03/02/3035 Press Officer Michael Pyke wrote the following letter to the Guardian: The criticisms being directed against the government's proposals to restrict the "freedoms" of academy schools might carry more weight if they were accompanied by any actual evidence that these "freedoms" have helped to raise standards but, needless to say, there is no such evidence (Education bill: Who is criticising Labour policy and what have they said? - January 30th). Indeed, there is a mountain of research findings which contradict what your report rightly terms the "apocalyptic" claims being made by the government's critics. For example, research published earlier this month by Professor Stephen Gorard at the University of Durham concludes that "academy schools are no better at raising attainment than the (Local Authority) schools they replaced" and in 2023 The Guardian, reporting on research by the Local Government Association, stated that "Council-maintained schools in England continue to outperform academies in OFSTED ratings". There are many other research projects which have come to similar conclusions, while there is no research at all to support the preposterous claim of the head teacher of Michaela School that academy "freedoms" have led to "huge gains made over the last decade and a half in helping disadvantaged children across England".
On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that academies have used their "freedoms" to employ younger and less experienced teaching staff, increasing numbers of whom are unqualified, while diverting money into the pockets of senior management. Recent research by investigative journalist Warwick Mansell has discovered that the fifty largest academy trusts, which educate the same number of pupils as the the ten largest Local Authorities, are spending almost three times more per pupil than the latter on six figure salaries for senior managers. As the Public Accounts Committee commented in 2018: “Unjustifiably high salaries use public money that could be better spent on improving children’s education and supporting frontline teaching staff.”
The government is absolutely right to rein in academy "freedoms"
Yours etc,
Michael Pyke An edited version was published by The Guardian and can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/feb/03/defend-the-childrens-bill-from-academy-lobbyists