No such thing as a ‘free’ school
Save our schools!
Lewisham teachers striking against academisation, March 2015 (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
Cameron’s election campaign promises that the Tories will open hundreds of new ‘free schools’ in England. But when did the Tories ever give away anything free, except to their friends in big business? These schools are ‘free’ from local democracy, free from the need for qualified teachers and recognised school premises. Free schools are another step towards privatisation.
Where would public money be spent? Would money disappear into the accounts of big business sponsors? Already some free schools have closed down. Fraud charges have been filed against a free school’s founder in Yorkshire.
There is no real evidence that removing schools from local authority control – as happens with free schools and academies – improves education. Elected authorities should get the resources to plan education and build well-resourced new schools where needed, not rely on the private sector.
Labour – who introduced academies – meekly opposed Cameron’s scheme for spending £214 million on schools in areas with enough places. Socialists in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) prefer an audacious response to the threat of any school becoming an academy or free school.
On 5 March, hundreds of teachers, students and parents in Lewisham, south London, upset the City of London’s slumber. They attacked the obscure medieval Leathersellers company’s plans to turn local schools into academies.
Lunchtime protest at Prendagast school, Hilly Fields, 4.3.15, photo H Pattison (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
Several hundred teachers and support workers had struck that morning in four schools against these proposals. 300 school students had joined a protest at Hilly Fields school the day before.
Three of the schools had close links to the Leathersellers. The governors had applied for an academy order to wrest them out of Lewisham council’s control.
A large, noisy delegation of flag-waving teachers and students went from the picket lines to give the Leathersellers a piece of their mind. Marchers sang and chanted, cheered and booed before handing in a letter from parents, staff and students asking them to withdraw their backing for the academy plans.
Teachers and students plan to make the campaign bigger and louder until their message is acted upon. The City bosses will have to invest – in earplugs!
Campaigners will make academies a hot issue in the election. The Lewisham branch secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Martin Powell-Davies (prospective candidate for TUSC in Lewisham West) said members would discuss escalating to a two-day strike.
Lewisham’s teachers and anti-academy campaigners will be demanding that local councillors and MPs come out in opposition to the plans. Whether locally or nationally, an active trade union-based campaign, not afraid to raise a socialist alternative, can beat off Cameron’s plans for free schools and academies.
