Forcing schools to become Academies

And then this....
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/mar/05/hugh-muir-diary-gove-west-durham
How does Gove get away with it?

I agree with everything that people have written. I am appalled by the lack of opposition from Labour and particularly from Stephen Twigg. Not much we can do, but I have signed the Roke Park petition. (The link is in the comment under the Monbiot article.)

This is one of the betrayals that have made me leave the party I helped to found. Many years ago, a Liberal Democrat conference, by a huge majority, rejected the policy of grant maintained schools. I have good reason to remember this because I made a speech. In my LEA only two schools held ballots and both parent bodies voted against GM status. This is so much worse. Local democracy and parent democracy are trampled underfoot and what are Gove's coalition partners doing to mitigate the worst effects? As far as I can see, absolutely nothing. And how loudly is Labour shouting? At least their so-called Academies were an attempt - sometimes successful - to turn around failing schools, but Gove's is a perversion of this concept.

Trouble is, re London Challenge etc, is they do not want to give credit for stuff they did not initiate?

I couldn't agree more! Even the word "Academy" gives a cachet that is completely undeserved. Government is shedding responsibility for education, while claiming to improve it.

Slogan from the eighties - "Our children, our future."

It is deeply corrupt as well as being based on a load of unsupported ideas about how and why schools succeed. No evidence that handing schools over to, for example, a firm dealing in floor-coverings (Harris) results in improvement but there is irrefutable evidence that Harris is a significant donor to the Conservative party. The Labour Party can't mount anything like a sensible opposition because they started this road to privatisation. It is also corrupt because it appears that the effect of the new Ofsted criteria for school assessment are (surprise!) resulting in schools found to be good a couple of years ago or even less are now being found in need of improvement. It's corrupt because the only means of improvement is by going down the academy route. It is corrupt because millions of pounds of public money and community assets are being handed over to private industry without meaningful consultation and on the say-so of one man, Michael Gove. He can take action in the case of a failing school so the schools that don't go voluntarily have to be found to fail. Yes, Mamie it is absolutely dreadful and at last people are begining to realise. Write to your MP!

I think the other thing that I find infuriating is the misuse of data by Gove and co that is allowed to go unchallenged. The misuse of international comparisons to raise alarm and despondency is one example, plus the fact that the international comparisons that show that UK schools are right up tables in many areas are completely ignored. Where is the data that shows that Academies raise standards any more / faster than good state schools? All I see are assertions without evidence. The London Challenge has done a fantastic job in raising standards in some very challenging schools, but gets barely a mention in the press despite the fact that they have robust evidence to share.
I do hope that people read the comments from the people at Roke Park school which are under the article. Surely people cannot believe that what has happened there is right?
BTW GNHQ have I just not found the forum for education / schools on Gransnet? Surely there is one?

You are quite right to be. The whole thing is a kind of privatisation of the management of schools - local education authorities are already dramatically cut and will be tiny very soon. If they were to be replaced by brilliant charities with wonderful track records in school improvement it might not be so bad. But such is the pace of the change that these do not exist. When my (steadily improving) school (i was governor) had its arm put up behind its back 18 months ago (a form of compulsion in which we were at least allowed to choose our own "sponsor" because we were only a whisker away from the latest floor standards) we had the opportunity to shop around. This included a meeting in a london hotel which, it turned out, was with a man who was planning to set up as a sponsor, having recently parted company with another one. There was a very, very limited choice. We did find a good one, but of course now they are swamped with new schools - a huge growth in a year - so it will inevitably mean that they won't do a lot of school improvement this year.
Another local secondary academy has struggled along for several years (despite their new building which the Labour academies had) with no improvement in results.
The ones that will do OK are the high performing schools - "academies" which don't have sponsors - they are self managed by the governors - but it they do have problems the only place they have to go for support will be other schools.
I would happily put a large bet on there being many .
Forcing primaries to become academies is laughable.
Much of this will end in tears - there will inevitably be casualties and children will suffer.

Sadly, neither publicity nor discussion seems to be having much effect in changing direction with NHS "reform" and, sadly, it is unlikely that it would with Gove's drive to privatise education. Both the National Health Service and the education system are in dire straits and set to become cash cows for the already rich. I despair as I cannot see how this can be changed within the available time frame, i.e. before the changes are irreversible, when the public is already feeling downtrodden and voiceless.