Morning:
8°c
Town halls want hit squads to target academies academies pupils
Tim Ross, Education Correspondent15 Sep 2009
Council hit squads could be sent in to take over failing academies under a radical blueprint for London schools.
Boroughs must be given power to intervene when the Government's semi-private schools fail local children, according to a report on state schools commissioned by Westminster council.
Under the recommendations, academies would be forced to provide regular reports to prove pupils make progress. If they fail to convince the town hall, the governors could be sacked.
Such a move would effectively destroy Tony Blair's vision for a breed of "independent" state schools run by business figures and faith groups. It would be welcomed by Left-wing MPs and teachers' unions, who oppose what they see as privatisation of education.
The Westminster education commission warned that academies were refusing to cooperate with boroughs on developing coherent local plans for schools. Councillors feel "politically vulnerable" because voters see them as responsible for education, despite them having no control over academies.
Its chairman, Professor David Eastwood, former head of the Higher Education Funding Council, said: "Where academies are a success, that's fine. Where they are underperforming, the response has not been fully thought through."
Councils should have the power to replace an academy's governors with an "interim executive board", he added.
The £27million Westminster Academy in Bayswater has been rated "inadequate" by inspectors. Another, in Sheffield, was failed by Ofsted this week.
The commission, which included the former head of the Church of England's education service and London headteachers, said its findings were relevant to all councils with academies.
Ministers want to open 400 academies in England with at least 70 in London by 2011. Children's Secretary Ed Balls has said he is prepared to consider intervening in failing academies. The Tories claim Mr Balls and Gordon Brown have undermined Mr Blair's legacy on academies by curbing their freedoms.
A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: "The Department has a range of powers to intervene in academies when necessary, and we believe that these are sufficient. We have no plans to extend them to local authorities."
Reader views (2)
The report wasn't all about academies! Also included:
o Reviving ILEA in the guise of a "collaborative Inner London board";
o Appointing a cabinet member in Westminster who is responsible solely for education.
o Ensuring that senior management from Westminster's children's services make an annual visit to schools and urging councillors to become school governors (it turned out that some schools have not seen a councillor for five years);
o a cross-London "super secondary improvement unit" be set up.
And:
"One example emerged of a child who was known to a neighbouring borough's social services department but who was educated in a Westminster school," it states.
"It fell to individual teachers to make the links and inquiries and liaise effectively with the professionals involved rather than this co-ordination happening strategically and as a matter of course."
- Rob, London, 17/09/2009 23:41
Report abuse
And yet there is a serious danger that academies will become publicly funded but unaccountable-in effect another set of undemocratic and unrepresentative quangos.This also leaves them open to become hotbeds of any kind of bad influence or indoctrination that happens to be the particular bigotry of the ruling body. Certainly the religious influence is highly questionable since from daily events it appears that the non religious have higher standards and are more supportive of goodness and the law of the land than any of the organised religions and why should children be forced into the acceptance of second best morality. What parents want is not some set of special schools because this always means that the Govt. have failed miserably those that do not get into those schools but for excellence in every school. There also seems to be, in my opinion, a climate in the Dept. of Education of such extremist discrimination against the non religious that it amounts to a hate crime and is certainly a major factor in bringing social divisiveness into the community.
- Keith, Southend, England, 17/09/2009 22:41
Report abuse
