Grand Alliance needed to fight forced academisation

It was fitting that it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer who announced the new government policy of forcing every local authority school to become an academy because the policy has everything to do with the seizing of public assets for private profit and very little to do with education.

On Twitter yesterday I called it a proposal with no democratic mandate to abolish democratic accountability fo schools.

It is now widely acknowledged that there is no convincing proof that acdemisation improves the quality of education, even when judged solely by narrow examination results. At the same time Ofsted has been critical of the educational failure of some academy chains and the high salaries (creamed off from schools) that their CEOs command.

It is easy to ignore the fact that the public service ethos in local government is not just limited to Labour or Lib Dem led authorities but is also shared by some Conservatives. LINK   This shared commitment could be the basis of a Grand Alliance to fight to maintain the role of local authorities in the oversight of educational provision.

The statement by the Local Government Association yesterday LINK is particularly significant and an opportunity for dialogue with an influential body that could make an impact on the Chancellor's plans.

The government often claims that parents are in favour of 'freeing' schools from local authority 'control' but there is no evidence for this. London Councils research in September 2014 indicated that parents would like to see MORE powers for local authorities to intervene in poorly performing academies and free schools LINK:

A new report has found substantial variation and confusion about these things. According to research by You Gov for London Councils, parents are most likely to look to their local authority, rather than Ofsted or the Department for Education, if they have concerns about school governance or leadership, inappropriate treatment of their child by staff, educational issues or bullying.

This finding reflects many parents’ imperfect knowledge about where responsibility lies. For example, 38% of London parents with a child in an academy school believe their local authority has the power to step in if the school is under performing, and no less than 56% of those with youngsters in free schools believe the same.

In fact, local authorities have no such formal powers, as academies and free schools are run by central government. Yet many parents clearly wish they did. You Gov found strong parental support for councils having powers to intervention across the spectrum of state schools. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was found to be highest, at 77%, among London parents with children at local authority maintained schools. However, 68% of parents with children at free schools and 63% of those with children at academies felt the same way. Even 35% of parents who’ve “gone private” would like their council to be able to step in in this way.

There was even stronger parental support for local authorities having influence over schools in their area expanding and supplying more places. At 81%, this is up by five points compared with the same time last year. London Councils thinks this particularly significant in view of its own estimate that the capital will need a further 133,000 school places, secondary and primary combined, by 2018 to accommodate its current baby boom. And it is highlighting all parts of the report suggesting parents favour local councils having more clout in education oversight and provision.

A campaign uniting education unions, governor organisations,  local authorities and parent groups could be very effective in maintaining the democratic accountability of schools, their public service ethos and saving them from privatisation.

In the short term there is the demonstration advertised above and a Twitter storm organised to coincide with Nicky Morgan's appearance on BBC 1 Question Time tonight:

Teacher ROAR ‏@TeacherROAR 1 hr1 hour ago

SPREAD THE WORD FOLKS! Twitterstorm tonight to coincide with Nicky Morgan on BBC QT. When the programme starts use the hashtag #tellNickyNO

A petition against the policy has also been launched: CLICK HERE TO GO TO PETITION

This is the wording of the petition:
 

-->

Hold a public inquiry and a referendum over turning all schools into academies 

The government has announced that every school in England will become an academy. This was not in their manifesto and is therefore a completely undemocratic move. 

There is growing evidence that academies underperform & serious questions about their financial oversight. Buildings & land are being handed over to unaccountable orgs. Once they are transferred there is no legal mechanism to get them back. Before all schools become academies we demand the government holds a full public inquiry - that takes into account educational research and the views of teachers, parents and students - followed by a referendum in order to show that they have a mandate.

  

Caroline Lucas: We need to bring our schools back under local democratic oversight, not erode democracy further through forced academisation

As teachers leave in droves as a result of  workload stress and unachievable changes in pupil targets the government has deepened the crisis its policies have caused with the decision to force all LA schools to become schools academies by 2022.

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, today slammed Government proposals to force all schools to become academies. 

She labelled the proposed changes as 'deeply undemocratic' and said that she fears that forced academisation could 'lead us down the path of privatisation of education.'

Caroline Lucas said:

Forcing schools to become academies – and leaving them unaccountable to local communities – is the wrong approach. Local authorities are needed to ensure good planning and fairness across a local area. They can provide for the efficient pooling of resources, including legal help and support services for pupils with special educational needs.

From a Government that bangs the ‘localism’ drum this attack on local authorities is particularly shameful. People in my own city, Brighton and Hove, have resolutely opposed academies. Forcing parents, teachers and pupils into accepting these changes by Government dictat is deeply undemocratic.

