surely to God this can't be true?

[egb_hibs]

if it's not, the guardian's notoriously sloppy editing has missed an absolute whopper. if it is, gordon brown is clinically insane and nulab must stop today.

"Academies, of which 83 are now open, have proved five times more costly to build than equivalent council schools and receive an extraordinary £160,000 a year per pupil more. The National Audit Office said last autumn the taxpayer had spent a staggering £5m to teach each academy pupil that performed above the national cohort average."



Simon Jenkins: These are the teachings of wild intervention and vanity | Comment is free | The Guardian

in any case, this is damning enough of their incompetence:

"In 2000, Britain was third or fourth in subjects such as reading and science, and is down at 14th or 15th today. From sporting performance to criminality, pregnancy and drug-taking, young people are near the foot of every European league table. Despite astronomical spending on teachers, Britain comes 15th in secondary class size."

[hibs1986]

I keep hearing government figures saying that pupils' background / school demographics will not be accepted as an excuse for poor performance. My own feeling is that until government is honest enough to admit that we have (created) huge social problems that aren't going to be solved by tinkering with school management structures, then we won't be able to begin to tackle the problem of underachievment.

I don't know what we do about it: the creation of housing ghettos, and the accompanying anti-education culture of, at least, a significant minority (and I'm pretty sure a much bigger proportion than that), a youth culture of ...ahem...cool, that rejects just about everything, and.........I could bore for ever on this.

One thing I'm sure of, is that the problems won't be solved by taking the same group of kids with no belief in their futures, and renaming / orientating their school. I can only think that the people who make these decisions, and make such pronouncements have no experience of working in 'challenging' schools - because anyone who did wouldn't be comparing the work that they do with the many schools where the bulk of the families involved actually give a toss.

[Colr]

The academies were Blair idea.

The logic behind them was to create a quality environment for teaching A levels which would pool the talent from poorer quality Secondary schools where the size of upper years is often small, the resources minimal as a result and the culture rather negative towards achievement amongst the kids.

The LEAs were resistant to the idea so wouldn't play ball. Blair used sponsorships to bypass te LEAs and Council (almost all Labour Councils BTW) to create them anyway.

The idea has some merit.

[hibs1986]

Originally Posted by Colr

The academies were Blair idea.

The logic behind them was to create a quality environment for teaching A levels which would pool the talent from poorer quality Secondary schools where the size of upper years is often small, the resources minimal as a result and the culture rather negative towards achievement amongst the kids.

The LEAs were resistant to the idea so wouldn't play ball. Blair used sponsorships to bypass te LEAs and Council (almost all Labour Councils BTW) to create them anyway.

The idea has some merit.

I've got loads of questions about this, but I'm too tired to put them into coherent English. A bientot.