Parents 'voting with their feet' on academies

Tuesday, 27 September 2005 12:00 AM

The success of city academies lies in their ability to attract back parents who have deserted failing local schools, a member of the government's education team said today.

Martin Salter, MP for Reading West and parliamentary private secretary to education minister Jacqui Smith, admitted that it was too early to see any definitive evidence of the success of the new secondary schools.

But addressing a hostile fringe meeting at the Labour party conference in Brighton, he said the clearest indication of success was that parents were voting with their feet to support them.

The case against academies was put by Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union Teachers (NUT) and a vocal opponent of the government's flagship scheme.

While the NUT backed many of the government's education initiatives, he said it "defies belief" that such schemes should be introduced alongside one that takes a school out of control of the local authority.

Private sponsors providing £2 million of the funding were allowed to appoint the majority of board members - a major move away from local accountability, he argued.

And Mr Sinnott noted that academy teachers are not subject to regulation by the General Teaching Council (GTC) as in other state schools, while there was a tendency towards selection in admissions to try to ensure the academies had good results.

He said it was understandable that parents backed academies - of which Tony Blair has pledged to create 200 by the end of the decade - and that local authorities welcomed the £25 million investment the academy scheme brings.

But he said that it was "wicked" that local authorities seeking new schools, new investment and new buildings were forced to accept an academy as the only option.

However, while Mr Salter accepted there were questions about local accountability and promised to look at the issue of why teachers were not regulated by the GTC, he insisted academies were encouraging parents to return to their local schools.

Institutions that once taught only the most disadvantaged pupils were becoming more socially mixed, he said, as aspirational families were being persuaded to return. And this was adding to the comprehensive agenda, of giving all parents a good local school.

"We want a state school that parents want to send their children to. There's no point having the most accountable state school in the world if parents are avoiding it," he said.

He added: "Let's not say that the academy project is not delivering, because the evidence on the ground shows that it is. And that is why Labour is fighting to embrace the academy project."

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