Wise words from the IPPR, there is a basic disjunct between paying schools by results for one signifier and giving them shitloads of money for another without proper checks on how it is being used. Put yourself in the position of Headmaster X in question and it’s quite easy to see the obvious problem with that. The Pupil Premium is critically important because a) of the four key Lib Dem policies it was the one most wholeheartedly adopted by the Coalition government, and has been oft-touted as a reason for potentially enchanted Lib Dem activists to take heart, so failure to enact it would pose grave problems for the cohesion of the government, and b) our state education system has become an incredibly stratified post-code lottery that systematically and relentlessly fails the poorest kids in society using a system of ghetto-isation, a scandal of access to education which dwarfs the current higher education furore and has undermined all attempts by successive governments to increase social mobility and thus put the future of the country on a sounder footing. This is why the Pupil Premium, ultimately an incredibly wise and good policy, is too big to fail. The IPPR have sign-posted one way in which it could fail, and their warning should be heeded.
