‘It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are.’
O Henry, The Octopus Marooned
The Academies programme is a swindle promoted by a government of swindlers that sets back the struggle for working class education by 70 years. The swindle is based on the lie that the private sector, businesses and corporations can provide better education for all than the public sector and make profits at the same time. The swindle is saying that the private sector will respond to the needs and wishes of all parents who want to choose a good school for their children. The swindle hides the vast sum of money that is being transferred from public finances to the private sector to enrich business corporations. The swindle is state funding diverted into the pockets of the government’s supporters, including the Church of England and business leaders, as a reward for political support.
How does the swindle work?
The swindle works by bribing schools one at a time to convert to Academy status and become ‘independent state’ schools. Schools can become Academies by opting out of Local Education Authority (LEA) control and gaining more autonomy over the admissions of pupils, teachers’ pay and the curriculum. Academies may be run by private sponsors like Harris Carpets or institutions like the Church of England, or be governed directly by the Department for Education (DfE) in Whitehall. Under Education Secretary Michael Gove’s 2010-11 programme a total of 842 LEA schools converted to Academy status in one year, in each case representing a loss of central government funds for the LEAs. The average secondary school which converted to Academy status received a funding bonus of £118,000; in some areas like Hillingdon, this was a £358,000 windfall.
The beauty and the simplicity of the swindle
Under the fundamentalist gospel of Michael Gove, the Academy programme is announced as ‘rooting out underperformance and driving up standards, so that pupils reach their academic potential’. Opponents of the Academies are damned as ‘the enemies of promise’. Who are these enemies who are so mean-hearted as to stand against improvements to education for our children, especially now that the Academies programme is being expanded to up to 200 primary schools that are judged to be ‘underperforming’? They include many of the parents, teachers and governors whose schools are threatened with a compulsory switch to Academy status and quitting the LEA. These Academy resisters believe that schools that are sponsored by religious groups, businesses or institutions like the armed forces are not what they want for their children. Further they have seen the evidence that an increasing number of Academies are ‘inadequate’ and that they have a higher than average rate of pupil exclusion.
So, for example, the private school chain, Woodward Academies Trust, which owns 19 private schools across the UK including the £26,000 a year King’s College in Taunton, Somerset, sponsors an Academy in West Sussex which has been judged as ‘failing to provide an acceptable standard of education’. Woodward, the largest group of Church of England schools in the country, joins the United Church Schools Trust – the largest sponsor of Academies – in failing an inspection of its schools. Those who are resisting conversion to Academy status are well aware of the track records of sponsors with insufficient experience of ‘working with schools in challenging areas’. This is why Downhills primary school in Haringey, north London, is one of many schools resisting a compulsory take-over by a private sponsor, as yet unnamed but to be appointed by the DfE.
The swindle spreads
The beauty of the Academies swindle is that while the government is not prepared to increase funding for the 3,127 state schools, it has a pot of money to dole out rewards and privileges to the chosen few. The real object of the swindle is to take schools away from local authority control as a precursor to privatisation. However, in attacking LEA control the swindle also undermines local education responsibilities. Those schools that grab the money first are taking funds away from all other schools in the local area. All inter-school services and extra curricular activities are being starved of funds including English language teaching, special needs support, sport centres and playing fields because of the loss of funding each time a state school opts out of local education.
School places at risk
Many of the Academies and ‘free’ schools (see FRFI 224) are not conversions but newly built with public finances from the DfE and land given from public sites. In the latest announcement, Chancellor Osborne approved a further £1.2 billion to fund additional school places over the next five years but half of this is to be set aside for ‘free’ schools and Academies. Where new schools can spring up in an area that the sponsors choose, there is a major impact on existing school roles and intake. State schools will be forced to close if their intake shrinks as the result of a new Academy or ‘free’ school suddenly appearing in the locality. LEAs are already badly damaged in their ability to plan for the future needs and provision of school places in their areas. At this time 20% of primary schools are full or over capacity and a shortfall of 65,000 primary places in London alone by 2015 is predicted. It is increasingly unclear who has the responsibility for local pupils. This issue has already arisen because of the large number of pupils excluded from Academy schools who are thrown back into a local authority system that has lost funding for them. The statutory duty to ensure that every child has a school place is under threat when public services are outsourced to the private sector and the future will be filled with legal battles as parents demand schooling.
Fighting the swindle
The state education that emerged as part of the state welfare system in 1944 was by no means equitable, but it was free, universal and asserted basic rights in childhood, including health checks, free school meals, services for children with special needs and a place in a local school. First Labour, then the ConDem government, attacked state provision as inefficient, inflexible, and over-regulated. The Anti-Academy Alliance is active throughout England demanding an end to this lie. Communities must resist their schools being hived off to private sector interests.
Susan Davidson
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 225 February/March 2012
