Dave Hill's Big Britain

Caribbean British Kids & Education

New research by Warwick University's Professor Steve Strand has found that British children of Caribbean heritage are discriminated against when entered for SATS tests at Key Stage 3 (Year 9 and aged 14). Government data shows that children from a number of ethnic minority groups, including Pakistani, Bangladeshi and black African Britons, were doing far worse in these tests than white Britons. But while social factors such as economic background, attitudes to and attendance at school and mothers' educational attainment appeared to explain this in relation to the other groups, it did not seem to with regard to the Caribbeans.

Strand emphasises that accounting for this is not straightforward, but suspects teachers' expectations are partly to blame. His clue for this lies in the type of SATS test teachers enter pupils' for at Key Stage 3. These come in different degrees of difficulty, and the data reveal that a Caribbean child is a third less likely to be entered for the most demanding version than a white child whose level of attainment in the preceding three years has been the same. As the Guardian’s education editor Polly Curtis explains, this means that, “Significant numbers of black pupils who are academically capable of getting the higher marks have them taken out of their reach.” Lower levels of outcome are therefore guaranteed.

It is with some caution that Strand uses the term "institutional racism" to describe this, but use it he does. He wonders if part of the expectations problem lies in the interaction between some Caribbean pupils and some white teachers, the former believing the latter do not give them a fair chance and the latter finding the former confrontational, resulting in depressed perceptions of their academic potential.

A familiar debate has ensued. Although the government points to a narrowing of the attainment gap at the subsequent GCSE level over the past four years, black educationalists have called for further action. There are, though, differences of view about where and how this action be should be directed. Gus John believes Strand's work confirms what black parents have known for years and advocates a joint approach with teachers to correct the failing. Lee Jasper has been quoted as saying that the answer is schools run by black governors and staffed by black teachers with the specific needs of black youngsters in mind. By sharp contrast, Tony Sewell says it is wrong to blame teachers when the biggest problem is an anti-learning culture among black boys (his article does not identify Caribbean boys in particular, nor does it mention girls) which schools cannot be held responsible for.

I think there is force is all these arguments and that even the most opposed may be more reconcilable than they at first appear. Is there, for example, necessarily a conflict between encouraging Caribbean Britons to self-mobilise in terms of what their children aspire to, and encouraging teachers to do the same with regard to the pattern of discrimination Strand seems to have unearthed in them? The optimist in me thinks not. Yet the three generations after the Windrush, the pessimist in me could not blame Caribbean British parents for concluding that, whatever they do themselves, the state schooling system will never serve their children as it should.

Also at Liberal Conspiracy.

Holiday Interlude

I'm not leaving from Croydon airport or traveling in one of these. But I am flying to Spain for my family holiday tomorrow morning. As I'm unlikely to go online while I'm away, forgive me if I don't deal with your comments or emails for a while. But please keep them coming.

Canongate Redevelopment

Regeneration projects, as arguably misnamed, excite deep and revealing passions. They can bring out the conservative in the progressive and the progressive in the conservative. They also raise difficult questions about how best to help the people of hard-up parts of British towns and cities. Clear answers aren't always easy to come by, as revealed by the debate about a major regeneration up the road from me. I don't pretend to know the background or details of the scheme to redevelop Canongate in the heart of Edinburgh, but I admire the energy of those opposed to it. Read their website and blog. I wonder where the SNP stands on the scheme.

At Guardian Comment: John Barrowman & Gay Genes

I could be missing something, but John Barrowman as Captain Jack does seem to be a new kind of gay presence in Britain's Saturday evening TV telly schedules. Here's my friendly-critical piece on his Making Of Me programme for the Beeb.

We like John Barrowman in our house. He’s a dashing star of some of our favourite TV shows especially Doctor Who where he plays Captain Jack Harkness, the time travelling bi-guy who can’t die. Jack’s quite a character, flirting with guys and gals alike but signaling gayness loud and clear to any viewer primed to receive.

As Jack, Barrowman's is not your established Saturday evening telly-homo performance. We’re accustomed to camp comperes, but not to an action hero with a certain kind of shine in his eyes. Last night he presented an authored documentary in the form of a quest into the mystery of his own sexuality. For all the reasons above I watched with interest and sympathy. Yet the programme was a missed opportunity.

Degrees Of Disbelief

Why do our broadcasters give so much time on Sunday mornings to reviewing our Sunday newspapers? Andrew Marr's programme, an often enjoyable source of mainstream political preoccupations, is weakened by its reliance on a couple of famous know-alls, often deeply orthodox media types, pontificating about this story or that. (This morning it was Germaine Greer and Andrew Neil. I switched off.) The veracity and relevance of these stories are rarely questioned, let alone the special significance accorded the Sundays in the first place.

