Academies underperforming

New data suggests that academies are underperforming by the governments own yardsticks, regardless of context. So if they're not 'improving' education, why pursue them? Because they never were about improving education.

Submitted by Choccy on January 29, 2012

Some interesting new data on the supposed 'success' of academies.
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/01/academies-the-evidence-of-underperformance/
I haven't had a chance to go through it all, but to summarise, non-academy secondaries out perform on the measures that the government uses to gauge schools:

Academies do worse on 5 A*-C and even worse when 'alternative qualifications' like BTECs are taken out - BTECs are used by schools (both academies and non) to massage GCSE figures.

This effect remains when controlled for the standard measure of socio-economic context, the 'free school meal' stat.

There are issues with all this data, but the key take-home message, is that, even on the government's OWN terms, academies are failing. So why the push to academies, even forcing schools? Because it has clearly never been anything but an ideological move to privatise education and smash unions.

I hope to have more time to go through this during the week. I'd be interested to hear thoughts in the meantime.

Comments

Havaan

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Havaan on January 29, 2012

No doubt they'll change the yardstick

Steven.

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on January 29, 2012

Wow, those are impressively bad statistics. I bet these won't be widely publicised, however

Choccy

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Choccy on January 29, 2012

SolFed's EWN is planning a special issue of Education Worker on academies in the next month or two - keep yer eyes peeled!

jef costello

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by jef costello on January 29, 2012

Unsurprising news. Where can we get the stats from, I followed the link but couldn't see one to the raw data.

jef costello

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by jef costello on January 29, 2012

cool thanks

andrewbridges71

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by andrewbridges71 on January 30, 2012

This is why the academy I work at is going balls out on data with FSM, CLA's and other social aspects related to performance. Yet we are a "converter" academy, so the jury's still out.

no1

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by no1 on January 30, 2012

I don't understand this graph - what's on the x and y axes? Academies can't be lower than non-academies for all the datapoints - it still has to add up to 100% right?

radicalgraffiti

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by radicalgraffiti on January 30, 2012

the x is proportion of pupils on free school meals, y is the proportion achieving 5 gcses at a*-c grade, it says on the linked website, but it could do with labelling properly here

no1

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by no1 on January 30, 2012

radicalgraffiti

the x is proportion of pupils on free school meals, y is the proportion achieving 5 gcses at a*-c grade, it says on the linked website, but it could do with labelling properly here

Cheers, that makes sense.

Choccy

12 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Choccy on January 30, 2012

Yeah sorry shoulda made that clear about the image, the file name does mention FSM but it's my fault for not making that explicit.

Choccy

12 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Choccy on March 11, 2012

There a new analysis of this data here
http://educationalopinion.blogspot.com/2012/03/academy-evidence-review-part-1.html?spref=fb
Same conclusion, that academies are underperforming based on the government's own professed measures - little bit more in-depth though.

Ernestine

12 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ernestine on March 12, 2012

Some good related debate, particularly onnew National Curriculum issues, on this Aussie site - http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/