The Revolt of the Elite Schools

The Hungarian education system reinforces social inequalities

I do not like elite schools. I have never attended any, and now that my daughter is starting school, I have sticked to the principle of not sending her to one. (As a divorced father I had to contend with other principles though.)

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The obvious problem with elite schools is that they can only exist if there are also not-so-good, second-tier, third-tier schools. That there are no-name brands and second rate companies on the market is a matter of course in a capitalist economy. That there are top, second-tier and third-tier universities is also a widely accepted fact in higher education. But that there should be better and worse secondary schools, or even – which is a very sad aspect of Hungarian reality – better and worse primary schools, is by far not self-evident. I am in fact shocked when I hear my friends treat this phenomenon as if it was natural: Many of them have been climbing the ladder of elite education, their families and later themselves consciously choosing always the “best” available school for further studies. They will almost naturally do the same as parents, because “they want the best for their children”. The scarcity of good jobs and the value of up-to-date knowledge on today's labour market make this endeavour reasonable up to a certain point. What I cannot but wonder, however, is the apparent lack of understanding the harmful consequences this attitude has on Hungary's social cohesion.

 

How segregation changed my life

The Hungarian system of basic education is built on two principles: The “professional autonomy” of schools and the parents' right to “free choice of school” for their children. The system is backed by a free market ideology regarding schools as service providers and families as customers who can select the package best suiting their needs. That this picture is very much idealised and the actual outcome might at best be called a quasi-market was clearly shown here. “First class services” and “special offers” (language, mathematics, informatics programmes) of “better” primary schools are obviously more attractive to middle class families who see in them a guarantee that their children will reach at least the social status of the parents. Children of working class families may and do lose the opportunity to “better” education simply because their parents are not so motivated in “comparing offers on the market”. And if the “demand” for education in an elite school or in a “better” school's special programme is still higher than the “supply” (which happens inevitably in most of the cases, since schools have limited capacities), it is the school who will select the children it would like to provide its advanced services for. Now, what do my readers outside Hungary or those in Hungary who do not yet have children of school age think: How will a school decide on which child to take?

It organizes entrance exams. Yes, for 6-7 year old children. These exams are actually forbidden by law and therefore are usually called “introductory conversations” but are evidently aimed at exploring the children's “capabilities”. Well, I do not want to dispute that children have natural capabilities and that these capabilities are different. But I find the idea that their natural capabilities will manifest in such a situation at the age of 6 – beyond the ethical and pedagogical questions raised by such events – simply ridiculous. My daughter participated in such an exam and was asked to add up 4 + 3. When I was told this story I thought I misheard it: Why would a primary school expect a child to already know what it just ought to teach to her? However, this example sheds light on the logic of the procedure and the deep structure of what is called “school selection”. There are obviously two kinds of children who can easily add up 4 + 3 when leaving kindergarten: 1. the very few naturally talented ones; 2. and to whom it has already been taught. And which parent is inclined to teach his or her child how to count already before school? Of course the middle class parent who tries to ensure that the child will be considered “naturally talented” at the crucial step of entering the educational system.

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Of course schools know that. There have been plenty of researches showing the importance of family background with regard to school performance. The fact that schools do not try to filter out this distorting effect when selecting children for their special programmes suggests that they endorse the outcome. It means that schools organizing entrance exams are actually not scouting for talents but for middle class children. The reason is obvious: Middle class children are easier to deal with and can bring good results after far less pedagogical effort than working class children. Middle class parents, in turn, are also aware of this logic, and therefore can expect from an “elite school” or a special programme offered by a “better” school that it will be attended exclusively   by children of their fellows. In many cases this is actually the most important consideration in school selection, particularly in the relation of second-tier and third-tier schools. After children of the highest social status have been collected by elite schools, not-so-good schools are left with lower middle class and working class children (not to mention the children of the unemployed). Since middle class parents are usually very much concerned about children of lower social status dominating the school class of their own children, schools in “worse” neighbourhoods are gradually being abandoned by “better” families. In the interest of full disclosure: We also faced this situation at a certain point in looking for school for my daughter, and we opted for the second-tier school against the third-tier one.

