He said that selective schools were working with academics to develop and adopt entrance tests that were resistant to coaching.

BBC: Education & Family

But parents would prefer a community grammar school that serves local kids who have passed a floor standard in the entrance tests.

ECONOMIST: Grammar schools

The education minister has called on the Catholic grammar schools running entrance tests this weekend to name the private donor paying for the exam.

BBC: John O'Dowd calls for exam donor to be named

Most of Northern Ireland's 69 grammar schools have said they will administer other, unregulated entrance tests including at least eight Catholic grammars, despite the opposition of their church's hierarchy to academic selection.

ECONOMIST: Grammar schools

Implicitly accepting that grammar schools may set their own entrance tests, it published guidelines for all schools: preferential treatment for locals and siblings of existing pupils, 20% of places to be reserved for poor children, and so forth.

ECONOMIST: Grammar schools

Proponents say the August start dates allow more instruction time before students take mandatory state achievement tests and Advanced Placement and college-entrance exams.

WSJ: School in August Gets Low Grades

The subsequent results show that the children who received vouchers were 15-20% more likely to finish secondary education, five percentage points less likely to repeat a grade, scored a bit better on scholastic tests and were much more likely to take college entrance exams.

ECONOMIST: Education vouchers: Free to choose, and learn | The

Author David Boyle, of the New Economics Foundation, told BBC News that he was not suggesting that all children should be coached to pass entrance exams into "super-selective" schools, but that the need for coaching to pass some of the tests was "a clear barrier" to some families.

BBC: Education & Family