Dalrymple on Honeyford - the man who predicted the race riots

Those of you whose political memories extend back to the 80's may remember the Honeyford Affair, triggered by this article:

Education and Race - an Alternative View
Ray Honeyford
The Salisbury Review
1984

My current fave author, Theodore Dalrymple, has written about the affair with his usual brilliance:

The Man Who Predicted the Race Riots
Theodore Dalrymple
City Journal Spring 2002

As ever, you should read the whole article, but one aspect of is relevant to the principle of 'locality' in education, as discussed elsewhere on impdec:

Though [Honeyford] failed to gain admission to a selective grammar school himself, he bitterly regrets the passing of these quintessentially meritocratic institutions, which allowed so many poor but talented children a chance to join the mainstream and even to excel in Britain’s open society. (This fact alone suggests his large-mindedness: how many people can resist erecting a general principle out of their personal disappointments?) Such schools, which ideologues condemned as elitist, might have helped prevent the strife that convulses Bradford today by creating a common culture and an interracial elite. They would have drawn (by and large, though not of course with 100 percent accuracy) the most intelligent children from diverse areas, allowing lasting friendships to form across the races among people likely to grow up to be the most prominent citizens of their respective groups.

Instead, today the schools draw children of every level of ability, but from a single geographical area only. If that area is white only, then the school will be white only; if Muslim, the school will be Muslim. Different ethnic and cultural groups—their differences preserved in educational aspic—live in geographical proximity but without any real contact. It does not require a Nostradamus to predict the consequences.