In this post-truth world, PISA scores matter more than ever  

What does this have to do with school education? 

In light of the increase in racist incidents in the UK since the referendum, not least in schools, one response might be to offer training or resources to teachers in how to handle such incidents, and for headteachers to prioritise time, in assemblies and in classrooms, for children to discuss issues of racism and multiculturalism.

In the US, a recent article in The Atlantic blamed the lack of civics education for the election of a candidate who “consistently rejected basic constitutional principles” and trampled on ideals such as freedom of religion.

A renewed and welcome focus on citizenship in schools might, however, give credence to those who would dismiss today’s international test results in reading, maths and science as less relevant in this ‘post-apocalyptic’ world.

This would be a mistake; while attempts to educate our children to be better citizens are increasingly important, they do not address the educational elephant in the room. 

A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in August on the demographics of those voting in the referendum found that “educational opportunity was the strongest driver” of the Brexit vote.

Support for leave was 30 percentage points higher among those with GCSE qualifications or below than for those with a degree, and the report concludes it was a ‘double-whammy’ of low skills and lack of opportunity that led to Brexit.

As the source of discontent appears to stem at least partially from a lack of educational opportunity, a key part of the challenge of addressing it lies at the doors of schools.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which publishes its results today, is a test given to samples of 15-year-olds from across the world every three years.

They divide students’ results into levels from one to six, where level two is considered a baseline for the literacy and numeracy standards required to function in modern society.

In the UK, approximately one in five children aren’t achieving these basic levels, leaving them at the mercy of a job market that has fewer and fewer jobs available for those without these skills – whether competing with immigrants or not.

Those at the top of the PISA charts have overcome this problem, with far fewer children languishing at these lower levels in countries such as Singapore, Japan, Finland and Canada. 

So what are they doing? One interesting feature of the majority of these top performing systems is that they don’t track children into different schools on the basis of exam results until students are 15 or 16, investing instead in additional teacher time to support all students to reach higher academic standards.

This is in line with econometric research, which finds that school systems which track students into different schools at a younger age (as grammar schools do) have a greater spread of results than those that track later, but don’t have any advantage in overall scores.

The results consistently show that those that are tracked into less academic schools at a younger age do worse than those educated in comprehensive schools for longer. If Teresa May’s vision really is to build a country that works for everyone, she should take note from our international competitors: grammar schools are not the answer.

Lucy Crehan, former teacher and current International Education Advisor, her book Cleverlands is about her experiences working in schools around the world