To be seriously worried about Gove wanting Academies to be profit making

[lostinpants]

Article from Guardian....

*Michael Gove open-minded over state schools being run for profit

Education secretary hints at Leveson inquiry that policy would be allowable in second term of Tory-led government

The education secretary has given his clearest indication yet that a future Conservative government would let state schools be run for profit.

Giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry into phone hacking, Michael Gove was asked whether he hoped free schools would be able to make profits in a Tory second term.*

All the Academy chains must be just itching to get their hands on more schools now. Is this what we want? AIBU to think that school should NOT be profit making?

Private schools are not obliged to be charities (as far as I know).

They could be run for profit.

Thing is they don't want to be. Because that is fundamentally not what education is about.

The idea Makes me feel sick.

Regarding using unqualified teachers....

Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said:

"It is well known that in Sweden one of the major ways in which schools make profits is by employing non-qualified staff to do the jobs of teachers. Michael Gove has already made it within the law that free schools are not required to employ qualified teachers.

The real scandal is the amount of money the government is pumping into Academies on a per pupil basis.

And running schools for profit sets up a bunch of non eucational objectives and thus behaviours that have no place in a schooling system.

Swedish schools also save money by running teacherless lessons- basically leaving the children unsupervised to work or not work as the case might be. Perhaps that's another one that Gove would like to introduce?

I can't see these sponsers turning their back on a healthy profit. would they really plough it back into the education of our children if they did?

antiacademies.org.uk/2012/03/harris-federation-spotlight-on-sponsors/

Well thank heaven for the Guardian's balanced and unbiased reporting on the issue.

He doesn't say he's in favour of it. He says he's open minded about it.

Not that I understand what the Leveson Enquiry is doing quizzing him about such things. It seems to increasingly be a Guardian/Labour witch-hunt.