Welfare provision – core services

Education: who runs our schools?

Stephen J Ball, University College London [email protected]

Introduction the possibility of schools applying for academy The Coalition government announced in 2010 status was extended to those deemed ‘satisfac- that it intended to achieve change in compulsory tory’ by , if partnered by an ‘outstanding’ education by reducing and stripping out regula- school. , then Secretary of State for tion, and giving schools and head teachers more Education, said that he expected that academies autonomy. Supply-side measures were to be put would become the norm among English schools. in place to ‘set education free’ by introducing The Academies Act also authorised the creation new providers and new choices, and wresting of Free Schools. A is a type of Acad- schools from local authorities by creating many emy, a non-profit-making, independent, state- more academies, cutting excessive red tape, funded school, which is free to attend, but which scrapping unnecessary quangos, and creating a is not controlled by a Local Authority. The Free streamlined funding model where government School concept is based on similar schools found funding follows the learner and is dispensed in Sweden, Chile, New Zealand, Canada, and the directly to schools from central government: United States. In both the US and Canada they are known as charter schools. The first 24 Free ‘We will change the laws – on planning, Schools opened in autumn 2011 including five on funding, on staffing – to make it proposed by faith groups, two involving ARK easier for new schools to be created in Schools (an academy chain), and one each The your neighbourhood, so you can demand Childcare Company, King’s Science Academy, and the precise, personalised, education your Discovery New School. In December 2013 after children need . . . The money currently a series of inspections the Discovery New School wasted on red tape and management was closed. By Oct 2014,111 Free Schools were consultants instead invested in books and opened or approved; by December 4,344 acad- teachers’ (Gove, 2009). emies were open or had been approved – in addition 42 Studio schools have opened or been In all of this, the relationship between educa- approved (http://www.studioschoolstrust.org), tional quality and social deprivation was to be and there are 30 University Technical Colleges addressed by the proliferation of academies and (http://www.utcolleges.org). free schools and plans for a ‘Pupil Premium’ (a LibDem policy commitment) first suggested by The Academies programme is both imposed on American pro-marketeers Chubb and Moe (1990) ‘failing’ schools and is self-generating – ambi- – that is extra money per head where pupils tious chains and individual sponsors wanting come from ‘poorer homes’, ‘making schools to run more schools, and head teachers and work harder’ for pupils in these circumstances. governors looking for budget maximization – ‘failing schools’ are handed over to existing Recent developments chains or ‘brokered’ by DfE consultants to new sponsors. ‘Outstanding’ schools are encouraged The Academies Bill, laid before Parliament just 14 to form relationships with less well-graded days into the Coalition government and passed schools and superheads are parachuted in to in July 2010, enables secondary schools, primary ‘save’ under-performing schools. At the same and special schools classed as ‘outstanding’ to time, Local Authorities, Trades Unions and Uni- become academies without a requirement to versities are marginalized or their participation consult local authorities. In November 2010, in educational work is fundamentally reworked – although some Universities act as Academy

In Defence of Welfare 2 83 Welfare provision – core services sponsors. The Conservative, New Labour and to address and creating new ones. Both acade- Coalition governments have all been keen to mies and free schools were created as responses get new actors into service delivery in response to what was presented as the low standards of to a continuing ‘discourse of derision’ that con- performance of some state schools, especially structs public sector schooling as dysfunctional. in areas of social disadvantage. These schools, As a result the distribution of responsibility for it is argued by their sponsors (see for example the solution of educational problems is changing http://www.arkschools.org/) will bring creativity and philanthropy and business are now essen- and energy to bear upon entrenched social and tial parts of the policy process, redefining policy educational inequalities. In fact, a number of problems and constructing and enacting new Academies and Free Schools have been deemed ‘market-based’ solutions. by Inspection and performance outcomes as ‘under-performing’; some chains of academies One further intention of these reform moves, have been found to be unable to manage their both those of New Labour and the Coalition, is schools effectively; some chains and academies a whittling away of the national agreements on and free schools appear to be indulging in dubi- teachers’ pay and conditions, the introduction ous financial practices; the free schools were of fixed term contracts and performance related supposed to be targeted at areas of social dis- pay and opening up new routes of entry into advantage but recent research by Rob Higham teaching – most recently for ex-service person- (2014) indicates their distribution does not nel. Increasingly schools themselves (Teaching reflect this aim; and indeed DFE figures indicate Schools) and Teach First are taking over the that the majority of the 24 free schools that responsibility for teacher training and entry into opened in 2011 have a lower proportion of chil- teaching and some University based preparation dren eligible for free school meals than the local routes are being closed down. Teach First is a average (Guardian, 2012); 18 Academy chains social enterprise registered as a charity. It coor- are now ‘paused’ – that is concerns related to dinates an employment-based teaching training their performance and management abilities programme whereby participants achieve Qual- mean they cannot take on further schools (the ified Teacher Status through the participation in list includes AET, the largest academy chain with a two year training programme that involves the 77 schools, and E-ACT which runs 25); further- completion of a PGCE along with wider leader- more 68 academies have received pre-warning ship skills training. Its focus is on schools in areas letters and 7 warning letters from the DfE about of social disadvantage. their poor performance.

