Nicky Morgan's thread continued (MNers calling for Lucy Powell to do webchat)

[Mner]

Following on from Nicky Morgan MP's one sided "webchat" see here...

Active petitions against academisation are here:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/124702
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/124747

Guardian article is here

You can write to your MP: www.writetothem.com/

Good luck to everyone at the demonstrations today. I can't attend

Which just goes to show planetarium we need to be careful to explain exactly what we mean. I can't speak now for what is happening in those Oxfordshire schools that I knew about, but I suspect that some of the shopping around for specialist services depends on how satisfied the schools were with the existing County provision. Oxfordshire was regarded as a 'good' local authority, hence less reason to go elsewhere.

Don't forget though that a lot of money can be spent on buildings maintenance, school meals etc. so some schools would seek alternative providers for them if the costs were competitive to free money for educational/welfare services.

I'm cynical - I strongly suspect that if more specialist services are available they will not be competitively priced. But I don't know.

FYi - Anyone can respond to the consultation consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/schools-national-funding-formula which ends on the 17th April,

related to academy proposal

We are seeking views on proposals to introduce a national funding formula for schools.

The consultation sets out how we plan to deliver a fair, transparent funding system where the amount of funding children attract for their schools is based on need and is consistent across the country.

This is the first of 2 planned consultations. At this stage we are seeking views on:
• the principles that underpin the formula
• the pupil characteristics and school factors we include in the formula

We are also seeking views on the overall funding system, in particular on our proposals to:
• introduce a school-level national funding formula where the funding each pupil attracts to their school is determined nationally
• implement the formula from 2017-18, allocating funding to local authorities to distribute for the first 2 years, and then to schools directly from 2019-20
• create a central schools block for local authorities’ ongoing duties
• ensure stability for schools through the minimum funding guarantee and by providing practical help, including a restructuring fund

Peregrina, the list of specialist services AfC provides is here: fluencycontent-schoolwebsite.netdna-ssl.com/FileCluster/AchievingForChildren/Mainfolder/documents/Services-for-Schools-2016-17.pdf

I don't know how competitive they are because they don't publish the prices in the brochure.

Planetarium "The job of academy trusts is to run a successful school in line with the school's published vision and values. Anyone who the trust appoints as a governor should have the same objective."

This really sums up the problem with academies for me. The 'vision and values' are largely set by the prejudiced views of the sponsor not from any basis in evidence of what works best in education. In the academy system with no accountability to parents or the local authority these views go unchallenged. Removing parent governors will leave parents with even less of a voice.

What you may well notice as a parent when your school joins a MAT is a highly paid 'executive head' you'll never get to meet, overpaid and pointless consultants, and an obligatory and expensive silly uniform designed to promote the school that you'll be obliged to pay through the nose for from an 'official supplier'. But there's no point complaining because, just like Nicky Morgan, they won't care what you think.

And the money spent on all of that is money that isn't going on educating our children.

It was those specialist services I was referring to. The idea (not mine, the government's) is that, rightly or wrongly, they become more readily available and therefore competitive.

But they don't. When people like, for instance, local authority educational psychologists set up in private practice they discover that they can charge more privately than they earned with the local authority; they also discover that if all the local educational psychology services charge at the same rate they leave local authorities with little choice but to pay.

A number of academy school heads are discovering that the big world where they have to buy in services is a bit of a cold, unfriendly place. Where previously they could just ring the council when the pipes burst or the paths iced over, they now have to source private contractors who charge commercial rates. I know some that have had to cut back on staff because the academy trust isn't providing enough funding to cover costs.

The job of academy trusts is to run a successful school in line with the school's published vision and values. Anyone who the trust appoints as a governor should have the same objective

Quite. Yes-men only should apply.

The 'vision and values' are largely set by the prejudiced views of the sponsor not from any basis in evidence of what works best in education.

Yep, agree, there's a lot of responsibility on the decision makers - i.e. the Secretary of State and her delegates (the regional school commissioners) to get it right.

with no accountability to parents or the local authority these views go unchallenged

I disagree - those decisions will be challenged loudly by the public and by the media whenever they are remotely controversial, and the decision makers will need to decide which storms they want to ride and which ones they want to avoid. But then it would be wrong to assume that Local Authorities always made school commissioning decisions that were popular with local people. It just seems that way because most established schools were set up in the days before social media.

Removing parent governors will leave parents with even less of a voice

It was never the role of the parent governor to be a "voice" for parents. They are meant to be representative parents, not parent representatives. I much prefer the idea that parents who become governors are appointed on the basis of their skills not on the basis of their popularity in the playground.

What you may well notice as a parent when your school joins a MAT is a highly paid 'executive head' you'll never get to meet, overpaid and pointless consultants, and an obligatory and expensive silly uniform designed to promote the school that you'll be obliged to pay through the nose for from an 'official supplier'.

