How a Minister Can Micromanage Every School in the Land

I have learned how the UK is as centralised as any third-world country
around the government barracks in the capital city.
That's what the UK government is like, in London.
They devolve power to communities only to grab it back when
nobody's looking.

So, Councils have the run of education, or had, until recent
governments have sought to micro manage every school.
If you have a failing school, London steps in, closes and wrecks
your school so that you can't go back, no matter what. They
get their rich buddies to build a gleaming new school, filling
it with low paid instructors, following a syllabus that
the businessmen create. No pedagogical wizards, here. Businessmen.
And London is happy because their buddies will be chummy
with the Central government. All's well, right?
WRONG
Apparently these 'Academies', much like Police Academy,
are producing worse results than the other types of schools,
on average.

IshitUnot:
School head resigns amid academy row with Michael Gove
Leslie Church steps down as head of Downhill's school, which lawyers say is being illegally forced into becoming an academy
Jessica Shepherd, education correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 10 February 2012 19.03 GMT
The headteacher of a primary school embroiled in a row with education secretary Michael Gove over academy status has resigned.
Inspectors who visited Downhills primary school in Tottenham, north London, last week are said to have placed the school in special measures, their worst rating. In January 2010, inspectors judged the school to be doing less well than expected and gave it a "notice to improve".
Ministers had given the school a deadline of mid-January to commit to becoming an academy and finding a private sponsor. Academies are accountable to central government rather than their local authority. Becoming an academy would mean the school's governing body would have to be replaced. But lawyers representing the governing body accused the education secretary of illegally trying to enforce academy status.
The local community has mounted a campaign to save Downhills and argue that its results are improving. Gove, who has described the campaigners as "Trots" to MPs on the cross-party education select committee, ordered the most recent inspection so that there was an up-to-date verdict. Inspectors are said to have described the school as "underperforming"....

Kids' education is a war zone

between the London Controllers of Everything, and local councils.

I can't tell whether a local council is the right body to decide school
policy, but the UK government butting in to close schools
and open new academies is wrong for all the well-known reasons
that nobody seems to be discussing.
1 they equate troubled schools with old buildings and local council control
2 they open new academies which can teach whatever they want to kids,
which is simply irresponsible. That's more so because many of the academy
owners are buddies of the political classes
3 the academy owners are given way too much public money to build a
school which is not needed, and then they charge the government rent
and upkeep.
4 staff are fired at a whim and replaced with people on lower wages.
5 they're probably at the leading edge of allowing untrained classroom
assistants to teach classes.
6 the latest Toff in the hotseat is Michael Gove. Try to remember that
name in 5 years' time.
7 Academies are now the thin edge of the wedge, since Free schools are
also being readied for approval.

If this stuff is new to you, you may be thinking
"WTF is the UK government doing?"
Perhaps the answer is "social engineering", designed to keep the poor
poor and stupid and their buddies rich and lazy.

IshitUnot:
soon
a Guardian story which will show that the shiny new academies
are doing worse, on average, than normal schools.