How can we level the playing field of life? | Lee Elliot Major | TEDxExeter

Social mobility is getting worse, leading to extremes of inequality and a disconnected, dysfunctional elite. So what can we do to create a more level playing field? Lee Elliot Major explores how middle-class privilege is increasingly ingrained by our education system, arguing that radical reforms are needed to tackle a massive waste of talent.

Lee Elliot Major is Professor of Social Mobility at the University of Exeter and chief executive of the Sutton Trust. His book, Social Mobility and Its Enemies, calls for radical reforms to address Britain’s low social mobility.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

So do you think life is fair?

Well, in my lifetime,
I've clung on to the hope

that we enable all people irrespective
of their backgrounds to get on in life,

and that education would be
the great social leveler.

Your university and school grades
matter more than ever before,

and an "A" is always better
than a "B" or a "C," right?

I used to think about these issues

when cleaning the streets
of London as a teenager.

My mom worked at the local council.

She got me a job;
she said she could open doors.

I hadn't realized it was doors
to a dustbin lorry,

(Laughter)

but I was proud
to be a dustman for a summer.

And I earned extra money street cleaning,

and to this day, I can't resist
tying up bin bags in a certain way.

And I pick up litter
when I walk down the street.

I couldn't resist telling this story

when I wrote a newspaper article
a couple of years ago.

It was all about how my life
had been transformed by education.

My mom and dad split up when I was 15.

I ended up sleeping on my own,
not going to lessons at school.

My prospects were pretty
bleak at that point.

To be honest, the biggest reaction
I got in the articles

was the 1980s haircut.

(Laughter)

The bleached blonde hair,
the earrings, the eyeliner.

(Laughter)

And I'm damned now
because whatever my children wear,

I wore something worse in the 1980s.

(Laughter)

But despite my shocking looks,

my life did turn around.

And this was mainly
due to family and friends.

My best friend encouraged me
to go back to college,

his mum and dad took me in,

an uncle paid for me
to go through university.

You know, when you look
at individual success,

usually it's a product
of collective endeavor.

We should never forget that.

So I went back to school,

and I eventually studied
for a PhD in theoretical physics,

something I don't mention at parties much

because it stops conversation dead.

I became a reporter
on a national newspaper.

I was Chief Executive
of the Sutton Trust charity,

one of the leading education
foundations in the country,

and a published author.

And I'm now the very first
professor of social mobility.

My mum would have been very proud
if she'd still been around.

So I've used this story to try
and inspire other young people,

to show them that backgrounds
shouldn't determine

what happens to you in life.

But the harsh truth is that someone
like me from my background

stands less of a chance of climbing
the social ladder now than in my day.

We observe an escalating
arms race of education,

one in which the rich commandeer
increasingly powerful weaponry

to get their children ahead,

and the poor are ill-equipped to fight.

Take private tutoring, for example.

There has been a boom
in tutoring outside the classroom

over the last 20 years
in England and Wales.

In 2005, 18 percent of teenagers

said they have been tutored
outside a normal school day.

In 2017, that had risen
to one in three teenagers.

And who are the customers
in this billion-pound marketplace?

Well, it's the children
of the privileged classes.

Dig beneath the veneer of an orderly
and respectful British society,

and you will find a very different story.

Many parents will admit
to cheating in school admissions,

renting a property near the school
so their children get ahead.

The Times newspaper
had an investigation that showed

that thousands of parents are now claiming
medical conditions for their children

so they can get to the front of the queue.

And just like false addresses,

these conditions mysteriously
disappear the following term.

This goes to a whole different level

when it comes to getting
into the best universities.

You may have seen last month

the news of the biggest scandal
in U.S. college admissions history.

Hollywood actors
were among the rich parents

who had paid a shady organization
to bribe admissions tutors,

to pay other people
to take their children's tests,

to even fabricate athletic prowess.

Now, I'm not suggesting
that this blatant cheating

is widespread in higher education.

But how different is it

to all the advantages
the middle classes have?

The extra tutoring,
the insider information, the contacts.

All these things are crucial
to gaining that competitive edge.

And a US attorney summed it up very well.

For every winner, there has to be a loser.

And in the toxic mix
of education and money,

[Winners and losers]

a zero-sum game of social mobility,

there has to be a loser for every winner.

Far from acting as a great social leveler,

the education system
has become the vehicle

through which the elites retain
their position in society.

And you can see this in expansion
of universities in Britain.

