Ed Balls Fit For Purpose? ll

Here is moaning about the poor record of Academies in achieving 5 A-C GCSE passes as though he has just 'seen the light'. Given the fact he has signed at least 67 new Academy schools into existence this year alone it's rather like shutting the door after the horse has bolted to moan about how many are under achieving.

Still politicians like their games and lets face it they know better than the people who elect them what's best for our children so let's just go with the flow. Incidentally I have now read a lot more of the 'missing' governors minutes that should be on the colleges and the three predecessor schools web sites but aren't, for whatever reason, and they certainly make interesting reading.
I'll peruse them a while longer and decide if there is any value in 'outing' the key points into the public domain given the fact the merged school is now an active entity in it's own right.

Here's the latest Balls article Link

Almost one in three academies is failing to reach the minimum government target for GCSE results, despite benefiting from millions of pounds in public funding. No surprise to most people and this statement makes a total mockery of the FEC and Cumbria County Councils assertions that the PWC reports show that Academies raise aspirations and results. Like all schools some will and some won't but lets not let fairness and truth get in the way of spin

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, suggested yesterday that time was running out for older academies to improve while setting a deadline for them to transform their results. This man is a fool as it's not just the oldest Academies that are failing.

Exam achievement has stalled or even regressed at some academies, with only a small number achieving the Government's target of 30 per cent of pupils achieving five good GCSEs, including English and maths. It was missed in this year's exam results by 40 out of 130 established academies, Mr Balls disclosed. This is terrible. It means 30% of the most expensive schools in the country which are often forced on communities are failing the to reach the Governments own minimum standard of achievement. 

Tony Blair created the academies, which are semi-independent state schools with private sponsors and freedom from local authority control. The first three opened in 2002. Most built since then have replaced failing schools in inner city areas. The programme has recently gathered pace, with 200 open to date and another 200 planned.

Schools within the programme are entitled to extra funding but are monitored closely and set deadlines for improvement. Forty of these schools are academies, of which 10 have been open for at least three years.

Where an academy is not making satisfactory progress, the department would work with sponsors to "secure whatever changes are necessary to accelerate progress", he said. This could include a change of leadership, a new partnership with a successful school or a different sponsor. Note well that there is no way that a failing Academy will revert to Local Authority control. They cannot be seen to fail. This is rank stupidity of course but the Government excels in stupidity.

Some academies have shown remarkable results, giving a new start to schools in deprived areas. As I said as with all types of school there is a mixed bag of success and failure but the level of failure in the Academies is startling given the investment in spanking new buildings.

But detractors say that this could be achieved with a change of leadership, without the need for academy status. A sound argument that falls on deaf ears otherwise known as DCSF

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "The continued assertion that the academies programme is the magic solution to educational achievement does not bear up to scrutiny and makes a mockery of Ed Balls's obsession of ploughing on with this expensive and unnecessary scheme."

A report by the Public Accounts Committee in 2007 said the average cost of setting up an academy was £27 million -- £5 million more than a normal secondary school. Some have cost as much as £35 million. Alasdair Smith, the national secretary of the Anti Academies Alliance, said: "This confirms our argument that academies are not a magic bullet to solve problems for schools. They have the same problems as community schools -- yet they are paid vast quantities of taxpayers' money and given preferential funding."

And here are a couple of pertinent comments

Calling schools academies, putting them in new buildings and insisting on school uniforms will not improve academic standards. There may be more successful A level students and applications to universities, but academic standards have been falling for many years - dumb down and improve the pass rate was (and is)the order of the day. This means that those students (the majority) who don't make the grade are uneducated.

So, by attacking the "academies", Ed Ballsup opens up an avenue into cutting the cost of education.
"They are a failure" he trumpets.
"Then shut them down" echo's Brown
QED they below in unison!

I was a bright but very lazy teenager and have regretted my total academic apathy ever since, having turned into a serial under achiever. Much as I loathe our current administration, the one thing they cannot do is make teenagers actually do any work. If the demographic for the Academy when it was just a Comprehensive was lazy apathetic teenagers, then turning into an Academy and chucking money at it will not make them work any harder or faster! I was one of them.

Asking me to concentrate on ten subjects all at once when my hormones were in the biggest maelstrom of my life and my attention span was that of a gnat with ADHD merely meant that I spent a large amount of time smoking on the playing field, reading anything but my textbooks at night and my weekends working at Asda. Merely changing the name of my school and throwing a few hundred thousand at it would not have changed my attitude in any way.

Fortunately I was bright enough to succeed anyway, which is a horribly smug thing to say, but true.