an “iducation correspondent
The suspicion that streaming in schools exaggerates class discrimination in education is further confirmed by an article in last weok's Now Society by J.W.B.Douglas, director of the Medical Research Council of the LSE, dealing with primary schools. Even before attending school, ho says, middle class children enjoy an advantage, having learned to use words with precision at home, whereas working c1ass children receive less stimulation. ven aftor ability has beon tested according to this biased system there are still 11% more middle class children in the upper streams than would be expected, and 26% fewor in the lowor; that is, these children are in the "wrong" stream even under the presont method. "It was rare for children to change streams; over the whole three yoar period (of a spocial survey) the annual rate of transfer was 2.3% and approximately the same numbers moved up as down", it is stated.
In addition "the children in the upper streams improved their scores by an average of 0.71 points and those in the lower streams dotoriorated by 0.49 points". It was also apparent that pupils of the uppor streams showed 2 smaller range of porformances than those of the lower - in the upper streams the lower-rated pupils tended to move toward tho standards of the top pupils, but this did not happen in the lower streams. In the group surveyed 12 lowstream pupils should have gone on to grammar schools but only one did so. In secondary schools 82% left at 15, compared with an expected 16%, from low streams. Upper-stream pupils in secondary schools fared differently. The expected figure was 46%, but the actual number leaving at 15 was 3%