Blair is right: Academies are here to stay

Mike Ion Sat Mar 31, 2007 at 10:55:49 AM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

According to Tony Blair one day every secondary school will be either a trust or a city academy. He may well be correct and I am of the view that it may not be a bad thing. As long as Academies remain in the depressed hearts of the old towns and cities and, perhaps most importantly of all, maintain their all-ability intake then progressive thinkers on the Left should not worry too much.



I think that it is just possible that in the setting up of so many of these new academies in areas of significant social and economic deprivation, that the government has re-found what many used to call "compensating measures".

For communities trapped in a cycle of failure such schools can offer new energy, new purpose and new opportunities for the young people who deserve better. But it is an obligation for all of us to ensure that such ambitious and expensive programmes benefit the communities that they are intended for.


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Blair is right: Academies are here to stay | 19 comments (19 topical)

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#1)

by JR on Sat Mar 31, 2007 at 12:50:44 PM GMT

According to Tony Blair one day every secondary school will be either a trust or a city academy.

May well be true. And could turn out to be a good thing.

But I have always been a bit sceptical of city academies. I don't like the idea of businesses owning parts of state schools. But sure, the new buildings and facilities are excellent for the children and that's what counts.


Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#2)

by alsoleeds on Sat Mar 31, 2007 at 01:25:54 PM GMT

I agree. Any reason why the Private Sector can't make a donation without strings so we can have a good local school for every child without it being an educational advertising hoarding.


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#3)

by sianlloydwebber on Sat Mar 31, 2007 at 08:52:33 PM GMT

  1. Does that effectively imply one day there won't be any state schools left? (No doubt Ruth Kelly herself is leading the way!)

  2. Why have the Academies kicked out the parent governors and are run by typical private company-like board of directors - solely accountable to their shareholders/owners and aiming to maximise profits/dividends? Won't this short-term gain approach produce in the long-run the schools equivalent of Paddington rail crashes?  


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#4)

by Glass House on Sat Mar 31, 2007 at 09:38:01 PM GMT

Both your comments show that you have no idea what Acadamies are.

Academies ARE State schools

Academies do NOT have shareholders

Academies do not have shares/dividend/profits

They are NOT private.
They are NOT companies.
They are 99% STATE FUNDED.
NO ONE gets any kind of profit from them.
Doners get NO cash back from the schools WHATSOEVER.

How can people who are interested enough in politics to read political websites not know this?

Unbelievable!


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#5)

by sianlloydwebber on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 02:50:24 AM GMT

Thanks, Glass House, for opening my eyes! But that shows how poorly these Academies have been  explained even among Labour foot-soldiers like me! Admittedly, I've no direct connexion with schools. But we're being told by some (disgruntled?) members of our local Labour Party in Mitcham (Surrey) that a certain Tory Lord Harris has been handed over an Academy and the parent governors have been kicked out, to begin with ....... and it might be the thin end of the paradoxically state-funded privatisation wedge :  a la the way we're lumbered with still heavily subsidising the privatised railways where the bosses get paid super bonuses and the people get the crashes (due to underinvestment)!    


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#6)

by Juvenal on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 08:12:25 AM GMT

Academies cost about £25m to build, with £2m from the sponsor, so it's 92% from government, not 99%.

That 8% funding gets the sponsor (individual or group) a majority on the board of trustees.  The government only requires a single parent representative on the board.  In my view, that's too much power.

It seems to me that the real aim of the academies is to emasculate the role of local authorities within the education system.  I certainly don't expect the academies experiment (and it is an experiment) to continue in the long term, but they could mark the end of local authority education departments, for good or bad.


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#7)

by Mike Ion on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 08:29:25 AM GMT

Juvenal

The % of Government funding varies from Academy to Academy but is not normally lower than 95%. Should there be more parent representation? Yes. Should LA have a rep (possibly 2 or 3)? Yes.

Important those these points are the real issue is about the quality of the education that the children receive. If all other measures have failed then we are morally obliged - at least in my view - to try something new and radical like an Academy.

The point about the future of LAs - should they 'run' schools or help support them via services like Ed Psychologists, EWO, transport etc? Provide services directly or commission services on the school's behalf?


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#8)

by swatantra on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 10:55:23 AM GMT

In East Basildon we are due to have an Academy.
Its going to create quite a stir because a lot of investment is going to be channelled into setting it all up, perhaps to the detriment of other Basildon secondary schools, which are crubling, desparately in need of a makeover.
So once again we are going to be faced with schools competing against each other, just to bolster their intake. And that is the basic problem. Some schools are going to lose out to the shiny glass and concrete edifaces rising up. Sponsor money is peanuts to what the government is required to put in. So why bring them in? Its all about the management of schools and taking them out of state control and giving them greater degrees of freedom as to what they can and cannot do. And here the sponsors could have quite a big say in the whole ethos of the school, quite out of proprtion to the amount of investment they are putting in. I still remain sceptical about Academies; I would like to see all schools as neighbourhood schools addressing the needs of their catchment area.


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#9)

by Glass House on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 12:20:58 PM GMT

I meant the running cost and capital costs.


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#10)

by sianlloydwebber on Sun Apr 01, 2007 at 01:49:09 PM GMT

So, dear Glass House, though I might be ignorant, now it seems even the knowledgeable folks are essentially supporting the drift of the allegation/fear that my local party members told us : that, despite being state-subsidised, effectively they'll be OUT of state/LEA control - i.e. a typical example of Thatcherite logical fraud and ideological obsession with the efficiency of private management! If the Labour cabinet doesn't trust the public sector's managerial competency, why doesn't it outsource its own work to the likes of Accenture or PriceWaterhouseCooper?      


