Link to this page: https://secure.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/627/9731
From The Socialist newspaper, 2 June 2010
No to privatised academies
Defend public education
THE NEW government has put the whole future of comprehensive state education under threat.
Martin Powell-Davies, NUT executive (personal capacity)
Education secretary Michael Gove is rushing an Academies Bill through parliament at such a rapid speed that hundreds more schools could become privatised academies by September. And that could just be the start of a complete break-up of democratically controlled local authority schooling.
New Labour introduced academies as state-funded schools that are run outside local authority control. About 200 have been set up, handed over to religious and business sponsors who wanted to exert influence on education - and expand their commercial empires too.
Their supporters argue that creating a 'market' of competing schools will 'raise standards'. There is no real evidence that academies have improved education but clear signs that they have started to undermine comprehensive provision through being given control over their admissions and exclusions policies.
As a 'Whitehall source' told the Guardian soon after the coalition was formed, these plans are "about getting local authorities out of the picture".
They are intended to turn the creeping part-privatisation of education under Labour into a full-blown dismantling of a planned state education system. Education will be stolen from local control and handed to education profiteers to run as chains of privatised schools.
'Winners and losers'
Despite all the attempts over the years to privatise and divide through 'local management of schools', 'academies' and 'trusts' and so on, most areas still retain a locally co-ordinated system of community schools, accountable to an elected council that can plan admissions and provide central support to try and meet the needs of all pupils.
Gove's plans would create a chaotic system of competing schools. Of course that market would create 'winners and losers' - and it would be predominantly working-class and black pupils that are likely to lose out. It would become a privatised, selective system against a background of spending cuts.
Academies would seek to select the students that can produce the highest results for the cheapest input - leaving cash-starved local authorities to support those with the greatest needs.
Gove's decision to immediately invite all schools deemed 'outstanding' by Ofsted to take a fast-track to academy status shows what the government has in mind. They want to create a 'two-tier' system where local authorities are left with the schools teaching the youth who are written off by the government as having little prospect beyond low pay and unemployment.
In case encouragement was needed, Gove has said that academies' budgets will be boosted by 10% or so compared to community schools. This will be money previously paid to local authorities to provide shared services. Of course, this is no real gain for an academy if those services are still to be provided - although it might boost the profits of a private provider.
Fast track
These privatisation plans are also designed to permanently remove the threat of the national trade union action that could seriously challenge a government intent on driving through massive cuts. By dividing schools into a series of different academy employers, all able to set their own contracts, then national pay and conditions arrangements will be torn apart.
The new legislation would even outlaw the sham 'consultations' set up by New Labour that at least allowed local campaigns some limited time to oppose academy plans.
The Academies Bill proposes that school governors can just take a simple vote without any consultation with parents, staff or the community. The Department for Education website sets down a timetable that would allow schools to move from 'registering an interest,' to becoming an academy in just three months!
Teaching unions have to move quickly to make clear that we aren't going to accept these attacks. It is welcome that the general secretaries of the teaching unions NUT, Nasuwt and ATL, together with Unison, have written jointly to schools, opposing Gove's plans. But wider action drawing on the combined strength of all these unions is also vital.
- The Anti-Academies Alliance has called an emergency public rally on Thursday 24 June, 6.30pm at Methodist Central Hall, West-minster, London, SW1. Similar initiatives should be organised in other towns and cities building for a national demonstration this term to defend state education and as a preparation for national strike action.
Donate to the Socialist Party
Finance appeal
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
- The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
In The Socialist 2 June 2010:
British Airways cabin crew strike
British Airways strike: Full support for the cabin crew
Environment and socialism
Oil spill is 'worst environmental disaster' to hit US
Socialist Party news and analysis
No to privatised academies: Defend public education
Millionaire cabinet plans cuts in benefits
Interview with sacked Telegen workers
Youth Fight for Jobs: More trade unions add their support
Anti-racism
Cardiff says 'no' to the racist EDL
Housing crisis
Gateshead tenants demand decent homes
Socialist Party LGBT
Socialists campaign for Pride not profit in Birmingham
Marxist analysis: history
Margaret Thatcher: Why workers cannot forget
Scotland
Minority representation in Scotland for Westminster coalition of cuts
Socialist Party Scotland to be launched
Socialist Party workplace news
Fighting council cuts: Planning for united strikes in Kirklees
PCS conference Defend the public sector
Coventry - time for mass action
Will the councils fight the cuts?
University and Colleges Union: Congress votes to fight
International socialist news and analysis
Jamaican armed forces surround and storm poor neighbourhood
Workers' suicides: The human cost of an iPad
Home | The Socialist 2 June 2010 | Join the Socialist Party