Conservative education policy will destroy local accountability for schools

For anyone with children, worries about which school they will attend will often be a key issue in any discussion about their futures. We all want a good school for our child. Too often politicians' talk of 'choice', when all parents want is a high quality local school. The problem with choice is that some schools will under achieve, leaving children stuck in poor performing schools, whilst others will be oversubscribed leaving disappointed parents. We need all schools to be of a high standard, rather than have a marketplace where those that are lucky, or can afford to go private, get a good school.

The main reason private schools achieve better results than a state school is class size, which can be half the size of the latter. Rather than invest in driving down class sizes, the drive for education "reform" under Labour, which the Conservatives have eagerly taken up, is the unproved academy model which leaves private sponsors allowed to take over an existing school. Independent reports have found the academy model does no better than other schools, where leadership is good, a school can succeed, which applies to all schools. Do we really want our schools run under the academy model by organisations like Aston Villa Football Club? Local authority schools have clear responsibility lines, with specific areas of accountability to parents and local councillors, academies are independent, responsible to their trustees, not to parents or the local authority.

Conservatives now plan to convert all schools to the academy model irrespective of parent choice perhaps as a prelude to full privatisation of the education sector. They also support the grammar school model, where in Kent for example 22 schools are below government standards - creating huge pressures on parents to ensure their child pass the entry exams to get into the local grammar school. The Conservatives seen to support more central control of schools, and are insisting schools put children in classes of similar ability or "sets", so demoralising children at the bottom of the scale, and ignoring ability in specific subjects.

Liberal Democrats would give power back to local communities by returning the strategic control of all schools to local authorities, but give all schools many of the freedoms academies currently enjoy, rather than just the select few. It time to say hands off education and give control back to the teachers that know best, end national dictation of what schools should be doing, and ensure all schools provide an excellent education for our children.