar schools once gave working-class kids a chance. Grammar schools were a relic of an older even more unequal age.

countries committed to high-quality comprehensives for all (Finland) come out on top of international educational stats

social mobility is lowest in areas where local "choice" in education is superficially highest - a study last year named Trafford as the area with the highest educational social segregation due to secondary moderns and grammar schools being retained as well as private provision being high

further interesting snippets about the Finnish educational utopia: 99.2% state funded; no inspections of teachers; no league tables; no sets or streaming; low amounts of homework; absence of private tuition

[El Pibe]

that brings to mind this article I read a little while back

The social mobility Myth. I'm glad phil collins found something to do now he's retired

It is true that absolute social mobility started to decline about the time that comprehensive schools replaced grammar schools. And it is true that grammar schools were slightly better at getting bright kids from poor homes into university. But the really interesting thing about grammars and comprehensives is that, as engines of social mobility, both of them are hopeless.

We fall for the myth of schooling because comprehensives replaced grammars at the tip of an industrial revolution. The country went from blue to white-collar. The people who in one era would have walked through the factory gate started walking through the office door instead. They went up the social scale and society seemed mobile just because a lot more clerical and professional jobs were created. Next to this major change, the impact of grammar schools was negligible. We have heard so often that social mobility is all about schools that we assume it must be so. But, really, it had nothing to do with schools. Education was serving the industrial revolution, not causing it.

Absolute mobility could still make a comeback. If Britain creates more professional jobs then more people will be able to make a class journey during their lives. Relative social mobility, however, has a major political deficiency. No politician will make an appeal to the electorate based on the desire that the children of the middle class should do less well than they do now. However, in order for relative social mobility to be possible, downward movement is critical. What Gore Vidal said about friendship is also true of social mobility: ?it is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.?

The other truth that the stickiness of relative social mobility forces a reluctant politician to face is that widening inequalities of condition are difficult to bridge. The reason that the UK and, despite its myth of mobility, the US are the least socially mobile countries in the developed world is that they are also the most unequal. Anyone concerned to combat relative social mobility needs to be anxious about inequality but equality sounds like a much more radical proposition than the obscure objective of social mobility.

[DaveR]

Looking back to the 50s and 60s grammar school era to inform a contemporary debate about education is sterile and pointless. Improving the quality of state education is no magic bullet re inequality but to assume it has no effect is just political posturing, and unsupported by evidence. Similarly, assuming that the Finnish experience supports the current UK model of comprehensive education is obviously nonsense.

Out of interest, I am an ex student at the 'highly selective state sixth form college' that Prof Dorling identifies, but he doesn't bother to pause and wonder why it competes effectively with the best private schools in the country, and has done for thirty years. Maybe he is more interested in political grandstanding than empirical evidence.

[uncleglen]

Finland has a population of about 5.5 million- very manageable. I think the answer to our problems should begin in the infants/ primary school- much smaller classes and lots of remedial Literacy and Numeracy because without these basic tools our kids cannot access a secondary curriculum.

[StraferJack]

Interesting article on the disparity even in that top 1%

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/your-money/even-among-the-richest-of-the-rich-fortunes-diverge.html?_r=2

this paragraph jumped out

"Put another way, our 0.1 percent household made about 206 times, and our 1 percent household about 41 times, what our average household did. That gap has yawned over time. In 1990, for instance, the same multiples were 87 and 21. In 1980, they were 47 and 14."

[????]

What's App or whatever sold to Apple for $quillions this morning....just a small part of the deal but it's 55 employees get a share of $1bn in cash and a further $1bn in Facebook shares......

...it's you techies who are ruining the world

[StraferJack]

Tis a crazy deal and a sign we are all doomed

Still, I doubt the deal was done with brown envelopes eh?

[uncleglen]

It was sold to facebook and is a text messaging app that enables people to message internationally on the cheapor free as far as I understand it

[ReidySamo]

No matter your opinion on the statistics, it is to a certain extent all relative to your location.

[MissKing]

The earlier info graphic implies that 75% of the world are homeless? Us this accurate?!