The persistent myth of ability is a barrier to educational change: a critical response to Zack Polanski’s NEU speech
FORUM - Print ISSN 1474-7685 - Online ISSN 2047-7171
Volume 68 Number 2 (2026)
The persistent myth of ability is a barrier to educational change: a critical response to Zack Polanski’s NEU speech
Rachel Marks pages 104‑111
DOI: 10.3898/forum.2026.68.2.13
Abstract
This paper offers a critical response to Zack Polanski’s keynote speech to the 2026 National Education Union conference. While welcoming his explicit recognition of structural pressures facing English schooling, such as underfunding, accountability regimes and social inequality, the paper argues that his intervention leaves unexamined some of the most powerful mechanisms through which inequality is reproduced. In particular, this paper identifies the persistence of an ability ideology, subtly reinforced through everyday language such as references to ‘bright’ children, as a significant conceptual blind spot. Drawing on long-standing critiques within comprehensive education, the paper shows how assumptions about fixed, measurable ability continue to legitimise practices such as grouping, selection and differential expectation, even within rhetorics of social justice. The analysis suggests that without challenging these deeply embedded beliefs and the assessment practices that sustain them, structural reforms to governance or inspection are insufficient. The paper concludes that a genuinely equitable educational project requires not only political will but a radical rethinking of ability, language and educational purpose.
To cite this article
Rachel Marks (2026) The persistent myth of ability is a barrier to educational change: a critical response to Zack Polanski’s NEU speech, FORUM, 68(2), 104-111 . https://doi.org/10.3898/forum.2026.68.2.13