Every summer, with the absence of Parliamentary news and the arrival of GCSE, A-level and degree results, the great education debate starts up again. This year's is accompanied by two jeremiads: one from a politician, the other from a journalist. Both aim at a mass audience. All Must Have Prizes is promoted by its publisher as 'the book every parent must read'; We Should Know Better is held to 'chime in with the current collective mood of the nation in much the same way as Will Hutton's bestselling The State of the Nation did last year'.

LRB 3 October 1996 | PDF Download