They do little to earn this vaunted status. In news terms most are full of tat: bogus plots and exposes or speculative updates of stories from earlier in the week. Today's are a good example. Almost no substantial evidence of serious moves against Gordon Brown emerges from the many stories about his woes. Mind you, perhaps my disbelief is treacherously reinforced by reports that some alleged plotters think Jack Straw should take Brown's place. Does anyone seriously imagine this would improve Labour prospects? The more such reports of Brown's imminent demise I read, the more inclined I am to think he will survive.

But there again, here's John Rentoul in the Sindie:

"Last week's survey by Ipsos MORI describes the party's problem in more detail. It found that 21 per cent of the electorate are anti-Brown Labourites, who said: 'I do not like Gordon Brown but I like the Labour Party.' Half of them intend to vote Labour anyway, but the other half are the key target group: the 10 per cent or so of voters who are sympathetic to Labour, do not like its leader and currently intend to put their cross elsewhere.

Their demographic profile ought to be studied carefully by any candidate who is serious about succeeding Brown. They tend to be young or, especially, middle-aged, with children and mortgages. They do not seem to be concentrated in any region or social class. They are Mr and Mrs Normal, the glue that held the New Labour coalition together. If Brown stays, they will become the glue that sets on the Cameron Tory coalition. Getting rid of Brown may not help. Labour MPs know that there are downsides to changing leader again, but they also know that they could hardly be worse off. Glasgow East suggests that it must be worth trying."

That's the most persuasive argument I've yet read that Brown should and will be removed. It concludes my review of the Sunday papers.

Local Media: More Good Ones Required

Filed this just before I went away.

I’d just got off the bus on my way home from the ill-fated Ray Lewis press conference at City Hall when I bumped into someone from Hackney Council. “Have you seen this week’s Gazette?” she said. 'They’ve had a go at you on their leader page.' They had, though in a veiled manner which surely rendered the column still more mysterious to their readers. It was all about bloggers and how they’re a bunch of nutters who have no business complaining if, by some miracle, they publish something of interest that a newspaper – such as the Gazette – helps itself to without acknowledging its source.

An Interlude

I'm off with the kids to see my mum for a few days.

Back by the end of the week. (P.S. My mum doesn't live in Brighton).

Garden Centre, North Somerset

George Orwell:

"Here it is worth noting a minor English trait which is extremely well marked though not often commented on, and that is a love of flowers. This is one of the first things that one notices when one reaches England from abroad, especially if one is coming from southern Europe. Does it not contradict the English indifference to the arts? Not really, because it is found in people who have no aesthetic feelings whatever. What it does link up with, however, is another English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life."

From England, Your England.

We're Doomed

The Guardian's Ashley Seager:

"We're going into recession. That's all you need to know. Actually, not quite all you need to know. It may be worse than that - we may already be in one. The turn in the economy, although it has been lurking out there for some time, has come swiftly and sharply in the past few weeks, as is often the case with recessions. When the economic history books are written, they will almost certainly say the late-noughties recession began in earnest in the late spring of 2008...You can search all round the data - and we have - for signs of strength in this economy and there are virtually none."

Oh joy. Read on, if you dare.

Forgotten Voters

Jon Cruddas MP and Searchlight editor Nick Lowles:

"The New Labour project relied on the assumption that its traditional support, although declining, had nowhere else to go. But this is now changing, and the BNP has emerged as one beneficiary. The party received more votes last month than Labour in seats such as Dagenham and Rainham in east London and the new Morley and Outwood constituency in West Yorkshire...

It is no coincidence that the BNP is doing best in those communities, often overwhelmingly white, where there has been the greatest economic change, such as the former coalfields and car manufacturing areas. For too long a basic formula has underscored much New Labour thinking - a counterbalancing of so-called aspirational, Middle-England swing voters with our traditional supporters. Its adherents have remained tone deaf to both the aspirations and insecurities of those who fall outside this tight political calculus.

Ministers' rhetoric of 'aspiration' fails to address the real aspirations of voters across huge tracts of the political landscape, where even decent housing or good jobs are in too short supply. So our language, policies and tactics all fail to hit the mark."

I'm starting to regard the prospect of a Conservative government much as I do my deepening middle age: there's not much I can do about it, maybe it won't be so bad, and being in decline can, if nothing else, encourage fruitful reflection about the future. Labour's leadership should to reflect on this thoughtful piece. It might have a rejuvenating effect.