Morning everyone. I’m Martin Farrer and these are the stories you need to read this morning.
White working-class pupils have been let down by the education system in England, with “divisive” terms such as “white privilege” contributing to the neglect, a controversial report by MPs says today. The study by the Conservative-dominated Commons education committee rejected the government’s view that poverty is solely to blame for white working class underperformance and said that while “an industry” has emerged to support disadvantaged non-white pupils, the same is not available to white pupils. But the report will ignite controversy after one Labour member disowned the conclusions and accused members of stirring a “culture war”. Kim Johnson, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said she was unhappy with a lot of the report and said the committee had “cherrypicked data”.
The report is the latest to claim that education has been a success story for ethnic minorities. It repeatedly refers to a Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report in March that claimed children from many ethnic communities largely do as well as white children.
