How Tory academy plans will damage our schools

On the 15th July 2014, teachers up and down the country breathed a collective sigh of relief: David Cameron finally saw sense and dethroned Michael Gove as Education Secretary. Even my teacher friends who wouldn’t call themselves political sent me messages of jubilation; Gove and his nonsensical policies were finally gone. Yet a little over 6 months later, this seeming victory has been relegated to the distant past. Although this long castigated politician may be hidden in the chief whip’s office, the policies he pursued on the Government’s behalf are in no danger of dying out.

In fact, with their latest proposals the Tories look set to bulldoze their way through our state education system; Cameron has just declared a so-called “war” on mediocrity in schools (sounds to me a lot like he’s ‘weaponising’ state education).

The policy lurking behind this trite phrasing goes as follows; state sector schools that fall under Ofsted’s classification “requires improvement” could be forced to become academies. At the moment, that amounts to roughly 3, 500 schools. Meanwhile, current academies that fall under this same Ofsted grade might be forced to accept new sponsors (I’ll come to exactly what that means later).

To add to this tide of good news for teachers, Gove’s successor, Nicky Morgan, also announced primary schools that fail to have a certain amount of year-six pupils pass times tables and writing tests would be forced to become academies, or, if they are already an academy, have their sponsorship changed. With this kind of pressure primary teachers will surely be forced to work even longer hours, as if an average of almost 60 hours a week isn’t enough.

The Tories are charging ahead with these policies despite the fact that there is no proof academies raise standards or that school ‘type’ within the state sector affects children’s ability to succeed.

But there’s more to the academy puzzle than this; academies throw up a number of different problems. Whether “converter academies” or “sponsored academies” – the schools the Tories are talking about will be classed as the latter – they are schools run by not-for-profit charitable trusts, bypassing local accountability, they receive funding directly from the state. Parents get little say within this framework and the Secretary of State for Education is essentially in charge of this whole network.

Academies also have their own admissions policies, meaning there’s a risk they can be selective about which pupils they admit. Research found that some academies were trying to select students through social events – contravening the rules which dictate that academies can’t interview parents and students as part of the selection process.

Academies can also set their own terms and conditions for staff, recently announced plans to axe 31 staff in a Gateshead school proved the dangers of this. And while most academies don’t have wildly different pay scales from the national norm, conditions can vary; the Times Educational Supplement reported that “some academies require staff to be available during the school holidays, while others put no upper limit on working hours”.

The most worrying aspect of Tory proposals, and more generally forced academisation, is that it can throw state schools’ doors open to the private sector.

Look at how these schools operate in practice. Academies are structured in a number of different ways, but the sponsorship model the Tories want to force on schools sees sponsors control the school’s finances, select the governing body and recruit the headteacher. Sponsors, much like Education Secretaries, don’t have to have any educational expertise or experience. As long as approved by the government, they can take different forms – from high-performing schools to businesses and entrepreneurs. In Lancashire, for example, the founder and CEO of Carphone Warehouse, Charles Dunstone, sponsors Fulwood Academy. In this model, the sponsor can (but doesn’t have to) channel money into the school alongside state funding or they can outsource non-teaching posts .

This is a problem because as the classic privatisation playbook reads: the more private sector money flows into schools, the less the state winds up doing. It’s surely no coincidence the Tories announced these plans at the same time as declaring they’ll ‘ring-fence’ school budgets, a term we all know when translated into practice means a real-term spending cut.

Tory academisation plans lurch could signify a step towards introducing private involvement into the state school sector. If you’re not convinced, remember the leaked documents, which showed privatisation through academisation was Gove’s ultimate aim. Or reports last year that sponors of the country’s largest academy chain were trying to stealthily start the privatisation process in 77 of its schools.

There’s no denying that the academy landscape is unbelievably complex, for some schools the academy route has clear benefits. However, in this educational labyrinth one point that is clear, forcing schools to become academies is by no means democratic and will fundamentally change the state education sector for the worse. Gove may be gone, but his damaging policies remain the centrepiece of the Tory’s education strategy.