Through helping middle class families and “better” schools find the way to each other, this system leads to a complete segregation in Hungarian basic education. This segregation is driven by social motives within an established institutional structure and is therefore much more silent but not less important than open and enforced segregation of gypsy children in villages.

The process started with the enactment of free choice of school and the professional autonomy of schools in 1985, i.e. at the end of the communist era. This does not mean, however, that basic education was integrated in Hungary before. Not at all! Segregation was simply implemented within schools instead of between them. When I started primary school in the 80s, in the small Hungarian town where I was born, there were three classes organized in each year in my school: One specializing in music (A), another in Russian (B) and a third one without any specialization (C). However, children were not assigned to the particular classes according to their musical or language talents but according to the social and cultural capital possessed by their families. Class A was reserved for children of the town's “elite” (which meant the intellectuals in this case), class B was accessible to lower middle class families who had some connections, whereas children whose parents were not known by anybody (that is, mainly working class children) were welcome in class C. After an unsuccessful entrance exam to the Russian programme I ended up in class C myself. As a child, this structure of institutionalized sociocultural divisions was of course not understood by us; but how deeply it was felt by all participants is shown by the fact that later, in secondary school, where I was among the best pupils, my classmates once did not want to believe that I had been in class C in the primary school. This reaction reveals also that the division of children into the three classes, although completely motivated by sociocultural factors, was widely interpreted in terms of “natural capabilities”.

School diversity as a key of social cohesion

Since then, the situation has become even worse. Today, most Hungarian children learn in schools separated alongside class divisions from the age of 6. Many regard this early separation as decisive for the social status children can later reach. As some sociologists – dramatically – put it: “Their ways go apart and will never meet again.” I think this view is principally true, but I would like to emphasize here two other adverse affects of segregation:

One is school performance. PISA-results unequivocally show a close correlation between average scores (achievement mean values) of a particular country and the “selectivity” of its school system. In other words: Countries where children are divided into particular groups or sent to special programmes relatively early in their school career, like Hungary but also Germany, are usually performing worse than countries where children are educated together for a longer period no matter what their capabilities and preferences look like (like Finland and in many respects Canada). The following charts have been extracted from the PISA 2006 database (http://pisacountry.acer.edu.au), comparing Hungary with 3 other countries. The principal focus of PISA 2006 was students' “scientific literacy”. Like in previous PISA-assessments, Finland scored the first place with 563 points, whereas Canada (also a continuous good performer) came in second with 534 points. Both Germany and Hungary achieved better results here than in previous assessments: Germany was the 8th with 516 points, Hungary the 15th with 504 (the OECD average was 500).

Please click on the picture to view the chart in full size.
Source: PISA 2006 database. © OECD. All rights reserved.

Giving an impression of the input side, the first chart shows what the main factors of admittance to a school in the four selected countries are (as assessed by the principal of the school; please also keep in mind that the survey concerned pupils at the age of 15). The first two columns are really significant: They clearly show that both in Finland and in Canada children are assigned to schools mainly according to their place of residence, while their “academic record” comes hardly into consideration. The Hungarian system is just the opposite.

Please click on the picture to view the chart in full size.
Source: PISA 2006 database. © OECD. All rights reserved.

The second chart shows how student performance varies between schools and within schools in the selected countries. The results are shocking only for those who consider the inequalities of the Hungarian education system something natural. While in Hungary differences between schools are significantly higher than differences among pupils of the same school, the first difference is virtually non-existent in Finland, where children with varying performance are collected in the same institution.

Please click on the picture to view the chart in full size.
Source: PISA 2006 database. © OECD. All rights reserved.

The third chart is about the output: It shows to which extent the educational system of the compared countries manages to eliminate the impact of socio-economic background upon children's school performance. In this respect Hungary performs clearly below the OECD-average, suggesting that its school system reproduces social inequalities between children rather than reducing them (which I would consider its main task). Please note also that Finland and Canada succeeds in leveling different starting positions while achieving better average results in scientific literacy at the same time!

