Why is the government afraid to let communities decide who should run
local schools?
Academy sponsors are being handpicked before parents and teachers get a
chance to consider the options, says Fiona Millar
The Camden judicial review was based on a simple and important question:
How do we choose the people who run our schools?
Parents in Camden simply wanted an open competition, so that they would
have the chance to make their views heard about who should run a new
secondary school in the borough.
Today's ruling has upheld one of the most objectionable aspects of the
whole academy programme: that the government can hand over schools in
perpetuity to sponsors – whether they are carpet salesmen, creationists
or hedge-fund millionaires – without any public scrutiny.
The 2006 education act made it compulsory for all new schools to be
established via a competition in which bidders could parade their plans.
But once the government realised what this might mean – in particular,
that the local community might prefer not to have a school which is
independent, governed at a distance by remote, unaccountable people with
dodgy political and religious views and not bound by the same legal
framework that protects parents and pupils in maintained schools – a new
process was established for choosing academy sponsors.
They are now allowed to slip secretively down something called the
"preferred sponsor" route.
As the judge himself pointed out, this procedure involves no requirement
that local authorities, sponsors or the secretary of state carry out any
form of public consultation.
It may be legal, but it is also unworthy of a government which spouts
meaningless rhetoric about localism, community empowerment and
reinvigorating local democracy.
The backroom deals and the covert funding agreements that control how
academies are run will no doubt continue, but the parents won't go away.
A parent- and teacher-led campaign in Derbyshire recently stopped an
academy proposal in its tracks.
Campaigns are in evidence all over the country, as parents become more
familiar with what "academisation" really means when it comes to
admissions, special needs, exclusions and parent representation on
governing bodies.
How much simpler, and more politically astute, it would have been simply
to oblige academy sponsors to enter a competition and give parents a
voice from the start.
Http://www.guardian
camden-review
Monday, 16 February 2009
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