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Janet Downs: A brilliant BrightBlue idea: yet another right-wing think-tank promotes for-profit schools

A Conservative think-tank proposes for-profit schools, the Independent revealed today. It’s not the first right-wing think-tank to push this line.  Policy Exchange has done it, even getting Gove's approval before the last election. So has the Adam Smith Institute. BrightBlue is just the latest. No doubt there’ll be more before the election – softening up the voters to view private sector ... read more and comment →

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Allan Beavis: James Croft admits that “Free Schools are heading for failure” but free markets and Academies are not the solution

James Croft’s new “Think Piece” for the Adam Smith Institute  doesn’t quite give up the ghost on free schools (he ends it by stating that “ministers can’t afford to let free school reforms lag: let’s hope they regain the courage of their free market convictions” – good news for the somewhat battered Cognita?) but shifts the focus towards the government’s ... read more and comment →

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Allan Beavis: The dangerous liaison between free schools and for-profit making organizations is landing on our shores

This site has recently debated the desirability of for-profit making companies in the running of schools, (state maintained or private) and litigation taken by schools against the companies running them may be the American Nightmare - but it may well have already landed on our shores. Days after the publication of James Croft’s Report for the Adam Smith Institute recommending that ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Jen: "Awkward moment when you go to this school and now you find all this hate about it......"

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Allan Beavis: Andy Burnham’s speech to NASUWT

Here is Andy Burnham's speech criticising the Coalition Government's education. The speech encapsulates many of the questions and criticisms which have been raised on this site and it is great to see that Andy Burnham took the opportunity at NASUWT to stand up for teachers and the comprehensive school system. I hope his message will reach parents, students and anyone ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Tokyo Nambu: ""Many schools who had previously been judged good and who kept the same good practice found they were judged inadequate in the next round of OFSTED because the rules were changed." Oh, how terrible that schools should be encouraged to reflect ......"

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Allan Beavis: A reply to James Croft, author of “Profit-Making Free Schools”, a report by the Adam Smith Institute

I don’t think I have misunderstood James Croft’s fundamental thesis at all, as he claims here on his blog. The problem I have with it is that the report, in recommending the government to relax their “insistence” that free schools should be run as trusts and allow for-profit organizations to open and run free schools, provides the DfE with a ... read more and comment →

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Latest comment by Janet Downs: "I discussed at length above the comparison between OFSTED judgements of for-profit schools at the lower end of the fees spectrum and those of maintained schools. What I did not do, and neither did the author of the Adam Smith ......"

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