Tests for comprehensives
Sir: Professor Pedley's very provocative letter (20 December) is all the more remarkable for its complete inattention to fact. I nowhere accused him of 'unworthy motives'; I did not claim that the sixty-seven comprehensive schools in his survey were dishonestly chosen from the possible 745. The very fact that the schools chosen were in such an uneven geographical distribution is enough to make any statistician concerned about the validity of the sweeping con- clusions which have been drawn from their results.
It is particularly noteworthy that he included no Inner London Education Authority schools in the survey (though sixty-six of them had been established long enough). 'because of the difficulty of defining satisfactorily their degree of com- prehensiveness', to quote p.101 of his book. No wonder a glaring geographical anomaly resulted. And no wonder that he takes refuge in sarcasm in his letter and glosses over the point.
He says that he feels sad that any young man's mind should be so fearful of change as mine. He admits that he bases his remark simply on the fact that I disagree with him. If I were so fearful of change, would I have said 'This is not to say that comprehensive schools are to be totally opposed' (Letters, 15 November)?
If his extremist views were ever to be accepted. very many people connected with education would be fearful too.
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