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In England an Academy is a type of Secondary School . Academies are Independent School s although they are Publicly Funded and run, and as such are outside the control of the Local Authorities in which they are situated. This type of school was known as a '''City Academy''' for the first few years but the term was changed to "Academy" by an Amendment in the Education Act 2002 {Link without Title} . City Academies were legally created by the in his capacity as education advisor to the Prime Minister (now Lord Adonis, a junior Minister at the Department For Education And Skills ) in the late 1990s. The Specialist Schools And Academies Trust is responsible for the delivery of the programme. Academies are intended as a method of dealing with the problem of historic and entrenched failure of schools in England that do not achieve academically (or in areas of little educational aspiration). However, as the programme is in a fairly early stage of development with less than 30 Academies open (and for less than three years) there is little solid evidence one way or the other as to whether they are effective in this. Academies are currently subject to an independent five-year evaluation by the consultancy PriceWaterhouseCoopers who have to date published two annual reports consisting of both 'hard' and 'soft' data concerning the open Academies. In the Department for Education and Skill's Five Year Strategy (published in 2004 ) the Government committed to there being 200 Academies open or in development by 2010. {Link without Title} FEATURES OF AN ACADEMY Academies are established in a way that is intended to be 'creative' and 'innovative' to give them the freedoms considered necessary to deal with the long term issues they are intended to solve. Each Academy has a private sponsor who can be an individual (such as Sir David Garrard who sponsors Bexley City Academy ) or an organisation such as the United Learning Trust or Amey PLC . They are intended to bring 'qualities of success' to the school, again to help it change the long term trend of failure of the school the Academy replaces. One of the most successful City Academies is City Academy, Bristol . In return for an investment of 10% of the Academy's capital costs (or £2m, whichever is less), the sponsor is able to input into the process of establishing the school including its Curriculum , Ethos , specialism and building (if a new one is being built), and the power to appoint Governors to the Academy's Governing Body . Academies typically replace an existing (predecessor) school, or are newly established. The remainder of the capital and running costs are met by the state in the usual way for UK state schools through LA funded grants. Academies can select up to 10% of pupils by Aptitude in a way similar to Specialist School s (although very few of them exercise this ability). Although they are independent they have to have regard to the same code of practice of admission as maintained schools, and so cannot select beyond the 10% aptitude rule. As of September 2005, 27 city academies are already open. Academies are not bound to follow the National Curriculum (another freedom to innovate), although they still participate in the Key Stage 3 and GCSE exams as other English schools (which effectively means they teach a curriculum very similar to Maintained School s, with small variations). In terms of their governance, Academies are established as charitable trusts with a Governing Body that also acts as the Trust's Board Of Directors (they are legally accountable for the operation of the Academy, but not financially so). The Trust serves as the legal entity which the school element is part of and the Governing Body is the group that actually oversees the running of the school (although the day to day management of the school is, as in most schools, conducted by the principal and their senior management team). OPPOSITION/CRITICISM Academies are considered controversial and the policy questioned from their inception, both politically and educationally. Even after several years of operation and with a number of Academies open and reporting successes there are frequently calls made in the media and education sector to either scrap the programme or radically reduce it. The Academy policy is often attacked for creating schools that are (for example) a waste of money, selective, a negative impact on the schools and communities around them, forced on parents who don't want the and a move towards privitisation of education by "the back door". The truth of the matter is often difficult to ascertain with many sections of the media and education sector dogmatically negatively presenting one side of the argument and the government staunchly defending the policy with little call for debate. The British House Of Commons Education Select Committee reported in March 2005 that it would have been wiser to limit the programme to 30 or 50 academies in order to evaluate the results before expanding the programme, and that "the rapid expansion of the Academy policy comes at the expense of rigorous evaluation." {Link without Title} . This view is also held by the Liberal Democrat Party who stated in their 2005 election manifesto that they would suspend the creation of any new Academies if they came to power (although they did not commmit to abolishing the programme). The programme of creating Academies has also been heavily criticised for handing schools to private sector entrepreneurs who in many cases have no experience of the education sector - most notoriously, the Evangelical Christian car dealer, Sir Peter Vardy , who has been accused of pushing the teaching of Creationism in two academies he sponsors in Gateshead and Middlesbrough (the latter being the '' King's Academy ''). This is also linked to the wider concerns held in the education sector as to the growing role of faith in the school system being promoted by the New Labour government, with many Academies being sponsored either by faith groups or organisations/individuals with a faith bias. The failings of the Unity Academy in Middlesbrough and the West London Academy in Ealing have been highlighted as indications that the programme is not wholly successful. {Link without Title} It is also widely held that sponsors "run" or control Academies, although in reality this falls to the governing body and the principal (however the majority of the members of the governing body are initially chosen by the sponsor giving the sponsor a strong role in the direction that the school takes). The programme has further been attacked for its expense: typically it costs on average £25m to build an Academy (more in London) much of which is taken up by the costs of new building. It is frequently cited that this is more than a new school although these comparisons are often drawn between the total cost of building an Academy including start up grant and all initial outlay, and the cost of a new school ''building'' for a maintained school. That said Academies are not cheap in real terms, although the Government and sponsors maintain that it is money well spent to help those that the Academies serve (namely disadvantaged and chronically low performing children in deprived areas). However it is also argued that Academies do exactly the opposite, for example: "Experience is leading people to suspect that - in practice if not in policy - Mossbourne (Communitiy Academy) controls its admissions to cherry-pick the pupils it thinks will give it good results." {Link without Title} COMPARISONS The city academy programme was originally based on the programme of City Technology College s (CTCs) created by the Conservative Party in the 1980s, which were also business sponsored. One of the proposed city academies is Dixons CTC, once sponsored by the retailer Dixons . Currently the Government is encouraging CTCs to convert into Academies which several of them have already done (Djanogly CTC is now Djanogly City Academy). Academies differ from CTCs in several ways, most notably Academies cannot select pupils (which CTCs can). Also Academies are designed specifically to be part of the overall education provision in the areas they are built and have consistently been stated as part of the wider strategy on education; CTCs were not built with local provision or need in mind and were mostly "parachuted" into areas with little thought as to the effect it would have on other schools. In some respects comparisons may be drawn between city academies and US Charter School s. EXTERNAL LINKS
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