Why academies and free schools are good news

I live in a beautiful part of the world if you do not put education into the equation. Apart from the local fee-paying school, which is brilliant as a matter of fact, there is not a lot of choice if you want excellence in education. Beautiful words, too, excellence in education, and often used by politicians. I suppose that means that pupils get an education that can help them reach their potential, and so on. The local schools score pretty mediocre and below in the league tables for GCSE, especially when you add Maths and English as requirements. But things are changing; new and not so new buzz words like Academies and free schools are being heard even out here over the drone of the combine harvesters.

Becky Francis, writing for the Guardian, is unsure what good parental choice really can do to a school that is performing badly. Even if there are good schools to choose from in the neighbourhood - and she argues that is often not the case - the only consequences of allowing pupils to not attend them, is that it is detrimental to those who stay on. I can see her point: those who choose to stay in a sinking school will be deprived of the company of those who leave ( students who want a nicer, safer environment and a better education?) and the situation might spiral downwards. I am sure she is right. Still, that is not a case to take away the choice of not going there. If no one wants to go to the badly performing school it sends a pretty strong message that people are unhappy with that school and that something must be done if it is to survive.

Academies, free schools and homeschooling are not the only roads to eternal bliss but they give freedom to the citizens to choose - either to go down that specific road or go in a different direction altogether.