One of the great hushed truths of the state school system is that its pupils are decided by house prices. That well-regarded comprehensive may charge no fees but its intake will be still be selected by parental income, as families pay exorbitantly for a home in the catchment area. As any estate agent knows, a school judged outstanding by Ofsted will push up neighbouring property prices. This is a cruel system that drives families who can afford it to uproot themselves, makes many of those who cannot feel inadequate, and produces and intensifies social segregation.
Few would dispute this account. Not the government, which has published papers on the link between house prices and schools, nor academics or analysts: just last week the Sutton Trust published findings showing that 155 comprehensives, supposedly open to all, are more socially selective than a typical grammar. In Scotland, home addresses are assigned one secondary school so that, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies points out, social segregation there is even more marked.
