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BBC Scotland yesterday bypassed evidence of the attainment gap closing slightly between 2023/2024 and 2024/2015, to shame their own folk, once again with:

The attainment gap between Scotland’s richest and poorest school pupils remains wider than before the pandemic, according to new figures.

^{https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20j12pw851o}

Remember how we, using AI, revealed that no liberal democracy, anywhere, has ever hit its A&E target since the panic?

I wonder, has any liberal democracy ever closed the attainment gap between pupils from the most and least deprived areas?

You know the answer already, I’m sure:

No Western democracy has ever completely closed the attainment gap in schools between the least and most deprived students or schools. While some countries, such as Finland, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway, have achieved relatively high levels of educational equity with smaller socioeconomic gaps compared to others (as measured by PISA and similar international assessments), the gap persists in all systems. Socioeconomic status continues to explain a portion of the variation in student performance everywhere, typically ranging from about 7-10% in the most equitable Western democracies to 15-20% or higher in less equitable ones.For context, the OECD’s PISA 2022 results show that socioeconomic status (measured by the Economic, Social, and Cultural Status index, or ESCS) accounts for an average of 15% of the variance in mathematics performance across OECD countries. No country reached 0%, and the lowest among Western democracies include:

• Iceland: ~9%
• Norway: ~9%
• Canada: ~9%
• Denmark: ~8%
• Finland: ~10%

Higher figures appear in countries like France (21%), Belgium (22%), and the Slovak Republic (~26%). Historical trends from PISA (since 2000) and other studies (e.g., over the past 50-60 years) indicate these gaps have generally remained stable, widened slightly in many places, or narrowed modestly in a few—but never eliminated. For instance, U.S. racial achievement gaps narrowed between the 1970s and 1980s but have since stalled, while socioeconomic gaps have persisted or grown. In the UK, progress in closing gaps stalled around 2017 and widened post-pandemic. Global analyses show increasing socioeconomic gaps in a majority of countries since the 1960s.

Sources:

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/unequal-education-and-great-gatsby-curve

https://www.cgdev.org/blog/great-gatsby-curve-younger-and-poorer-how-inequality-explains-learning-outcomes-around-world

https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/94/2/505/2583794

Has any non-liberal democracy ever closed the gap? Yes, Maoist China and Maoist Albania, in the 1960s:

How did they do it?

Only in Albania and Maoist China were the gaps narrowed, reversed even, by only allowing the poor to get an education and sending children of the middle classes and the rich to work in the fields and factories.

Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:

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Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04  Account - 12266421 Name - JOHN ROBERTSON