That doesn't sound very attractive - but it's certainly not my experience as a parent of children at a MAT school. I guess some MATs are going to be better than others, just as some LAs are/were better than others.

Yep, agree, there's a lot of responsibility on the decision makers - i.e. the Secretary of State and her delegates (the regional school commissioners) to get it right.

Yes, those would be the decision makers responsible for the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixons_Kings_Academy and for giving six school contracts to the Prospects Academies Trust. Not entirely reassuring, really.

with no accountability to parents or the local authority these views go unchallenged

Planetarium says:
I disagree - those decisions will be challenged loudly by the public and by the media whenever they are remotely controversial, and the decision makers will need to decide which storms they want to ride and which ones they want to avoid.

And yet, with this issue now of 'academisation', as has already been noted there has been virtually nothing in the press about it. Nor were the demos against it on last night's news. So the decision makers will just ignore it because the public voice has been silenced.

But then it would be wrong to assume that Local Authorities always made school commissioning decisions that were popular with local people.

Certainly true in some cases but other Local Authorities were good e.g. Hants (Tory), Oxfordshire (also now Tory, and for most of history, but with NOC periods). Their schools will be forced to covert too. It seems to be a question of 'Some LAs are poor, so let's smash the lot'.

Peregrina - I was just about to post exactly what you said!
Planetarium you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that parents challenging Academy Trusts will make any difference, or that the media will be remotely interested. They haven't reported on 1000s marching on the DfE, have they?

PTA-UK finally roused itself to post a response to the White Paper
www.pta.org.uk/blog/6901/Parents-The-education-white-paper-is-our-clarion-call-dont-let-this-opportunity-go

The article is a bit wishy-washy, however I did like this point:
"despite being the principal stakeholder in the education system, parents have not been treated as such in the past. However, the various measures from a new parent portal to being able to petition Regional Schools Commissioners or making it easier to complain make it all so adversarial, pitching 'the system' and parents against each other. Disappointingly the white paper completely misses the bigger picture. As well as knowing this intuitively, there is an overwhelming body of research that shows how important and valuable parents participating in education is to how well our children do."

you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that parents challenging Academy Trusts will make any difference

Not just parents, but others too, including teachers and the media. The academy programme does evolve in response to criticism, NAO scrutiny etc, but it's a gradual process and I don't suppose it will ever be everyone's cup of tea.

However I think many of those generating heat don't always notice when others quietly disagree with them. There are a lot of teachers and other educational professionals happily working in academies who simply don't feel the same way as you, and lots of parents who are happy with the education their children are receiving at academies. You might assume that they weren't on the march because they were too busy or it was too short notice, but it's just as likely that they think you're wrong or don't care either way. If the Gvt dons its hard hat and carries on regardless it's probably because they feel they have enough support (or apathy) for their purposes.

There are rallies in London about one thing or another every other day - the media don't report them all. The numbers have to be huge to make the headlines.

Of course some, probably many, parents are happy with academies, but it's essentially an "I'm All Right Jack" response. Should their little ones dare to develop learning difficulties or rock the boat in any way, their attitudes would almost certainly change very quickly indeed.

The numbers have to be huge to make the headlines.

I am afraid I have to disagree with you again planetarium. Some huge Peace demos have either gone completely unreported or had numbers reported as being a 20th of what they were. This is no different.

As to the number of teachers and others working in academies who don't feel the same way, we don't really know either way. Perhaps MN could organise a poll and then we could find out.

Yes Peregrina - the march to save our hospital was massive, and numbers were definitely mis-reported in the media and even when the mistake was pointed out they continued to report numbers as much lowers than they were. In fact the DoH refused to take any notice of the protests or petitions, and the only thing that made a difference was a legal challenge in the courts. However I digress....

I don't suppose it will ever be everyone's cup of tea
Cup of tea? Planetarium, are you seriously comparing children's education and school experience to a cup of tea? It's not like a bad holiday or your train being delayed, this is children's lives. Have you not read any of the posts in the last thread from parents who are having awful experiences with Academy schools and have had no-where to turn?

There are a lot of teachers and other educational professionals happily working in academies who simply don't feel the same way as you, and lots of parents who are happy with the education their children are receiving at academies.

Yes there are good Academies where parents and children are very happy (I know of some myself), but there are also awful ones and it is the lack of ability to challenge the authority of an Academy that I have a problem with. It is the lack of choice for parents when massive Academy chains take over many schools. It is the fact that an unelected board can decide the idealogy and direction of a school.

On another thread you have talked about how its all fine because lots of other charitable trust boards are unelected according to their constitution/standing orders. But a constitution should be fit for the type of charity, and I personally think that any charity that runs a school definitely should have an elected board and a membership with voting rights. Just because it is legal for an Academy school charitable trust to have an unelected board does not mean it is right. Also, Academies can't really be compared to other types of charities - they have exempt charity status (which is why it's often really difficult to find information on their annual reports for example).
When I ran a charity I understood that transparency was key, we made sure all our elections, minutes, accounts etc were managed correctly and submissions made to the Charity Commission on time.
It seems to me that Academies want the benefits of charitable status but without the scrutiny.