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#11)

by Glass House on Mon Apr 02, 2007 at 01:52:27 PM GMT

I never said that there weren't concerns around acadamies - I said that it is nothing to do with privatisation or profits for companies/individuals.


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#14)

by doctordunc on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 05:12:45 PM GMT

Of course you can present this in a much less positive light Glass House.  If I had a spare £2 million and wanted to teach kids in my area that the world is flat, the government will give me £23 million (of tax payers money) to help me do so!  (Okay, that's a bit of a caricature, but it's not far enough away from the truth for comfort!)

I've no objection to a millionaire handing over a couple of million to the local school (and they'd all be thankful for it, and I'm sure we'd see positive impact on the learners, etc.); I don't even mind them specifying what they'd like the money spent on and having the library or a new block named after them.  But otherwise it seems like yet another DFES madcap scheme for neutering LEAs (which emerge irrespective of the colour rosettes of the ministers in charge).


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#16)

by Glass House on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:04:03 PM GMT

The bottom line is that, for all the money we've put into education, results/outcomes aren't going up enough.

We need to try new things and "ethos"s seem to work for some private schools - so why not try them?


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#17)

by edwardgrey on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 06:42:26 PM GMT

ethos's work for private schools? My foot. Ethos's are fairly incidental once:
  1. you select your intake
  2. that intake has (for the most part) motivated and involved parents.
  3. given the two above advantages you then spend more money per pupil than the state system.
Sure a good ethos will help state schools but we hardly need to borrow mottos and boating songs private schools.
The fundamental need is a higher level of spending in state schools than is spent by private schools.


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#18)

by doctordunc on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 08:38:17 PM GMT


It's intriguing.  I agree there are definitely some outcomes that need serious improvement.  Results actually are continually improving, and then people don't believe that they're improving so you end up with big debates about 'dumbing down', etc.  

But I think the bottom line really is whether everybody has equal access to an equal education - by equal I don't necessarily mean the same (before JR weighs in).  Yes if we can continually improve the standards that everyone can expect, all to the good.

I don't really see why Academies are likely to do that.  They appear with a bit of a fanfare, but a major impact they have on a lot of learners is that they drain their resources (while a lot of pupils go for the Academy, bringing in more per capita resources to an already well-resourced school, this drains resources from other local 'competitors').  And then the Academy is able to boast about it's better resources, etc. as if this is somehow the result of its hard work and special ethos (rather than cash).


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#12)

by edwardgrey on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 04:35:12 PM GMT

I <u>hope</u> they aren't here to stay. Well, I hope the buildings that have been put up so far stay but the likes of Reg Vardy go. Academies give individuals the right to have a disproportionate stay in the running of a school that the tax payer funds. Rather like the disproportionate say the religious get for the small percentage of the funding they provide to "their" schools.

They also undermine what should be one of Labour's strengths; that spending on schools produces results. Instead the message is given that to be successful state schools need to be run a bit like the private schools that Blair/Kelly/Adonis went to. Alan Johnson says it doesn't matter: look at the money we are putting into the most deprived areas. However, the people who oppose academies don't oppose the spending of money in the most deprived areas they just dispute that academies are the way to do it.

The amounts that the private donors put in could be easily met by the state and the message would be much clearer: the money Labour puts in makes works. Instead we will have credit attributed to Reg Vardy and his ilk. This is a potential gift to the Tory's who will say "lets have plenty more of these businessmen in", whilst quietly cutting education funding.

We will see if the new leader will continue the unnecessary and misleading  attack on the "bog standard comprehensive". I went to one and it was very successful (although I may be an exception that proves the rule). It was well staffed and had a motivated senior management team. That formula very rarely fails. The problem is how to make it standard in the most challenging areas and it can be done without academies.

I am also worried by the obsession with building schools. No doubt some schools need rebuilding and others extensive repairs. However, the most important elements for the most challenging schools are the staff. Good teachers need to be offered bonuses for completing a long period (say five years) in the most challenging schools. They need smaller classes and more classroom assistants. However, money which could be spent on these things is being spent on new buildings when in many cases it is not necessary.  Schools need strong leadership established and there is no reason why the DFES should not become involved in this process; they could play a prominent role in appointing head teachers and governors. This doesn't need handing to individuals, organisations or businesses on the basis of funding a small part of a school budget.

I fear that academies may be here to stay, and indeed here to stay under an incoming Tory administration.


Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#13)

by Glass House on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 05:11:12 PM GMT

Why does everyone get so worked up about the phrase "bog standard comprehensive"?

Some comprehensives ARE bog standard. Some are good.

But something needs to be done about the bog standard ones.


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#15)

by edwardgrey on Tue Apr 03, 2007 at 05:58:23 PM GMT

I think they get worked up because it was a phrase used to tar all comprehensive schools with the same brush. Blair clearly doesn't like any comprehensive school as he wants them all to be academies or trust schools.

I went to a comprehensive school. I consider it bog standard in that there were many other schools like it and that was no bad thing. It depends if you think "bog standard" and "good" are mutually exclusive, I don't, Blair does.


[ Parent ]

Re: Blair is right: Academies are here to stay (#19)

by jkitleft on Sat Apr 07, 2007 at 09:14:28 PM GMT

Aren't city academies the British version of the American school vouchers system?


Blair is right: Academies are here to stay | 19 comments (19 topical)