The government’s attempt to push ahead with its state-funded but privately run school academies programme continues despite growing evidence of their lack of educational value, and in the face of popular opposition.
On February 5, the Kilburn Times reported that school staff had voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action if a planned enforcement of nine teaching redundancies took place at the Crest Boys’ Academy... an effort by the school to plug a £1.2 million funding gap resulting from a drop in pupil numbers...
It is thought that one of the reasons for the falling rolls at the Crest Academy is the recent opening of the rival Absolute Return for Kids (ARK) Academy in nearby Wembley. ARK was set up by multimillionaire Arpad Busson, who also runs the hedge fund group EIM...
In November, the government was forced to ban the largest sponsor of academies, the United Learning Trust (ULT), from taking on new schools until it could demonstrate an improvement in the ones it already controls... The ULT is a religious charity run by the Anglican Church, chaired by the former Conservative education minister...
In December, amid increasing alarm at the basic competency levels of many academies and dubious test results, the independent think tank Civitas called for a freeze of the academies programme while an independent evaluation was carried out...
Unlike all other state-funded schools, academies are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, so that a breakdown of their results cannot be publicly obtained...
On January 31, the Sunday Times reported that two Academy head teachers were being paid £200,000 per year ($308K), and a further 11 were on £150,000 ($231K) salaries. The paper pointed out that this meant that at least two academy heads had overtaken the salary of the headmaster of Eton College....A third of academies have yet to submit accounts.
While the educational standards of the school academy model are being widely discredited, the programme has been successful in terms of its actual goal of handing over large parts of the education system to big business...
The academies are the most visible extreme of a process that is affecting the whole state schooling system. Whether directly, in the form of academy, independent, co-operative, voluntary-assisted, faith or “special” schools, or within formal local educational control, the market has come to predominate.
The socially polarising effect that the appearance of academy schools has had on already impoverished areas — by distorting local education budgets and excluding a high number of pupils — has exacerbated pressure on neighbouring schools, already struggling with staffing problems; increasing class sizes; the corporate land grab of school grounds; and the general decline in quality of education and resources....
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/acad-f24.shtmlThere's lots of money at the top of the pyramid chasing too few profitable investment opportunities.
Education is capital's next profit center, here & overseas.
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