Social Justice or Excellence?

In Britain today, Labour ministers carry on the “long revolution” for social justice in the face of a downward economic spiral. The British Labour party unites evangelical, workingclass sentiment (“The Red Flag Holds the People’s Blood,” delegates sing at every party conference) with an Oxford-dominated Cabinet. It is this improbable chemistry that has reshaped British education. Gone is the Eleven-Plus examination, that bulwark of educational discrimination by class origins. Now a state-maintained, comprehensive system receives vast sums of public money, while the ancient “public schools” must rely on private support. The number of sixth-form (American high school) graduates doubled between 1963...