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.
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
No doubt they'll change the
No doubt they'll change the yardstick
Wow, those are impressively
Wow, those are impressively bad statistics. I bet these won't be widely publicised, however
SolFed's EWN is planning a
SolFed's EWN is planning a special issue of Education Worker on academies in the next month or two - keep yer eyes peeled!
Unsurprising news. Where can
Unsurprising news. Where can we get the stats from, I followed the link but couldn't see one to the raw data.
I'm assuming from here, DfE
I'm assuming from here, DfE posts up their new raw data as an ongoing process.
cool thanks
cool thanks
This is why the academy I
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.
I don't understand this graph
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?
the x is proportion of pupils
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
radicalgraffiti wrote: the x
radicalgraffiti
Cheers, that makes sense.
Yeah sorry shoulda made that
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.
There a new analysis of this
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.
Some good related debate,
Some good related debate, particularly onnew National Curriculum issues, on this Aussie site - http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/