This is part of a sustained attack on local government.  Funding has been slashed, services have been cut and now they are seeing this outrageous attack on their vital role in local education. I fear the Government want to lead us down the path of the privatisation of education.

There's no evidence to suggest that academisation solves problems in education and there are concerns raised by Oftsed that academy chains have serious weaknesses.

You have to ask just how much of the funding for academy conversion will be paid to lawyers rather than invested in schools?   As well as continuing the fight against cuts in school budgets and the shortages of school places and teachers, we need to stand up for local education.  Properly supported and funded local authority schools can best help meet our young people's educational needs and deliver school improvement and social justice.

The Chancellor is careering forward in entirely the wrong direction and against the interests of children and communities.  We need to bring our schools back under local democratic oversight, not erode it further.

Green Party stands up for Further Education ahead of Spending Review

The Chancellor's Autumn Spending Review is predicted to include cuts in Further Education, an area of education which is already the Cinderella of the education sector suffering from poor funding and cuts in vital ESOL courses, as well as the casualisation of its teaching force.  The College of Northwest London and Harrow College do an excellent job in the face of these problems.

In a posting on Left Foot Forward today LINK , Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party said:

Unlike the chancellor, the Green Party knows the importance of further education. Colleges educate and train 2.9 million people in England, they train half of all construction, engineering and manufacturing apprentices and 71,000 16 to 18-year-olds undertake an apprenticeship through colleges.

We want George Osborne to adopt the Green Party’s policy in restoring the Education Maintenance Allowance for 16 and 17-year-olds and we would prioritise training in the skills needed to build a low-carbon economy.

Greens slam Osborne's benefits freeze

Only the Green Party are committed to transforming the economy so that it works for the common good

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s plans for a two year benefits freeze will once again penalise the most vulnerable in our society, says the Green Party, the only Westminster party committed to transforming the economy so that it works for the common good, not just the 1%.

Reacting to Osborne’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference, in which the Chancellor said a future Conservative government would freeze benefits paid to people of working age for two years, Natalie Bennett, Green Party Leader, said:

It is obvious our current economic model, as inexplicably praised by the Chancellor today, has failed. Tackling the deficit by ruthlessly targeting the poor and vulnerable is not what constitutes an economic recovery.

We should acknowledge that we are a wealthy economy that can afford to pay decent benefits to everyone who needs them, as a decent, humane society should. That must be paid for by rich individuals and multinational companies paying their way - something that this government has notably failed to enforce.

Responding to news that a future Conservative government would freeze working-age benefits and make further public spending cuts of £25bn, Molly Scott Cato MEP said: 

Public debt is greater now than when the Tories came to office, demonstrating that public spending and welfare cuts have failed spectacularly in tackling the deficit. The truth is, austerity provides an excuse to punish the poorest in society, which is not only morally indefensible, it is also a false economy. 

Policies like the bedroom tax just push more people into the private rented sector which then costs the public more in housing benefit. Likewise, the increasing levels of poverty and inequality under the Coalition government impact on health and so pile more costs onto the health service. Greens believe in positive alternatives to austerity that would tackle the misery of poverty and address inequality; policies such as a citizens income, rent controls and a massive home insulation programme.

Since the May 22 European elections, the Green Party has announced a string of progressive economic policies, which would deliver real change for the common good. 

The Green Party’s 2015 General Election manifesto will include a Wealth Tax, and plans to deliver a £10 minimum wage for all by 2020, a Living Wage for all immediately, and a People’s Constitutional Convention to deliver meaningful constitutional and electoral reform.

The latest YouGov resultsfor the Sunday Times have the Greens and Liberal Democrats both at 6% in voting intention.

Lucas: 'Weak and discredited' Chancellor condemning UK to a bleak future

The UK is being condemned to a 'bleak future' of yet more austerity and deprived of the huge benefits of the jobs-rich green economy by a 'weak and discredited' Chancellor, said Green MP Caroline Lucas today.

In the Comprehensive Spending Review announcement to the House of Commons earlier today, Chancellor George Osborne set out plans for £11.5bn more cuts to government departments for 2015-16 - as well as committing to further investment in high carbon infrastructure such as roads and shale gas.

RESPONDING TO THE CSR, CAROLINE LUCAS, MP FOR BRIGHTON PAVILION, SAID:

This government's broken austerity policies have fundamentally failed to get the UK's finances in order and improve people's lives, yet George Osborne has today chosen to condemn Britain to more of the same even beyond the next election.

With Ed Miliband now accepting the government's spending cuts for 2015-16 and supporting a cap on welfare spending too, any chance of the main parties challenging the austerity myth has been eradicated.

The failure of mainstream politicians to properly represent the British people and to hold to account the most incompetent Chancellor of modern times represents nothing short of a political crisis.