The other adverse effect of segregation concerns social cohesion. Not only in the – just mentioned – sense that a selective school system will inevitably deepen and perpetuate social inequalities. But also with regard to the chances of a mutual understanding between different classes. An educational system which tends to allocate each child to a school corresponding to his or her social status from the very beginning will obviously not facilitate the communication between children of different background. Rather, it will ensure that children grow up in a socially homogeneous environment, missing the opportunity to get to know families living another way of life than theirs. This leads to a complete alienation and mistrust between different groups of society: A consequence that is by far not theoretical in nature but can be experienced throughout in Hungarian reality. I think school segregation is the main cause of the fact that workers and intellectuals in Hungary are mutually unable to correctly estimate each other's role in the “division of labour” and appreciate each other's contribution to the wealth of the nation. Many intellectuals think workers are stupid, while workers simply cannot imagine what intellectuals actually do for the money they earn. On the side of the elite this results in losing all sense of community with lower classes of society and treating them as mere instruments of – and sometimes as obstacles to – attaining their own ends. Elite education plays a significant part in this process, in which the upper middle class gets rid of any sense of duty towards the community as a whole and eventually cuts itself off from the rest of society. In short, in the process which Christopher Lasch called the revolt of the elites.

The ideology of mediocrity and the future of education

The obsession of the Hungarian middle class with elite education is based on a concept of school and school performance which is very questionable. Its starting point is the conviction that performance can best be measured by the series of mandatory exercises a child has passed through. Since elite schools are considered to force children through more and harder exercises, the performance of pupils completing an elite institution is generally deemed better than that of pupils graduating from an average school. This argument is fallacious, however, and not only because “elite school” means in many cases simply “a school for the elite” without any dedication to quality or higher requirements. The real problem is the assumption underlying this concept, namely that outstanding performance is proven by going through mandatory exercises. The opposite is true. Outstanding performance is demonstrated by taking on extra tasks and accepting challenges voluntarily. Outstanding performance stems from the will to excel. Performing only which is required from us, however high the requirement may be, is mediocrity. By suggesting that it is enough to meet their high standards in order to belong to the elite, elite schools are training for mediocrity – a danger which only the really talented can escape from.

In parallel with this regrettable quest for harder exercises and higher requirements there is a contrary line of thought today purporting that lexical knowledge has become worthless in the information society, and schools should therefore stop overburdening children with it. In its popular version the argument says: There is no need to learn when the battle of Mohács was if you can look it up at Wikipedia in a second. For many reasons, I cannot support this view. To name only one: I can look up anything but how should I know that it is worth looking up, that it is important? It seems it is time to redefine what a school is good for.

"Braceface" series. Episode: "The Beat Goes On".
© 2001-2002 Nelvana Limited
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In my opinion, the school should provide – amongst other things – a systematic framework of lexical knowledge which helps children orient themselves in our complex world. They can use it as a starting point in pursuing their own interests and endeavours. Open competitions can give them plenty of scope for outstanding performance in the chosen field. The basic framework, however, should be less intensive than is usually associated with elite education. And above all, it should be uniform, the same in all schools and all classes, securing equal access to knowledge and equal chances to identify their field of interest for every child at least until the age of 14. The abolishment of “professional autonomy” of schools along with their right to launch special programmes should therefore be the first step towards a juster educational system. This should probably go hand in hand with schools being taken into state maintenance and brought to approximately the same level in terms of quality. But this is not enough. In the long term, parents should be deprived the right to choose the school freely for their children. This right does not exist in many countries of Western Europe. Middle class parents should understand two things: First, that a diverse and heterogeneous environment is vital for both the intellectual development and the social consciousness of the upcoming generation. Second, that their efforts to secure the future of their children must be limited to the sphere of civil society, while school is the territory of the state, where the state has to follow its own policies. And the most important of these policies is to provide equal opportunities to all children, no matter what their family background is.

I can only hope that the new Education Act will take account of these considerations.