Giving parents a choice over primary schools increases the social divide, a study reveals.
The majority of poor parents pick their child's primary school because it is close to their home, while nearly half of middle-class parents opt for a school for its academic record, researchers found…
They asked 11,533 parents why they preferred one school to another on application forms. While two-fifths of parents with no qualifications said a school's proximity to their home had been the most important reason for choosing it, this was the case for only 20% of parents with degrees.
Only one in eight parents with no qualifications said academic record had been the main factor in their choice, compared with two-fifths of parents with degrees.
Source: here