Morning Star.png All Schools to be "Academies" In England, full privatisation of schools is on the way Will Stone, The Morning Star, London, 16 March 2016 Schools in England will all become academies under plans set to be announced in the Budget today. Draft legislation is expected to be published within days of the announcement, sources told the Guardian newspaper yesterday. It is understood that the government is keen to get the ball rolling before the EU referendum. But teaching unions said the government was ignoring widespread evidence that academies, which remove schools from local democratic control, fail pupils. "The government's ultimate agenda is the privatisation of education with schools run for profit," said National Union of Teachers deputy leader Kevin Courtney. "Parents will be as outraged as teachers that the government can undo over 50 years of comprehensive public education at a stroke." Last week Ofsted [Office for Standards in Education] chief inspector of schools Sir Michael Wilshaw warned of the serious consequences to children's education when schools are run by multi-academy trusts. But Mr Courtney expressed outrage that "this arrogant government" had chosen to ignore such warnings from Mr Wilshaw, the Commons education committee and the Sutton Trust charity. He said the groups' findings "clearly demonstrate that academy status not only does not result in higher attainment but that many chains are badly failing their pupils, particularly their disadvantaged pupils." Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) general secretary Dr Mary Bousted called the plans "an ideological step too far" and in the interests of neither children nor parents. "There's no democracy in forcing the majority of primary schools, which have chosen to remain working with local authorities, to become academies against their will," she said. "As it is, the Department for Education is already unable to control its academies and free schools budget, with costs rising without any improvement in education standards." From: <http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-f9a9-All-English-schools-to-be-academi es#.VujSu-J9600> http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-f9a9-All-English-schools-to-be-academie s#.VujSu-J9600 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
