Commenting on the Department for Education’s launch of new
application criteria for free schools, Dr Mary
Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the National Education
Union, said:
“Free schools are an inefficient, costly and undemocratic way of
creating new schools. This announcement is yet more spin for a
failed project and simply confirms what the programme has become
– a way for central government to impose its preferred school
operators on local communities.
“Far from benefiting communities, free schools often open where
they are not needed or wanted. The surplus places created by free
schools have had a negative effect on neighbouring schools, while
there is clear evidence that free school pupils are more affluent
than the average for the neighbourhoods from which they recruit.
This is to say nothing of the many failed free schools that have
either failed to open or have closed. In the latter case it is
local authorities who have to pick up the pieces.
“ has again used a discredited
statistic about 1.9 million more children being in ‘good’ or
‘outstanding’ schools since 2010. Last year the Chair of the UK
Statistics Authority wrote to the Education Secretary censuring
him for the use of this figure saying that ‘instances such as
these do not help to promote trust and confidence in official
data, and indeed risk undermining them’. (1) Clearly the
Education Secretary is not overly concerned with accuracy when it
comes to justifying his Government’s disastrous education
reforms, and anything he says about the performance of free
schools needs to be taken with a massive pinch of salt.”
ENDS
Editor’s Note:
(1) https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/20181008_Sir_David_Norgrove_letter_to_SoS_for-_Education.pdf
