Stories + Views
Is efficiency really the new accountability?
Talking to various politicians and parents and others in recent years about education, I have noticed a worrying shift in attitudes about school accountability. As local authorities are progressively stripped of their power and funding – with barely a squeak let alone a snarl of protest! - and more and more trusts, charities and businesses take over our schools, few seem to be asking or even caring about the bigger questions about democratic scrutiny, checks and balances, and value for money for parents and tax payer.
In fact, it seems that efficiency is the new accountability: as measured by high pass rates, and Oxbridge entrance successes. As one Labour MP said to me, ‘ Parents want results. They don’t care how that is brought about.’ Another, a teacher in a high performing academy , asked me with a genuinely puzzled frown, ‘ But why should it matter how a school is run, if the school is good?’
Add to this, the familiar comments about how some poorly performing local authorities have let their children down; never a reference to the many excellent local authorities who have done such a good job of supporting schools in their area.
No, we now seem in the grip of a new independent school philosophy; minimal transparency and accountability; maximum performance and returns for your investment.
Democracy on the other hand is increasingly presented as this rather cumbersome, messy set of relationships that do not response well to command and control and that largely involves troublesome people whose day to day concerns will only slow down the running of a well oiled machine.
No need to point out the obvious problems this attitude. But I will.
On the most fundamental level, state schools are a public service; so it follows, accountability to the public is crucial.
2. As Rob Morgan’s post about Tamworth on this site shows, the more the private sector take control, the more we see accusations of secrecy, lack of consultation and control freakery within schools. His headline said it all, ‘Community forced to take an academy.’
3. Private is not alway best in education. Local parents and representatives are the ones most likely to understand a community and the needs of a school. Not only is consultation and participation and a role in school scrutiny their right, but it also means a body of collective shared knowledge and expertise is built up and handed from parent to parent/family to family/councillor to councillor in a particular area. Take that away and you make of us all spectators of busy people in expensive suits deciding what is best for our child.
4. What happens when a school starts to falter and decline? Presumably, when a private school fails, parents take their business somewhere else. When an ‘independent state school’ fails, already cut off from the local authority and deserted possibly by a sponsor, who will step in, particularly when the community and elected representatives have been disempowered and shut out for so long?
I am all for outstanding results and outstanding teaching but in the current climate, the argument seems to be, the market is the only mechanism capable of delivering it.
A call to the LSN and affiliated bodies; we need to reinvigorate or quite possibly, revive, the very idea of democracy in relation to our schools.
Key LSN themes mentioned
Academies, Accountability, Comprehensives & Grammars, Free Schools, Government Policy, Governors, Private Schools, Stories + ViewsRelated posts
Comments, replies and queries
Reply
I’m no great supporter of academies because of the polarisation they can cause by selecting some pupils and deselecting others with the impact that has on other schools, but do parents really have more say in how a school is run if it is maintained under LEA than if it is an academy?
Yes!!! Parents, teachers and pupils in academies do not have their rights protected in the same way as similar groups in maintained schools. Parents and teachers are not required to be represented on governing bodies in the same way. Then there is the issue of their legal protection. All stakeholder ( I hate that word but can’t think of anything better) groups in maintained schools are protected by the vast body of education law in areas like admissions, pay, exclusions and SEN.
Academies are independent schools and are only subject to the terms of their funding agreements, which are essentially a negotiated compromise between the DFE and the sponsor, or in the case of new academies the trust that the governing body sets up.
It is worrying that the White Paper talks of giving academies back their original freedoms.
One welcome move by the last Education Secretary of State Ed Balls was to ensure that academies had to use a ‘ model funding agreement’ which effectively meant that they mirrored maintained schools when it came to legal requirements.
If the Coalition repeals this, the rights of parents pupils and teachers will be eroded again, in favour of power to the sponsors and distinctly non democratic governing bodies.
Moreover as Melissa points out, when independent state schools start to fail, there are very few ‘backstops’.
Autonomy may be a great tool in the hands of a brilliant ( sharp suited) head. It will be a disaster in the hands of a useless one – and some of them wear sharp suits too.
Nigel – in answer to your points – I have visited several academies and however good the results, streamlined the management etc the tone and atmosphere of these schools is very different to the community/comprehensives I have visited or to our own local school. In the one, parents are spectators and in many ways disempowered/managed consumers; in the other, parents are, to use that awful word, ‘stakeholders’, a member of a community that takes part/supports and occasionally criticises or asks questions. The fact that there are six – seven? – parent governors on our local secondary school body and just one parent on many academy governing bodies ( but often several members of the sponsor’s family or business) is a sign of the lack of accountability that these institutions can bring.
Fair play.
It probably wasn’t just me who didn’t know the extent that academies were less accountable to parents/stakeholders than maintained schools so I’m sure your explanations have been duly noted by others as well.
Yes, and I think the success of the London Challenge shows that co-operation is the best way to raise standards; therefore we need to build in mechanisms into schools that promote democratic co-operation, where everyone is accountable for what they do.
I am awaiting the outcome of a complaint to the governors of an academy. I sent the complaint on 1st September 10. Are there any protocols for time limits, and is there anyone else I can pass the complaint up to, other than Michael Gove?
Can anyone answer these questions for me?
I assume you have to the the trust/sponsor as well? If so the Secretary of State is the next stage as the local authority has no role with academies. Most schools should have a complaints policy with a staged process and time limits attached. Does this school? If you get no joy, do please write something for us about it – you could try your MP too of course?
Thanks Fiona,
The sponsor is also a school and they share governors, also both heads were involved in the problem.
Basically my Doctor told me to retire on grounds of ill-health, as my underlying diabetes and arthritis were being severely acerbated by stress at school. I sent in a 3 month sick note from my Doctor, and the heads decided that this must be misuse of the sick pay scheme and gross misconduct on my part. They then spent some 3 months piling on the stress. When they finally sought advice from their own HR people they were told they should never have started the actions in the first place. I received no apology for the insults both to my own integrity and to that of my Doctor, nor refunding of my expenses incurred in their trying to prove their case. Eventually they did refer me to occupational health-after union involvement-and I did retire with early pension in August 10. The complaint went in on 01/09/10!
If you feel that fuller details will be useful you and this website are welcome.
Thanks again
Sigi
Here is some information about making complaints in academy schools. Unfortunately it doesn’t mention staff, only parents and pupils. As you will see it is necessary to go through a remote quango called the Young People’s Learning Agency. I understand that in some parts of the country – Cornwall for example – the local YPLA office could be several hundred miles from the school. So much for localism and power to communities. The YPLA is presumably held to account by the Secretary of State, so another example of more, not less, centralisation of decision making.