Academy plan is ‘anti-democratic’

Plans to force all schools to become academies have been blasted as “ill conceived” and “anti-democratic” – putting children’s education at risk and denying parents choice.

The comments have been made by Lincolnshire County Council’s executive member for children’s services Patricia Bradwell, who said the county currently has “range of provision” to be proud of.
Schools in the county are a spread of maintained, foundation, faith and grammar schools, as well as a large number of academies – with around 85 per cent rated good or outstanding by Ofsted.
But Government plans announced earlier this year would see all of them forced to become academies.
Mrs Bradwell said the “academisation” of all schools was a cause of concern for Lincolnshire councillors across the political spectrum.”
She said: “Crucially, there’s no evidence that academies perform better than maintained schools –and, as I’ve said, most of our maintained primaries are already good or outstanding.
“In contrast, we’ve seen our secondary academies slipping behind the national averages for performance over the last two years.
“Despite concerns we’ve raised with the Department of Education about particular schools, improvement has either been slow or failed to materialise at all.
“I’m sure we’d all agree that when a school is failing, action must be taken, but converting every school into an academy will not tackle these issues.
“As regards choice, schools rightly value the option to become academies – and the support they receive from local councils to do so – where they believe it’s in the best interests of their students and communities.
“But forcing the change upon every school goes against what many parents, governors and teachers want.”
Mrs Bradwell added that the proposed removal of parent-governors would see the loss of a vital local voice in schools and replacing the local education system of elected councils with remote civil servants would raise serious concerns about accountability.
She said: “Put simply, enforced so-called “academisation” is anti-democratic, and there’s no evidence it will do anything but deny choice.
“Schools don’t need this, and parents, communities, teaching staff and governors don’t want it forced on them.
“What we should concentrate on is the quality of education and a school’s ability to deliver the best results for children.
“This is the key to tackling poor performance – not the ill-conceived, unproven decision of academies for all.”