Peer Wilby in New Statesman:
"Politicians now frequently quote research showing that, by 22 months, it is too late for many children because their development has already fallen far behind that of their peers in middle-class homes. This finding, shocking as it is, misses the bigger picture. As [Leon] Feinstein reports, even those children from the lowest socio-economic groups who are doing well at 22 months then tend to fall back relative to other children. The process continues throughout childhood, and it operates both ways: the initially low-achieving middle-class children improve their position, while the position of the high-achieving working-class children declines....In other words, during their school years, children's performance, far from being equalised, is aligned more closely with their social origins. This might seem a depressing conclusion, but Feinstein argues it needn't be. As he puts it, children's educational development is 'malleable', and if everyone were more aware of that, we might make more progress in equalising opportunities....
Working-class children fall behind because their homes - however loving and well-intentioned - don't and often can't provide the same support for formal learning as more affluent homes. Given there's a limit to how much we can change the homes, we may have to consider changing schools, and the way they treat children and parents, more radically than we have done so far."
The rest is here.