Labour U-Turn on Free Schools and Welfare

Corruption matters.

Yes, POGS, it does matter. I do not agree with the whole Academy and free school system, whoever set it up. The Academy system was started by the Tories, then continued by New Labour. It's a way of taking power away from local authorities.
Everybody in education and the health service should be seen to be free of undue influence in the system.
If Lord Nash wanted to put his money into education, he could have an endowment in a private school. His wife actually gets to sort out the history curriculum in the school. That cannot be right. Actually, I do not believe in private schools either but that's another story.

Academies are more worrying now because they have more money than state schools, from central government, so their pupils are given an advantage. In fact there are private schools that are turning into Academies because the parents do not have to pay fees, so they can give the school more money for extras that ordinary school parents cannot.

Jendurham

O.K. You don't like Academies. You do not agree with free schools. You don't agree with private schools. You probably don't like grammar schools. Am I wrong in my assessment that you would only allow state schools. ??

To be honest I did not know, as you state, the Academy system was started under the Tory's. I have always thought it was a proud boast by Labour, Lord Adonis and Tony Blair, Balls, etc. etc. At least that's what I have seen and heard.

As for 'Everybody in education and the health service should be seen to be free of undue influence in the system', I simply do not get it. There will always be an influence, by whom ever is running the show. As you said in your first sentence 'taking the 'power' away from councils. That is asserting influence surely.

I thought the private schools were becoming Free Schools , not academies jen . There is not a route for them to become academies. In the first round of a few dozen free schools there were several prep schools which I presume were struggling financially...

The original academies, that had fancy new buildings, sometimes partly funded outside the state sector, was an Adonis idea, to accelerate the improvement of failing secondary schools and their awful buildings (allowed to decay under the previous Tory administrations)
SInce then there have been several versions of "academy" with different rules. The situation we are in now is that some secondaries are forced to become academies with a "sponsor" ie a substitute for the LA , usually an educational trust. In these examples the extra money gets used to run the sponsors offices etc. Other secondaries can elect to become academies in their own right, with their own governing bodies in total control and only answerable to OFSTED. They get to keep the extra money.
Thus we have a lot of academies, some self governed, some not, some with new buildings and some not. What they have in common is that the LA is not in control of them.

uk.search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A7x9QXvrHl1SDEMA7TFLBQx.;_ylu=X3oDMTE0dTZndWowBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMgRjb2xvA2lyZAR2dGlkA1VLQzAwMl83Mg--/SIG=14gt1bg4o/EXP=1381863275/**http%3a//www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4405028/Ailing-private-schools-to-become-state-academies-in-bail-out.html

Sorry, I was wrong about who set up academies. I was getting mixed up between that and PFI.

However I was not wrong about private schools becoming academies as the above link shows.
Yes, POGS, I believe in comprehensive education. It would work if anyone let it. Unfortunately private schools becoming academies is not the right way, as it means that they still end up with a non-comprehensive intake.

Oh right. Why not a free school I wonder? Or are they just confused.

Whatever happened to the grant maintained schools - a precursor of academies? As a local politician, I campaigned locally against these, successfully, as parent bodies were very satisfied with our provisions. When some of the Lib Dem hierarchy seemed to be leaning towards supporting them, Conference held them back by voting overwhelmingly in favour of keeping schools under local democratic control. So you can imagine how furious I am that the Coalition (or perhaps Gove and Law) are going full steam ahead to make LEAs a thing of the past. So furious that I no longer call myself a Lib Dem.

I share your anger annodomini. I feel our LA's have been much maligned, yet they provided a real framework for so many positives in schools. Safeguarding being a key. Our local training department offered excellent training to everyone working with children, who may come across safeguarding issues. The training helped, but so did the way in which positive working relationships formed as a result of training, and sharing experiences together.

academies are pretty much the same idea as grant maintained. It is all becoming a bit of a free for all and there will be tears before bedtime.
in order to hack it as an independent academy you need a very good leadership team and GB.
In order to hack it as a sponsored academy you need a good sponsor that is going to support in the way and LA did. When I was shopping around (with my arm behind my back) for a sponsor, they were not a very preposessing bunch in the main.
In order to hack it as a free school you need lots and lots of things and I suspect many are going to crash and burn when they have their first OFSTED. Should be an interesting year next year as OFSTED work their way through last year's big batch.