Although the objective of Academies under New Labour was improvement to secondary schools in challenging contexts, it was never clear how Academies would contribute to that goal. The sponsors do not have any experience in secondary education in challenging environments, and it is difficult to find out what innovations are being tried out and how they are beng evaluated. There is no clear analysis of what was wrong with LEA control and what was wrong with the national curriculum, and in what way the Academy model is an improvement. I know this because I am a parent of children at an Academy and the parents have been asking these questions since the school opened. The head teacher has admitted that the school follows the national curriculum 99% of the time and that the best innovations (in teaching for those whose first language isn't English, for example) is part of LEA programmes: the head teacher has never been able to cite an innovation coming from the sponsor.

The use of the Academy model by the Conservative Party is even more mysterious, as there appears to be no overall objective except to remove schools from LEA control and to hand over management to the so-called "sponsors". Although Academies are mentioned in the same breath as schools run by parents, this is misleading: the main feature of Academies is that parents have very little influence in how they are run. Academies are run centrally by civil servants in the Department of Education and, on a day to day basis, by the sponsor. The number of parent-governors is much less than in an LEA-run school. The sponsor chooses the majority of the governors, which makes it difficult for governors to hold the sponsor to account. There is no democratic oversight from the LEA. The flow of information to parents and the public is blocked by commercial confidentiality clauses and FoI exemptions.

So what is the point of Academies? Why make schools that are already better than average into Academies? I can only conlcude that the point is to remove parental oversight of schools, and to provide income opportunities to private companies for the management of schools on contract to the Department of Education.

A quite interesting character profile of Mr Gove, but the policy detail he is proposing is far more intriguing and worrying.

Contrary to what the previous 'comment' says ('thick heads', Rick? Really?), there have been numerous improvements in education on the frontline in the last 13 years as a result of Labour policy. I am a Primary School teacher in the state sector, so I have seen first hand in recent years actual physical changes which have benefited the pupils and staff - new school buildings, more money for equipment and resources, cutting edge investments in ICT and new technologies to help prepare pupils for work, and initiatives such as Every Child Matters and Sure Start which have changed - in different ways - aspects of education for the better.

There have of course been some not-so-succesful moments, and when the government has tried to get too prescriptive, such as with the National Numeracy and Literacy strategies, it has soon taken steps back again when it has seen it wasn't working. Indeed, the Rose Review for Primary Education which would have given ALL Primaries the freedom to teach more of what they want, when they want has in fact been ditched by the new government, so teachers don't know what we are meant to be teaching at all.

It is not in the interests of a fair and equitable society to have a large minority of its children, mostly in wealthy areas, educated differently to others in the state sector. We need a National Curriculum to be a benchmark of assured content and expectations, a guarantee that whether your child is at school in Hackney or Harrow, St Helens or Sevenoaks, it will have access tot he same quality of education and therefore the same chances later in life as every other child. Giving wealthy individuals and organisations the chance to set up their own schools at the expense (literally it seems, as BSF is cancelled) of already existing schools is not a fair, rational or necessary change to make.

Unfortunately we may have to wait 20 years for our children's generation to teach Mr Gove that lesson.

Yes Labour has presided over some physical improvements in schools like: no more buckets in classrooms to collect the rain leaking from the roof.( once I had 4 in my own classroom). Vast amounts of money have seen to that.
Unfortunately it has also introduced an Orwellian world where as Rick says above 31% in Physics still gives you a C or even better a 13% in Maths gives you a C! And where there is no such thing as failure to pass an exam. It has now become a "deferred success". No I am not making this up!
But what the new government is coming up with now is more ludicrous reforms which, not only will not solve any of the existing problems of inequality of provision but actually will reinforce the educational and social apartheid which exists in British schools. When the GCSE was introduced, its main purpose was to make sure every child in every school was getting the same curriculum and sitting the same exams.It was an attempt at producing a national system of education, uniform and fair (in the State sector that is). Now we are told that diversity and choice is the thing to have to improve education. Why or why would people want a diversity of schools?? Like hospitals, what parents want is a good reliable local school where you can be sure that your kid will receive the same kind of education as in the next town .
This business with "free schools" is another gimmick which will create yet another layer of inequality as if there wasn't enough as it is.Don't even get me started on the kind of sponsors who will want to start those schools. God knows what will go on in those schools if they are free to invent their own curriculum and write their own rules. You could end up with a totally chaotic system which will be the end of a national system of education. It is pure folly and it won't work.
If the government, any government had a serious intention to create a socially fair system, they would start by abolishing private schools. The rest is a total waste of time. As long as the rich can send their kids to their own separate schools, the State schools will be automatically mediocre at best, total rubbish at worst. Gove who is not stupid knows that of course but he is playing the "let's do something to show we're are doing something" game.
Private schooling in this country is the elephant in the room.Everybody is pretending it's not there or it doesn't matter.
AS long as British people tolerate educational apartheid, nothing will change in this country and the class system will live on and on.

Great to see some really good posts on the NS for once. The pro and anti- comments all have something to recommend in them. But I have to say that Daniele is the person with whom I agree most.

This is a class poisoned nation and all the worse because of it. It is reinforced on a daily basis in our school system.

I am not against the idea of schools having greater independence from central government per se but introducing the profit motive into yet another area of public life is sickening and wrong.

The only plausible question in your article is why the government wants to give autonomy to the better schools when the worst are obviously more in need.

A school with independent curricula, set to the needs of the students rather than the auspices of the government, would do wonders. Go to a secondary school and look at the history and English they study, look at "PSHE", look at the lack of Latin and Greek. Comprehensives are rubbish and GCSEs are worthless, let the schools decide. Give parents, teachers and headmasters freedom.