The NUT wants ministers to focus on social equality

NUT general secretary Steve Sinnott said schools often sought to compensate for the effects of deprivation.

"Choice rests with those who have the power to make choices," he told the union's annual conference in Gateshead.

He wanted the government to make equality, not market forces, its priority in education.

Social divisions

Mr Sinnott referred to the way in which the Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly, has repeatedly stressed the importance of parents, since she took over the job in December.

"Schools and teachers try to compensate for the effects of deprivation," he said.

"They want to provide disadvantaged young people with the support that is absent at home, access to books, access to computers, personal tuition, entitlements to school trips and study visits, and nourishing school meals."

want the government to put the equality agenda back as a priority NUT leader Steve Sinnott

Ms Kelly's predecessor, Charles Clarke, had also begun to say this, Mr Sinnott said.

"But now the government seems obsessed with the concepts of parent power and choice."

But he said divisions in social class made the idea of school choice and parent power an illusion.

"I want the government to put the equality agenda back as a priority.

"I urge Ruth Kelly, like her predecessor, to declare her commitment and say she will be steadfast in tackling the effects of social class on children's education."

Extremism

Most recently Ms Kelly has said she wants children to be taught in small groups - as they are if their parents pay for private schooling or tutors.

And the government says it wants good, popular schools to expand - though in practice this rarely happens.

Mr Sinnott said: "Policies of parental choice and of market forces help create and reinforce disadvantage, not resolve it.

"The idea that popular schools should expand leaving unpopular schools to swing in the wind is profoundly wrong because it goes against the whole concept of equal access."

The policy risked creating a hierarchy of schools, with those at the bottom a breeding ground for extremist politics.

'Higher standards'

A spokesman for Ms Kelly said the focus was on raising standards.

"What we are talking about are solutions to deep-rooted problems which work and secure continuous improvement. "We have made significant progress in raising standards as shown by last years GCSE results where the fastest improvement made was in areas of significant deprivation and historically low achievement.

"It is also vital that parents are involved in their children's education - that's common sense," he added.