Not only are community schools able to shop around for services, and schools in Islington, for example certainly do, so in principle becoming an academy gives them no more freedom in this regard, in practice an academy in an MAT must deal with the suppliers specified by the Trust. Where the ultimate sponsor of the Trust is a for profit company "selling" services to the Trust schools is one of the ways, entirely legally, in which they can make money out of the connection.

and have had no-where to turn?

Where can people turn when they have awful experiences with LA run schools? Are you suggesting that just because they get to vote their local councillors in or out every 4 years their schools are more accountable? They're not. Local Authorities have a geographical monopoly on maintained schools, which is fine when they're good, but not when they're bad. In those circumstances the only way of voting is with your feet, to go private (if you can afford it), go to church (to get into another monopoly), or move to another area. With the academy model, there will be other alternatives, some good, some bad. And there will still be LA run schools in many areas because LAs can and do set up their own MATs too.

in practice an academy in an MAT must deal with the suppliers specified by the Trust. Where the ultimate sponsor of the Trust is a for profit company "selling" services to the Trust schools is one of the ways, entirely legally, in which they can make money out of the connection.

Yep, and that's a particular problem if what they're selling isn't very good, like in the case of LST. I hope bad MATs will wither, like LST has done, and be replaced by good ones, like the local partnership that is replacing LST in Richmond.

@curl

there is also the point that Academy schools are entirely paid for by the taxpayer, which is rather a different situation from a charity, established, (and endowed) say, by a wealthy donor, and which is entirely spending private money. Then a self perpetuating Board of Trustees, made up mostly of relatives of the founder can be quite appropriate. Private money and assets, privately administered.

With Academy Trusts its public money being privately administered.

Just to nail this one.

Local Authorities are NOT allowed to set up MATs.

How does a "Bad" MAT wither?

I personally think that any charity that runs a school definitely should have an elected board and a membership with voting rights

Then if you can find others who agree with you, and you have the necessary experience, you can set up a MAT structured along those line. And if that model proves to be successful, and others replicate it, the DfE's new "evidence based" approach to education should acknowledge that and encourage others to do the same.

The policy is one big experiment. Education has always been ideologically rather than evidence driven in the past, so it'll be interesting to see whether that really does change in the future - however I can see how it's easier to "experiment" with a relatively fluid Academy-based system than with an LA-based system.

With Academy Trusts its public money being privately administered

And publicly scrutinised by the Education Funding Agency and National Audit Office.

Local Authorities are NOT allowed to set up MATs

They don't have an automatic "right" to set up MATs, but they can certainly initiate one, keeping 19% of the voting rights for themselves and giving the other 81% to their friends, and apply to open a school. It's up to Nicky Morgan and her delegates to decide whether the application is accepted or not. They may of course be competing against other MATs that the Government prefers.

I do not understand a lot of what is being discussed here and unfortunately do not have the time to try and understand but I have tried to read through one article of the MNHQ proposed specialist on Academies from her web page.
So sorry for repetitions here if you find any.
Everything inside the brackets is a quote from the article and everything outside is my words.

1. There is an essential need to increase spending on schools and this should be the main target if we want to compete with the top five or ten or twenty. (According to our estimates, an additional £200 per student per year could be expected to raise achievement by around 5 points on the PISA scale.)

This is the main data we want to get from Nicky Morgan as this is how researchers seem to be measuring the effect of proposed changes. So has the academization increased the spending per student? Or the number of teachers for say per 1000 students in the converted academies since 2010?

1. Nicky Morgan seems to be using lots of rhetoric and ignoring what is realistic. (Given current relatively weak performance – and the difficulty in shifting performance – the aspirations of the education secretary, Nicky Morgan, for the UK to be within the top five countries of PISA in 2020 is most probably unattainable).

1. The relationship between economy and educational performance is direct. Hence any changes to the current system will have profound long term effects. Somebody somewhere in the department of education must have done this calculation on current changes and their effects on economy in the next, let's say, 25 years. Where is that data? (Educational performance needs to improve, not least because of its impact on economic growth, as argued by the LSE Growth Commission (Besley and Van Reenen, 2013). Hanushek (2012) suggests that 100 points on the PISA assessment is related to a two percentage point difference in annual growth rates of GDP per capita.)

So my questions are:

A. How has the academization increased the spending per student and the teacher/pupil ratio?

B. What data led Nicky Morgan to believe we could reach the top 5 in PISA by 2020?

C. If effectively the spending indeed increases per student and the ratio of teacher/pupil too, what is going to be the minimum training required for those teachers as well as what will be done to stop the current mass exodus of teachers to stop this ratio from falling?