YES - Labour councillor Pat Hawkes, chair of Brighton & Hove CityCouncil's children, families and schools committee
The new system is a huge step forward. Our current system useshome-to-school distance to determine who goes to oversubscribed schools.This has created "golden halos" round them. In some cases this distanceis now only about a mile. The new system uses random allocation ofplaces within catchment areas. It will be fairer to more people becauseeveryone in the city will now have priority for at least one of theirlocal schools.
NO - Dr Helen Jarvis, senior lecturer, Newcastle University's School ofGeography, Politics and Sociology
Something as crucial as a decent education should not be down to thechance drawing of a ticket out of a hat. Lotteries are good atdistributing prizes, such as cakes in a raffle, but not for schoolplaces. Unlike the prize of a cake, a place at school takes effort tomaintain on a daily basis - time, information, transport and "extras"required for school trips, uniforms and the maintenance of scatteredfriendships.
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