Whither the government's review of academies?

Fiona Millar on the government's review of academies | Schools comment | EducationGuardian.co.uk

The deadly silence since then implies that, like everything else about academies, the review is closed and secretive, although at some stage there will no doubt be a covert briefing, hinting that a report no one can actually read has proved that academies are a huge success.

And third, the grassroots campaigns all tell a similar story about the opaque process by which academies come into being. Key features are a lack of any clear definition of what justifies an academy, covert bludgeoning of local authorities through Building Schools for the Future, and the wholly undemocratic "preferred sponsor" route that hands schools over to sponsors without any of the public scrutiny required by the 2006 Education and Inspections Act.

Fiona Millar rightly highlights many of the most worrying aspects of academies, those that centre around who a sponsor is allowed to be, and the process through which they can take over a school.

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