Uncomfortable

Social mobility is the issue of the day. This has been brought into focus because of economic turbulence, even the wealthy and successful are not really going anywhere at the moment, now they know what it's like for the rest! When the economy recovers of course, it will be back to business. But let us take stock, not too earnestly about the difficulties facing the government with an expanding population and growing state burden.
Should we return to the 11 + exam but bring it forward to 13 years? If there was a flat rate of state education from 11-13 in micro-schooling we could create jobs for 11-13 age group in preparation for the exam to lay foundations for maths, space, logic and lateral thinking. I mean, really sitting down in silence to learn stuff in a traditional way, which is what I taught myself to do at University. Breaking the system up may put poor children into great grammar schools, and no-one would have to know they were poor, it would be secret.
The argument against is that the 11+ was just an IQ test that factored out the ability of children to develop later, or develop specific academic talents separate from reading logic diagrams and number patterns. There are a number of very successful 11+ failures who have made spectacular careers in desirable areas.
State comps stick you in streams of ability anyway, so why not just bring in grammar schools? It is not really political to divide society in such a way, in fact, in some ways it is a mechanical socialist ethic running through it, each according to his ability etc. And many top jobs now, and certainly graduate schemes run similar aptitude tests to pool talent along those lines, so once you get to into the job market you will find that after an expensive education you will need to sit your 11+ again to get a good job. So why not lets get used to it and bring it back properly. At least then you will get some bright children from disadvantaged backgrounds going somewhere and we can silence some of the endless debate about 'buying' a good education by using wealth to get close to a good state school.