Jeremy Corbyn has expressed his beliefs on free schools and academies as being 'unaccountable' during his bid to become the Labour leader. There had been suggestions that he could return them all under the control of local authorities.
Following the series of backtracking announcements within his first two weeks as the Labour leader, he is no longer looking to take over the schools.
Shadow education secretary, Lucy Powell, commented on the intentions of the Labour government to instead allow local education authorities to 'intervene' when necessary. BBC Radio 4's Today programme asked Lucy if she had the intentions of bringing back free schools and academies under local authority control, she responded: "No, what I've said is that by 2020 nearly every secondary school and most primary schools will be a free school or an academy. I think the idea that the Secretary of State herself can manage and oversee and support all those schools directly is wrong-headed.
"We should have local oversight on those schools. It's not the same as how we used to have local government control. We will work through the exact detail of that. But, look, if you take things like supporting local schools, collaborating amongst communities of schools, place planning, which is a really critical issues that at the moment no one has an oversight of, which is why we have such chronic shortage of places.
"We need to have the ability for local authority and others to intervene in some failing academies as well, not just what we've seen under this government which has been a real focus on failure in maintaining schools.
"In a world where policy is being devolved back to communities, I live in Manchester and part of the devo-Manc agenda where we've got a real opportunity to tackle the root causes of low attainment in our community, to have schools outside of that remit is absolutely wrong-headed, so local oversight is where we are going."
Lucy Powell was also responsible for running Ed Miliband's leadership campaign 5 years ago along with backing Andy Burnham in the contest that took place this summer, she now defends Jeremy Corbyn's policy making decisions.
A formerly made analysis from the think tank Policy Exchange to disprove the claim from critics that free schools take the talent from competitors and undermine standards. It was mentioned that the free schools that are set up by parents, teachers or third parties outside council control have had a wider positive effect on education standard in areas where they are created.
Jeremy Corbyn announced during his campaign, that what he would do was set up a new National Education Service which would give greater opportunities for 'lifelong learning' from nursery to adult education.
Source: http://goo.gl/UY1d6U
What is your view on free schools?
