The Times: School funding ‘unfair to poor white pupils’

Poor white children do significantly worse at school in part because education funding is targeted at larger cities with more ethnically diverse populations, academics have argued.

They accused the Department for Education of making it difficult for experts to analyse underachievement by white pupils because this “did not align” with the government’s focus.

School funding disproportionately benefits children in London boroughs while money for free pre-school education and childcare is also more generous in London, they say. But funding is lower in rural shires, smaller towns and cities, and coastal communities where the majority of children are white, they argue.

The arguments, by two academics at the University of Plymouth, are set out in a research paper submitted to the House of Commons education select committee, which is conducting an inquiry on “left behind” white pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

MPs on the committee are looking at why poor white children, especially boys, on average achieve so poorly at school: in 2018 white boys who qualified for free school meals achieved an average score in their eight best GCSEs of 28.5 points compared with a national average of 46.5.

Full article: School funding ‘unfair to poor white pupils’