Academies no answer

Published: 13 October, 2011

• YOUR correspondent  Paul D Rivers, is simply wrong (Dogma is blocking progress, October 6).

He says the decision by Haverstock school not to opt for becoming an academy is wrong because “By being funded directly by central government, academies receive more money to spend as they wish as the local authority ceases to skim a portion,”

which so distorts the situation as to make the rest of his argument worthless.

Local authorities do not “skim” the education budget; they use a small part of the education budget to co-ordinate the educational needs of their citizens as closely as they can to meet their needs by ensuring there are enough places in all local schools for all local children.

They further ensure that these schools are well-maintained and run.

The process is not perfect, but abandoning any attempt to provide good education for all local children is not a solution, it is simply a disaster waiting to happen.

Academies will solve none of the local or national education problems but will, instead, make them vastly worse.

Already there are worries that the UCL Academy in Swiss Cottage will undermine local schools, by “creaming off” good pupils.

How could it be otherwise, that is what they are supposed to do!

And, nationally, the policy will be a disaster.

It will result in the slow and steady disintegration of our educational system.

Of course, many academies will be good, maybe all of them (though that is unlikely), but where will that leave all the other schools and, more importantly, all the thousands of children who aren’t accepted by academies?

This spurious freedom is like saying we will not plan roads, you build whatever roads you need, with no one in control.

This is exactly what will happen under these Tory proposals: motorway education for the rich and powerful, dirt tracks for the rest.

We know the Tories don’t like state schools, most of them have never used them as their parents were rich enough to buy their kids privilege.

But we must fight this divisive measure in every way we can: we do not want a free-for-all in education, we want all our children to be given the best chance in life.

DAVID REED
Eton Avenue, NW3