Over the last 40 years,

the graduation rate of those
from the poorest fifth of homes

has gone up.

But the graduation rate
of those from the richest homes

has gone up even more.

In other words,

the graduation gap has increased.

The expansion of universities
has been mainly a middle-class affair.

So do you still think
an "A" is better than a "B" or a "C"?

But what we know

is that A Levels are increasingly
a signal of how much support you get

as much as your academic
potential or natural ability.

How else can we explain

that state school students
with the same A Level grades

as theeir privately educated peers

get better degrees
on average at university?

Now, I'm not blaming the parents here.

I'm a parent. I've paid
for tutoring for my children.

We all want the best
for our sons and daughters.

But I believe we've reached
a dangerous tipping point in society.

Inequality has widened in my lifetime,

and the rich have pulled away,

and the arms race has become
an even more one-sided affair.

It's little surprise
that social mobility has fallen.

And what we find

is that there is an inextricable link
between inequality,

the gaps between rich and poor,

and social mobility, the likelihood
of climbing the social ladder.

You can see this

in the international comparisons.

Here on this graph of several countries,

the higher up on this graph,
the less mobile the country is.

The more to the right,
the more unequal that country is.

Britain and the United States
are in the worst position of all:

high inequality and low social mobility.

What's really interesting
about these international comparisons

is countries like Britain and the U.S.,

who have embraced the very individualistic
notion of the American Dream,

have low social mobility,

and those countries,
like the Scandinavian nations,

who have prioritized
collective responsibility

over individual gain,
have higher social mobility rates.

In the Scandinavian countries,

they don't talk about the American Dream,

they talk about the Law of Jante:

putting society first
before the individual.

In this country, we're haunted
by the words of Margaret Thatcher

that there is no such thing as society.

So why should all this matter?

Well, for one, it highlights
an appalling waste of talent:

millions of lives in this country
whose potential goes unfulfilled.

And quite frankly, more of us
are getting fed up with it.

We may be a class-ridden society,

but in Britain, the biggest gripe
is not playing by the rules.

We're sick of the same people at the top.

Every Prime Minister since the war
who studied at an English university

went to one institution: Oxford.

And one school, Eton College,
has produced 19 Prime Ministers.

Around 50 to 60 percent of leading people

across a range of professions,

from medicine to law,
politics, journalism,

attended private schools.

But only 7 percent of children
attend those schools.

We've created a disconnected
and dysfunctional elite.

I know this firsthand;

I've been in to number 10 Downing Street,

and I'm pretty sure
I was the only man in the room

who had slept on a train station floor,

who had been threatened with a knife,

certainly who'd worn eyeliner -

(Laughter)

maybe not.

There's a distinct lack
of diversity at the top.

And that matters because people
from different backgrounds

bring different perspectives,
different views.

They improve decision-making.

They understand

the distinctively different communities
they're intended to serve.

Low social mobility has created
a populist and divisive politics.

Ring any bells?

And a fractured society.

And I believe

that we're heading to a car crash,

that there will be social unrest.

So what should we do?

Well, I do think we need

an education system
that nurtures all talents,

not just academic, but entrepreneurial,
vocational, creative.

University is not for everyone.

But if you're serious
about social mobility,

you would also tackle
the extremes of inequality.

You'd pay nurses and teachers more,

people that do public good.

We also need to make
university admissions fairer.

I would do far more

to give lower grade offers to young people
from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Universities already do this,
but they could do much more.

A "B," "C," or "D"
is an amazing accomplishment

if you've been in care,
if you've been living rough.

If you've just been poor.

I would establish a percent scheme
for state schools.

This has been done in the United States.

If you come in the top
10 percent of the class,

you get automatically enrolled
into your local university.

Your circumstances have
a profound impact on your achievement.

My favorite, though,

is to choose students randomly

that have all met
a particular academic level.

To be frank,

getting into those top universities
with those high grades

is already pretty much a lottery.

And lotteries are used in education a lot.

At a stroke, we would sweep away
all the middle-class advantages:

the gaming, the cheating,
the queue jumping.

The roll of a dice
would equalize life's lottery.

And one final thing:

don't let anyone tell you
that the world is fair,

that we live in a meritocracy,

that social mobility
is somehow dumbing down.

We play on a grotesquely
uneven playing field.

It looks something like this.

(Laughter)

And most of us, not just those
from poor backgrounds,

face an uphill climb just to compete.

Remember an "A" is not always
better than a "B" or a "C."

Thank you.

(Applause)