The abolition of grammar schools had a detrimental effect on social mobility. Poor children suffered most. Well, fancy that. From The Telegraph:

Millions of children had their chances of success ruined by the abolition of grammar schools, a Government report has revealed.

Poor children born in 1970 had much less chance of going on to a successful working life than their counterparts born 15 years earlier.

They were also much more likely to have their fate decided by their family background or parents' income than by their own abilities.

The study, carried out for the Department for Education and Skills, adds to a growing amount of research showing that the scrapping of grammar schools between the mid 1960s and 1980 in favour of non-selective comprehensives, which were designed to help poorer children, had an adverse effect on the nation's education.

Researchers at Surrey and Bristol universities compiled the research on the back of an earlier study when they examined 9,000 boys born into poor families in 1958, which showed that 31 per cent remained poor. Of the same number born in 1970, 38 per cent stayed on a low income.

Yesterday's study posed the question why poor children born in 1970 were less likely to do well than those born in the late 1950s.

The chief difference, it said, was that those born in 1970 no longer had the chance to improve themselves and haul themselves out of poverty by being selected for a grammar school.

The results are likely to fuel calls for a return to selective education.

Robert Whelan, of the Civitas think tank, said: "Grammar schools were abolished because it was said they only benefited the rich.

"In fact, all the research shows they helped the poor. We need grammar schools in poor areas."

It was obvious before the grammar schools were abolished that this would be the case. It was obvious during the course of their abolition. It is obvious after their abolition. The self-serving political vandals who destroyed them knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't, and still don't, like the idea of upstart oiks outperforming their mediocre offspring.

In another education-related news item, there are complaints about class sizes, thirty being considered large. I was taught in a class of more than thirty, and I don't remember thinking that was too many. But if the class is mixed ability, then size matters more. The emphasis on class size is a distraction from the real problem: mixed ability teaching, and the consequent dumbing down to the lowest common denominator, leaving the brighter children bored and potentially disruptive.