The recent announcement by the new Conservative education secretary, Michael Gove, that all schools will have the opportunity to become academies, along with his invitation to the heads of 'outstanding' comprehensives to enter a fast track conversion process, represents a worrying turn towards the privatisation of British schooling. Under the academy model, the school governing body remains not-for-profit, but all the services, from teaching to cleaning, can be run by private companies. Gove insisted that all the groups his department were considering to run academies were not-for-profit, yet this is clearly not the case. The new legislation dispenses with the rights of teachers and parents to oppose plans to turn schools into academies. Only the education secretary and school governors, who are sometimes not even elected, will be able to stop the process. Teaching unions are opposed to the plans and lawyers are suggesting a legal challenge to these undemocratic proposals.

Although Gove claims that the aim of such legislation is to 'increase freedom', giving back control to teachers and parents, there is little in the Academies Bill to ensure that this will actually happen. As Fiona Millar, an education journalist for The Guardian, has pointed out, nothing in the legislation ensures the involvement of parents, staff or pupils. School governing boards are only required to have one parent member. The bill instead sets out the conditions under which authority will be given to managers, business entrepreneurs and corporations, whose interest will first and foremost be to maximise profits, rather than ensure decent and equal education, broad curricula, and secure, fairly paid jobs for teaching and support staff. The bill is much in keeping with the Tories idea of 'the big society', a vapid neologism designed to repackage a familiar policy of privatisation and stripping back the welfare state. Such 'freedoms' are little more than a euphemism for consumer choice, forcing people to fend for themselves and encouraging corporate takeover of public services.

It is obvious that there will be benefits for businesses arising from an increase in the number of academies. Gove has been quite candid about the commercial aspect of the project, stating boldly “I am a conservative and have no ideological objection to business being involved”. Dan Moynihan, of Harris academies, suggests that academy schools give headteachers “the scope and incentive to run their schools even more entrepreneurially for the benefit of children and their communities”, yet it is difficult to see how academies might actually benefit anyone other than the business community and academic managers. Previous studies have shown that academies are not outperforming comprehensives, despite such claims and in Sweden where the 'free school' model originated, it has led to a massive downturn in educational standards. The Swedish Education Minister, Bertil Ostberg, recently condemned the project and warned Britain against introducing more academies, citing falling standards, economic divisions and profit making by free school administrators.

A large part of the appeal of academies plays on the myth that education is currently hindered by meddling bureaucrats and politicians, who should be bypassed in order to loosen the fetters on teaching practice. In reality, the Local Education Authorities (LEA's) whose funding will be cut provide essential support services and ensure equality standards are adhered to. With the academies model, these services would have to be bought from private companies. If other examples of PFI projects are anything to go by, the results could be disastrous with rising prices and sub-par services. Furthermore, as the highest performing schools are given budget autonomy, money will be syphoned away from LEA's, leaving them unable to deliver proper support to the schools most in need.

There are also serious concerns over the possibilities for academies to set staff pay and conditions as they see fit. This is likely to create a situation akin to universities, where jobs and wages of teaching and support staff are being slashed despite astronomical salaries paid to management.
With public spending cuts on the horizon, splitting up the schooling system into individual units will make it much harder for staff to organise and negotiate on a large scale. The “incentives for schools to compete and consequences if they lost.” of which Gove boasts will only exacerbate the disparity between wealthy high performing institutions and under-resourced struggling schools. Those outstanding schools will have greater funds to attract the best teachers, leaving under-performing schools short of the excellent teachers needed to improve in a football-transfer like scenario. In the long run, this rewards system will divert resources away from those most in need. These incentives and consequences will also invariably be carried onto individual teaching staff, piling pressure onto teachers to achieve measurable results rather than deliver responsive, appropriate teaching.

A further worrying effect of the performance rewards system is the status of 'difficult' pupils who may come to be seen as a hindrance to the 'productivity' of academies striving to show improvements. At Trinity academy, sponsored by the evangelical Christian Peter Vardy, 148 children were suspended in its first six months. This pattern is consistent across academies, with as much as ten times more exclusions from academies than LEA-run schools. The government revealed plans last year to privatise the 'pupil referral unit's' where excluded children are sent, creating an incentive for exclusions and possibly a market in pupil discipline. Parents at Trinity suggested that many expulsions pursued a wider ultra-religious agenda, with all the children being issued with bibles and the teaching of creationism. The Harris federation, which currently runs nine schools in south London, with plans to double that number in the near future, is sponsored by Lord Harris of Peckham. He is a carpet millionaire and donor to the Conservative party who has been a vocal opponent of gay rights in the House of Lords. Do we want such people to determine the education our children will receive?

Academies open the door for wealthy individuals and corporations to pursue dual agendas of ideology and profit, enforced through curricular and disciplinary measures, whilst at the same time reducing the rights of staff, largely paid for by the government. As the Anti Academies Alliance claim, “The sponsor gains almost absolute power once a school acquires academy status. They take control of public assets - the buildings and the land.” Thus what is being touted as the streamlining of inefficient bureaucracy are quite simply cuts to public service and a transfer of wealth to the private sector. The academy model, like most PFI projects, and indeed the recent bailout of the banks, is about socialising risk and privatising profits. It seems the new Conservative government is picking up much where the last left off:

“We are in a period of considerable social change. There will be unrest, but we can cope with the Toxteths…but if we have a highly educated and idle population we may possibly anticipate more serious conflict. People must be educated once more to know their place” (Department of Education official in a leaked secret report, 1983)

Links:

For background on academies see: www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=2388
www.antiacademies.org.uk
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/may/26/most-schools-to-become-academies
www.nut.org.uk/files/FAQ-on-new-Academies-Bill.doc
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/31/michael-gove-academy-schools-profit
www.commoner.org.uk/07robinson&tormey.pdf;