Mummy, what's social mobility?

Okay. Sit down. Find something comforting to clutch onto. You might be shocked by this:

Brightest poor children do worse than wealthy but dim classmates (!)

Pick that jaw up off the floor, it's true. The Sutton Trust and the LSE have been thinking long and hard about this one.

If you like your reports unsullied by the editorial process, click here for the full text.

So, how has the media taken the news?

The Times has the aforementioned Brightest poor children etc...

Pulling no punches there. Be careful what you call your readers' children though, Times.

The Indy: Children from poor families "doomed" as social mobility stalls

Lovely. Good quotation marks to distance the story from the word used in the report, just in case it's a wee bit hyperbolic.

Press Association via The Guardian: Class divisions "have not closed"

Fair enough. The first sentence is an exemplary example of identifying the blameworthy, too

The Daily Mail: Child poverty trap "worse than 1950s" despite billions poured into education

The DM being more restrained than The Indy, how novel! Unsurprising that they chose the 1950s quotation, the era that paper would most like to return to.

Let's all cross our fingers and hope something good comes out of this revelation... okay then, let's just settle for Ed Balls saving da kidz - and the Labour party. It's the best we can hope for.

Written by Westmonster on 13 Dec 2007 10:45 AM. Permalink