The new governing space of education in Eng- The Ofsted assessment of E-Act academies land is an incoherent, ad hoc, diverse, fragile and reported ‘overwhelming proportion of pupils … evolving network of complex relations. It con- not receiving a good education’. Inspectors vis- tains possibilities, inconsistencies and contradic- ited 16 of E-Act’s 34 academies over a two-week tions – both business and religion, localism and period – one was judged Outstanding, four were corporatism, equity and privilege. It rests on new Good, six were judged as Requires Improvement relations of regulation, competition, funding and five, including Hartsbrook E-Act Free School, and performance management. The process of were Inadequate. Hartsbrook has now been public sector ‘modernization’ or transformation closed twice and has its third sponsor. Key weak- involved here is both creative and destructive, ness in the 16 academies inspected included: a process of attrition and reinvention. Although the transformation process may sometimes 1 Poor quality teaching appear to be disjointed it has an internal logic, a set of discernible, if not necessarily planned, 2 Work not matched to pupils’ abilities facets. 3 Weak monitoring The process of transformation is both recreating the difficulties and inconsistences it was meant 4 Poor use of assessment data

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5 Insufficiently challenging lessons for more emies and free schools are underperforming able pupils. compared with their LA counterparts, but that many recruit a more socially advantaged intake Inspectors also discovered E-Act had deducted a than their LA counterparts. In all of this there is a proportion of pupil premium funding from each lack of oversight and transparency. The response academy until 1 September 2013. Ofsted was to these problems by the previous Secretary unclear how the deducted funding was being of State, Michael Gove was to reinvent a geo- used to help disadvantaged pupils. graphic system of school ‘authorities’ – Regional Commissioners (all appointed by him) and Of the 41 that have had judgments published Regional Boards, elected by school head teach- as of April 2014 four free schools have been ers. The majority of those elected to the Boards rated ‘inadequate’ by the inspectorate – this is are school head teachers. The new Schools 9.7% compared with the national average for all Commissioners are now formally charged with schools of 3%. Overall, 79% of state schools are both managing and growing the Academy sec- rated good or outstanding compared with only tor. Local democratic oversight has been almost 68% of free schools (watchsted.com 2014). totally displaced. Our relationship to schools is being modelled on that of the privatised utilities In December 2014 the Chief Inspector of Schools, – we are individual customers who can switch Sir Michael Wilshaw, a one-time academy super- provider if we are unhappy, in theory, and com- head, stated in his annual report that struggling plain to the national watchdog if we feel badly schools are ‘no better off’ under academy con- served – but with no direct, local participation or trol and said there could be little difference in involvement. school improvement under an academy chain or a council. Imagining the position of a head Putting all of these policy moves together, we teacher of a newly converted academy, he said: are moving back towards a pre-universal 19th ‘In fact, the neglect you suffered at the hands of century ‘system’ of education that is messy, your old local authority is indistinguishable from patchy and diverse, involving a variety of pro- the neglect you endure from your new trust’ viders – voluntary, philanthropic, faith, self-help (, 10 December 2014). (parents), trusts of various kinds and, on a small scale so far, private; although at this point in Finally, a report for the House of Commons time, public sector providers remain as the main Select Committee on conflicts of interest in providers. academy trusts (Greany and Scott, 2014) iden- tified a number of dubious practices and inap- So what should the incoming government do? propriate financial arrangements and concluded ‘that the checks and balances on academy trusts  Establish a framework for an ethical audit of in relation to conflicts of interest are still too educational providers. weak. In the course of the research we came across a significant number of real or potential  Require much greater accountability and conflicts of interest that we found concerning’ transparency from providers – including the (p. 3). There have been a number of high profile Inspection of academy chains. examples of financial malpractice.  Consider ways in which outsourced services Conclusion might be brought back ‘in-house’ – as inspec- tions are to be – and/or replace for-profit pro- As noted already Academies and Free schools viders with mutuals. are specifically intended to break the local authority monopoly of school provision, indeed  Commission and publish a systematic review to residualise LAs. However, evidence indicates of evidence on the relations between profit, that many academy trusts are unable to man- performance and equity. age their schools effectively, that many acad-

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References

Chubb, J. and Moe, T. (1990) Politics, markets and America’s schools. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution. Gove, M. (2009) Speech to The Conservative Party Conference: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/07_10_09govespeech. pdf. Greany, T. and Scott, J. (2014) Conflicts of interest in academy sponsorship arrangements: A report for the Education Select Committee, London Centre for Leadership in Learning, Institute of Education, University of London. Guardian, (2012) http://www.theguardian. com/education/2012/apr/23/free-schools- deprived-pupils-average. Guardian, (2014) http://www.theguardian.com/ education/2014/dec/10/ofsted-sir-michael- wilshaw-struggling-schools-academy- neglect. Higham, R. (2014) ‘Free schools in the Big Society: the motivations, aims and demography of free school proposers’, Journal of Education Policy, 29, 1, 122-39 . Watchsted.com (2014) http://www. theguardian.com/education/2014/apr/29/ free-schools-ofsted-failure-rate-higher-state.

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