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THE dogma of Tory education policy was exposed yesterday by official figures proving that failing schools are less likely to improve if they become an academy.
Data from schools inspectorate Ofsted show that schools are six times more likely to remain “inadequate” if they leave local authority control to become academies.
Some 12 per cent of academies rated “inadequate” failed to improve, compared to 2 per cent of schools run by local authorities.
The findings blow a hole in the logic of the government’s nearly complete Education and Adoption Bill, which will compel failing schools to become academies.
Prime Minister David Cameron is so committed to the concept that he vowed in his Tory conference speech to make “every school an academy, and yes — local authorities running schools a thing of the past.”
National Union of Teachers deputy leader Kevin Courtney said: “The government’s whole schools strategy is based on the dogmatic belief that conversion to academy status by definition improves standards.
“These findings show this to be nonsense.
“It is in fact the proven structural support of maintained schools which is more likely to achieve results.
“But the government’s educational vandalism is systematically undermining the role of local authorities in education, to the detriment of our children.”
Of the “inadequate” schools that remain in local authority control, 62 per cent go on to become “good” or “outstanding,” compared to 47 per cent for academies.
The single area in which sponsored academies do better is in the number of schools that go on to become “outstanding” — 6 per cent, compared to 2 per cent of maintained schools.
They are mostly part of large academy chains, but remain an exception to the rule that academies underperform compared to local authority-run schools.
Labour’s Lord Hunt, who acquired the figures through a parliamentary question, said: “There is a general assumption, in the government and the media, that becoming a sponsored academy is the only way to improve a school.
“However this data from Ofsted suggests the opposite.
“A school is far more likely to improve its Ofsted status if it remains in the maintained sector.”
