One problem with George Osborne pretending that turning every school in England into an academy will save the next generation of children is that he looks like a naked emperor. It’s the equivalent of shouting, “Look at my massive policy” while pointing at very little. Academies are just schools, albeit operated slightly differently to other schools, but there’s nothing inherently good or bad about them. They are no more likely to save the next generation, or Osborne’s future leadership bid, than the schools we already have.
So, why the fuss? And why so much anger? On my way to work today, I heard people chatting worriedly about what it would mean. “They’re run by greedy private companies,” one said. “They kick out the bad kids and don’t take in disabled children,” a friend agreed. Numerous people have asked me if their child will now need an expensive uniform (probably not), or if local school playing fields will be eligible for a sell-off (they won’t).
These are reasonable concerns when a policy is poorly explained by politicians intent on spectacle over substance. But it’s unfair. Over 70% of secondary schools are already academies. If they were all throwing badly behaved kids out on to the streets, the country would be facing a crime spree.
This isn’t to say the academy system is all good. It has some serious problems. But working out the real issues versus the artificial ones is important.
First, let’s be clear about what the policy entails. Academies are schools run by charities known as “academy trusts”. This is a reasonably new development. In the past, local councils oversaw the performance of schools in their area. They could intervene if any had poor results, and they provided a range of services to those schools – everything from payroll to psychologists to computer systems. Over the past six years, largely due to financial incentives, schools have been moving from council oversight to be operated by trusts. Mostly it was by choice, although if results were poor they could also be forced to do so.
Osborne’s announcement this week changes things. By 2022, he wants every school to be an academy. Those that refuse will face sanctions from the government, who will be granted “radical new powers” to intervene.
I can think of one, and only one, great benefit to a model in which all schools are academies versus some being under the control of local councils. Previously, if a school was struggling, it relied on the local council for help. If the local council also wasn’t very good (and some were not), it was stuck. Schools languished too long in that situation, and that’s one reason why the Labour party first brought in the academy model: to help such schools.
Osborne’s vision is for every one to be run by a charity. In doing so, a struggling school that can’t be helped by the charity it sits within can be removed and given to another to try to turn it around. This does run the risk of creating a merry-go-round effect in which difficult schools are passed from trust to trust, but it’s better than nothing happening for the school.
The downsides are that such a big changeover, and an entirely charitably run school system, requires serious regulation and cash. As it stands, the government simply doesn’t have enough money, people, power or rules to make it work. The last time lots of schools changed to being academies the Department for Education lost control of its records, and budgets, and overpaid individual schools by over £1m. The civil servants in charge of this system, known as commissioners, make their decisions about which charity will take over each school in secret, and without any need to meet or explain their decisions to parents.
Controversially, there are no rules around pay for academy trust leaders, which is what seems to be behind the charges that the trusts are “greedy”. One chief is paid almost £400,000 a year for overseeing 37 (admittedly highly rated) schools. Leaders are also allowed to run for-profit companies that can sell goods into the schools, despite cross-party MPs recommending that this practice be stopped, and it being widely denounced across the charities sector.
For parents, academy trusts can also feel impersonal. A parent told me that when their child suffered an accident putting her in hospital for long periods, the child’s school – an academy – was not helpful. Local councillors couldn’t intervene, and having exhausted the internal complaints process in which the academy CEO backed the academy headteacher, she was told the only route of appeal left was complaining directly to the secretary of state. That’s a terrifying and alienating prospect for most people, and needs to be addressed as the system develops.
Perhaps the saddest thing about Osborne’s policy is that it doesn’t do anything to help the very real concerns in schools about the difficulty of hiring teachers and seriously squeezed budgets. Spectacle over substance: politicians fall for it every time.
