It is not all academic, by Melissa Benn

Posted in: PF blog

6:32 pm, 11 September 2009 | Melissa Benn

In his last PF blog, Conor Ryan suggests that union opposition to academies is based largely on uncertainty about performance; oh, and just a smidgen of carping self-interest and general negativity.

But might much unease about these so-called shiny new schools stem instead from a firm belief in certain principles plus a wish to see all schools, and not just a chosen few, prosper?

Yes, some academies, such as Mossbourne in Hackney, have performed very well in this year’s GCSEs. But, as Ryan acknowledges, others are seriously struggling. Either way, this is a programme that has attracted significantly higher funding, and national political backing, than other equivalent schools.

Many community schools do just as well as the new academies and could do far better still with similar resources and – arguably even more important – the confidence of government. They would all benefit from a measure of operational autonomy enjoyed by the academies, particularly in regard to provision of the curriculum.

But there is something rather insulting about the presumption, implicit in Ryan’s article, that academies represent the first serious attempt to educate inner-city children. Let’s not forget, it was the comprehensive movement, with its rejection of the grammar/secondary modern divide, always a class-based division, that first took the education of the poor and disadvantaged seriously, the main reason it has remained so extraordinarily unpopular with the elite of this country.

Ryan also glosses over the reality of academy governance, which is that it takes control and accountability of schools away from the local community and puts it into private hands. Academies are in effect a form of top- down charity, a vehicle for the philanthropic and the rich (or both) to control the education of the poor, one reason why the programme is so popular with the Tories.

Incidentally, how much is Schools Secretary Ed Balls’ announcement this week of the waiving of the £2m fee for academies a pre-election attempt to counter, or match, recent Tory plans to provide state funding to approved groups to set up so- called free schools?

So, no, academy opponents do not lack the courage to admit they are wrong. They possess the courage to continue to assert the importance of democratic local control of schools and the rights of those who work within them.

Ultimately academies serve their sponsors’ interests, be that a carpet manufacturer or a prestigious university or even a journalist who doesn’t think the local comp is good enough for his talented offspring. But when the concerns of the wider community and an all-powerful sponsor clash, who is going to win out?.

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One Response to “It is not all academic, by Melissa Benn”

  1. Answering Conor Ryan on the academies « Melissa Benn says:
    16 September 2009 at 8:40 am

    [...] ( read rest of post here) [...]

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