The way to address the deficit is not by further cuts to public services, including tightening the financial stranglehold on local authorities, or failing to get people into work and arbitrarily capping welfare spending regardless of need.

It is to invest in jobs - borrowing money based on record low interest rates - mount a serious crackdown on tax evasion and avoidance, and bring forward green quantitative easing to deliver investment directly into the infrastructure we urgently need for a more resilient, stable economy."

And yet again the Chancellor has rejected one of the best ways to create jobs in all areas of the UK - a programme to make all homes super energy efficient, funded by the recycling of carbon tax revenue received by the Treasury.

Research shows that such a programme would be far better for job creation than his alternatives and deliver urgently needed reductions in carbon pollution, help end fuel poverty and drive down household energy bills too.

 ON THE GREEN ECONOMY, CAROLINE LUCAS SAID:

Osborne claims that he is unwilling to 'make the children of the future pay for the mistakes of the past', yet by ignoring the warnings on climate change from the international scientific community, economists and environmentalists, he is doing exactly that.

Last night, President Obama outlined the urgent need to act on climate change and the benefits this would bring the American people in terms of manufacturing, jobs and protection from the impacts of climate change.

By committing the government to reckless spending on polluting high carbon infrastructure such as roads, airports and shale gas instead of investing in the jobs-rich green economy through, for example, renewable energy and energy efficiency, George Osborne is denying the British people those same huge benefits - and a more positive vision of the future.

Lucas: Time for 'PLAN G' after failure of austerity budgets

RESPONDING TO THE BUDGET ANNOUNCEMENT, GREEN MP CAROLINE LUCAS (BRIGHTON PAVILION) SAID:

Amidst the tax breaks for shale gas and boastful road building pledges, there is one huge green economy-shaped hole in this flailing Chancellor's Budget.

With the UK's green economy now worth over £120bn - 9% of GDP - providing nearly a million jobs and generating a third of our most recent economic growth according to the CBI, it is completely inexplicable that George Osborne keeps pretending it doesn't exist.

Given the huge potential of green industries and clean energy generation to provide British jobs and prosperity, as well as the obvious environmental benefits they will deliver, it's time to drop austerity and go for Plan G.

There's no doubt that the cuts have failed - now we need urgent investment in nationwide green infrastructure to stabilise the economy, tackle the environmental crisis and deliver clean and secure energy for the future.

TAX BREAKS FOR SHALE GAS “A COSTLY GAMBLE”

LUCAS CONTINUED: 

 This should also mean the Chancellor ditching his irrational obsession with gas. It's outrageous that the Government is willing to gift yet more tax breaks to companies drilling for hard-to-reach shale - a costly gamble that risks keeping the UK addicted to polluting fossil fuels at precisely the time we should be leaving them in the ground.

A Government which really cared about bringing energy bills under control and improving energy security would put its money on renewables - where the costs are predictable and falling - and agree to recycle carbon tax revenue into a jobs-rich energy efficiency programme, rather than deepening our dependence on gas, where prices are set to keep rising.

Going all-out for offshore wind, for example, instead would save £20bn by 2030, create 70,000 more jobs, and lead to both lower climate emissions and lower fuel bills.

And with the new nuclear facility at Hinkley announced yesterday expected to come with a £14bn price tag, this Government should urgently think again before ploughing ahead with its deeply misguided nuclear strategy. For the cost of one nuclear reactor, it's estimated that 7 million households could be lifted out of fuel poverty.

With the negotiations for a strike price for nuclear operators getting on for double the current price of electricity - to be paid by households and businesses already struggling with high bills - it's clear that the main beneficiaries of this policy will be EDF and the French state.

CORPORATIONS GET TAX CUTS AS MILLIONS STRUGGLE WITH RISING HOUSEHOLD BILLS

With the Joseph Rowntree Foundation warning that tax rises, welfare cuts, and wages freezes will push over 7 million children below the breadline in the next two years, it's scandalous that this millionaire Government is still so reluctant to make the richest in our society pay their fair share of tax.

While millions across the country struggle to pay rising household bills, the Government is cutting tax for corporations like Amazon, Starbucks and Google - when they choose to pay it at all - to 25% next month, 23% by 2014 then 20% the year after.

The General Anti Avoidance Rule announced today will not be enough to stop the tax dodgers, as the tax QCs Graham Aaronson who worked it up has admitted it will be "narrowly focused", and apply only to the "most egregious tax avoidance schemes".

If the Government was really serious about cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion, including shutting down tax havens, it would have supported my Private Members Bill requiring all companies to publish what they earn.

It would also seek a strong international agreement to force all multinationals to report their tax practices transparently. HMRC has a duty to prosecute multinational companies who do not pay their taxes in the UK and it's right that offenders are publicly named and shamed.