4 ms·
this really wasn't a surprise, but it sure gives the press a different headline tomorrow than "another round of austerity" or "it's just not working". not to m
by nemof 11y ago
this really wasn't a surprise, but it sure gives the press a different headline tomorrow than "another round of austerity" or "it's just not working".
not to mention, and to my utter horror, all schools in England will be turned into academies, and in doing so pass out of public hands into private ownership. A naked landgrab. Fucking disgusting.
- taurath 11y agoAusterity? It looks like they're raising the threshold for the top tax rate, lowering the corporate tax rate, and lowering the capital gains tax rate. That sounds like neoconservative trickle-down economics with handouts to the richest to me rather than belt tightening.
- akhatri_aus 11y agoI'm a bit confused by this, who are the private owners after they're converted to academies? There are surely so many schools to do this overnight..
- alexbilbie 11y agoAcademies are self-governing non-profit charitable trusts and may receive additional support from personal or corporate sponsors, either financially or in kind
- johnzim 11y agoThey are non-profit trusts established to provide high quality education without needing to be beholden to a Local Education Authority.
- akhatri_aus 11y agoI'm not sure that's so bad. I thought 'private' made it for profit, but there are lots of Universities that are run under this type of structure. Is anything wrong with it? I don't get it, they still get government funding & don't need to get sponsors even though they can? The issue is that the assets are transferred to these trusts and they don't follow the local education authority..
- _delirium 11y agoIt removes them from local government control, which can have good or bad effects. In terms of oversight, the authority is moved from the local government (ultimately chosen by the local voting public), to the nonprofit's board of trustees (ultimately chosen by... well, usually themselves). The hoped-for good outcome is that they'll be run by competent technocrats who will do a good job while being insulated from politics. The worried-about bad outcome is that entities with no democratic oversight can end up captured by their administrators, and drift increasingly away from the needs/wants of the local population. In practice, the national government retains some kind of oversight of UK academies, in part because it controls most of their budget. So they can't completely go off into doing whatever they want. But local government no longer does. So another way of looking at it is that the move represents a centralization of educational oversight, removing oversight power from local government authorities and investing it in the national Department for Education instead. In my personal opinion that's the wrong direction; I'd rather have schools be more locally run.
- nemof 11y agothis effectively privatises our schools and means that the local education authority has no oversight - as far as i am concerned that's bloody insane. being "beholden" to local authorities means we can see how finances are being spent and have public accountability. you will not get that when there's no obligation of the provider to do so. if it were some product falling through that cracks, who the hell would care, but that's some kids future.
- nemof 11y agoprivate providers (read companies) and charities. it's already happened to thousands of schools. in 2010 there were around 200. five years 3/4 of secondary are academies, but overwhelming majority of primary schools are not.