During Thursday’s debate, he argued helping teenagers who struggle with literacy and numeracy in state schools is the answer to tackling social mobility and building a skilled economy.
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The former cabinet minister told the newspaper: ” This is not selection educationally, it is selection socially.
And the general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, Dr Mary Bousted, said that evidence showed grammar schools “entrench inequality” throughout life, with the earnings gap between rich and poor more than £4-an-hour wider in areas with selective schools.
However, chief schools inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw has accused the PM of “putting the clock back” and warned a return to grammars would threaten the progress made in the state system.
For Labour, opposition to schools they see as divisive and unfair goes back to the 1960s.
For Mrs May, a Remain supporter who now leads a party full of Brexiteers, this is an issue where she can align herself with the instincts of the Tory grassroots, and differentiate herself from the distrusted modernisers who preceded her. For decades, British children were tested at age 11.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said the return to grammars was an ” out-of-date, ineffective approach” which would be defeated in the House of Lords.
In her first major domestic policy speech since taking office in July, May said she would ease restrictions on new selective schools – and give existing ones 50 million pounds ($67 million) to expand – to help make Britain “a place where advantage is based on merit not privilege”.
She told the meeting: “We have already got selection, haven’t we – it’s called “selection by house price”.
In the perceived “golden-age” of the grammar system in the 50s, which Tory backbenchers seem to look back to through rose-tinted glasses, nearly 40 per cent of the children selected failed to achieve more than 3 O-Levels.
“We will continue to work on the opportunities that Theresa May set out in her speech with our schools”.
But Ms Rayner shot back: “At a time when our schools are facing a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, with thousands taught in super-sized classes and schools facing real-terms cuts to their budget for the first time in almost two decades, pushing ahead with grammar schools shows a risky misunderstanding of the real issues facing our schools”.
May said new grammars would be required to take a proportion of children from poorer backgrounds. But I want to focus on the new grammars of the future: “those that will be just one element of a truly diverse system”.
It is thought numerous free schools announced by her predecessor David Cameron could become grammar schools under the changes.
Labour has launched a substantial attack on Theresa May’s “ludicrous” pledge to create a new wave of grammar schools.
It is illegal to set up new grammars- which select pupils through the 11-plus exam- in England but it has been suggested Mrs May might change the law.
Mrs May sought to allay concerns that middle-class parents will ensure their children seize the lion’s share of places in selective schools by paying for tutoring, insisting that new-style smart tests will be able to assess the “true potential” of each pupil.
The document said Education Secretary Justine Greening’s “clear position” was that they should only be approved once ministers have worked with existing selective schools to show that pupils who do not make the grade are not disadvantaged.
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That means that if they want to keep their charitable status, which allows them to avoid tax, the schools will have to offer support, facilities and even teaching time to children at nearby state schools.
