No new money for the ‘free’ schools

Published: 1 July, 2010

EDUCATIONISTS are divided over academies, but school improvement is all about improving teaching and learning, not just buildings and status, argues Alasdair Smith (above)

IS the shine  beginning to fade on academies? Despite the “school revolution” fanfare, only three schools in Islington, and none in Camden, have expressed an interest in converting to academy status.

The coalition government’s Academies Bill aims to make academies and “free” schools “the norm” but it appears they are less popular than the politicians imagined.

Why?

Academies have sharply divided education opinion since their conception under New Labour in 2001.

It was claimed academies were a  “social justice measure”, throwing money at schools where everything else had failed. Ignoring the evidence of their own evaluation reports, successive ministers peddled the line that academies were better.

The glittering new buildings seemed to prove it.

In Camden and Islington, as elsewhere, bitter struggles were fought to stop academies.

Campaigners felt these schools were unfairly imposed on communities without regard to local consultation which revealed widespread hostility to the deregulatory and privatising elements.

Yet Liberal Democrat councils pushed ahead regardless, claiming  that they were really “anti- academies”.
In 2008 Liberal Democrat conference voted to oppose the academies programme.

Two academies are open in Islington.

The UCL Academy in Camden is due to open in September 2011.

I hope the children at these schools prosper.

While remaining firmly opposed to academy status I want every child to do their best at school.

It is not the fault of children or parents that government have spun this story.

Absurdly, Michael Gove continues the spin invoking a “virtuous cycle” of school improvement. Academies raise standards.

Academies encourage other schools to raise standards and, hey presto, the whole  system gets better.
The trouble is that it’s not true.

All that glitters is not gold.

Some academies raise standards, others don’t.

Overall academies aren’t raising standards at any faster rate than other similar schools.

Nor is there any evidence that academies help raise the standards of the schools around them.

School improvement is all about improving teaching and learning, not changing status.

I don’t want to pretend everything is perfect in our schools.

Most Camden and Islington schools are doing well.

But there is still an outrageously long tail of under­achievement among many, mainly working class children.

New Labour claimed its academies would target this problem.

It didn’t.

But Mr Gove’s play for “outstanding” schools to become academies shows that his concerns lie elsewhere.
It is a brazen attempt to create a system divided into the “best and the rest’.

Thankfully the vast majority of heads and governors have rejected this for now.

But as the 25 per cent cuts begin to eat away at school budgets, some may be lured by the promise of pots of gold.

The money available to new academies has been wildly overstated.

There is no new money.

Academies will simply retain money that is currently spent by the local authority on special education needs, behaviour support etc.

This point is crucial when it comes to the issue of new, “free” schools.

The government are inviting parents, or teachers, to set up new schools.

But there is no new money.

Any new school will mean taking resources from an existing school.

Academies and “free” schools are glitter schemes that rely on the myth that education needs the entrepreneurial spirit of private business to revive its fortunes.

But the shine is beginning to fade.

Local authorities aren’t always perfect but they are accountable, cost-effective and in it for the long haul.

Parents value these things.

• Alasdair Smith is a teacher in Islington and is National Secretary of the Anti Academies Alliance campaign group