Save Our Schools – Academies Are Asset Stripping Our Schools

Mumsnet.com, May, 2013
Before the election councils in England held the title deeds to schools and land valued at over £2.5bn. But most people don’t know the very fine print of the academies bill and what it means. 

1. The title deeds of the school and the land are transferred to a private company when the school becomes an academy.

2. Michael Gove borrows £25,000 to pay the legal fees for the private companies to ensure the title deeds are transferred from the council (us taxpayers who paid to build the schools) – to these private companies).

So far £1billion of title deeds for schools has been transferred from taxpayers – with Michael Gove increasing the deficit by £481,750,000 – just for legal fees to transfer ownership of the schools from councils to private companies.

So who has the title deeds now:
Tory party member Philip Harris has his hands on £millions worth of title deeds. Philip Harris made donations to David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party. He is considered to be one of his personal friends.

Stanley Fink, another friend of Cameron has donated £2.62m to the Conservative Party. David Cameron made Fink a Lord as soon as he came to power, and has since made him Tory Party Treasurer and handed his company £millions title deeds for schools.

And today David Cameron has told us, as well as changing the law to transfer state assets to Tory Party members (and I thought only China did that) – now he is changing the laws to allow them to start selling the Land.

Just so you know – Stanley Fink – his company states in their accounts – any extra money – his company has a policy to transfer the funds to the Cayman Islands – via stockbrokers that Stanley Fink just happens to be on the board of.

Now if I remember correctly the directors of southern cross did the same thing with care homes – selling them off – the money disappears offshore, the company goes bust and pensioners are left high and dry (with taxpayers expected to step in).

Well Cameron has just announced Tory Party members who have their hands on the title deeds for our schools and school land can start doing the same thing. And just to be clear – Stanley Fink’s company accounts for the schools also state – if Stanley Fink’s company controlling the schools, the school budgets and the title deeds goes bust – Stanley Fink (Tory Party treasurer on the Times rich list) only has to pay £10.

Academies are not about education, they are about asset stripping, and parents and children will find (just like the pensioners who were left without facilities due to the directors of Southern Cross) private companies selling off the assets and disappearing in to the sunset.

Do Michael Gove and David Cameron shout from the rooftops that they are spending £25,000 per school to cover legal fees to transfer the title deeds to Tory Party members – no I wonder why not. – Could it be they don’t want parents to know the real intentions of the academies bill? It’s not about education, it’s about asset stripping by Tory Party members – thanks to David Cameron, Michael Gove, every Tory MP and every Liberal MP.

These are your schools – they do not belong to the Tory Party (well they do now). Ask Michael Gove if your council gets the money when they sell off school land. Ask Stanley Fink (ARK SCHOOLS) – will this Tory Party treasurer be selling playing fields and as his accounts state, the money be transferred to the Cayman Islands (with his stockbrokers taking a cut along the way). Serious questions – £1bn worth of assets stripped – £half billion in legal fees to pay for it (which we the taxpayers must pay back as Gove had to borrow the money).

A study of ARK accounts for the 8 schools they controlled in 2010 showed Stanley Fink and the other directors of Ark Schools under spent the education budget by 7%. The money that Stanley Fink was given to educate children which he chose not to spend, went to the Cayman Islands via his stockbrokers – to the Ark Cayman Island Fund. In its 2010 accounts Ark reported an operational surplus of £1.8 million, and in 2009 it was £3.6 million.

We paid for our schools and paid for the land. Stanley Fink did not pay 1 penny for any of the schools he holds the title deeds for. Stanley Fink did not pay 1 penny for the playing fields he is now selling. Just because Cameron and Gove changed the law does not make it legal or right. If Parents don’t stand up now and demand these schools are transferred back to councils, like Southern Cross, there will have no schools and no land.

And who is Stanley Fink selling the land to and how much for? Where does the money go? Schools are not assets for stripping – schools are there to educate. But David Cameron, Philip Harris and Stanley Fink all believe it’s not education – its assets for selling.

Save our schools – save our school land – demand the title deeds back into the safe hands of councils – after all they ran schools for years without selling the land, and the title deeds were kept in trust for you. And councils have never transferred education funds to the Cayman Islands via Stockbrokers they own, which is exactly why only democratically elected; accountable councillors can be trusted with the title deeds for our schools.

The VOAG Is Back

After a year of silence The VOAG is back!

Bringing news and scurrilous stories

from Surrey and Beyond.

Campaigning for a better society.

&

Supporting

Surrey United Anti Capitalists
Save Our Services In Surrey
Socialist Fight Group

 Join The VOAG Facebook group to join the discussion or leave comments

Save Our Schools in Surrey: The Anti Academies Alliance Campaign Against Surrey Heath MP’s Education Plans

The Anti Academies Alliance is a campaign composed of unions, parents, pupils, teachers, councillors and MPs.

Academies are schools that are run by a private sponsor. They are outside of the local family of schools, not accountable to the local community, allowed to set their own curriculum and terms and conditions for staff. The Anti Academies Alliance opposes the government’s Academies programme and believes we need ‘a good school for every child’. The TUC, NASUWT, NUT, ATL, UCU, UNISON, UNITE, GMB, PCS, MU and FBU are affiliated to the Anti Academies Alliance.

The Academies Bill is a savage attack on the education system in this country. It is an attempt to destroy a democratic, planned, state education system and replace it with a two tier, market driven collection of independent schools at the mercy of education companies driven by profit.

Currently most schools work as part of the Local Authority. This is led by elected councillors. At the moment most schools are run by a head teacher working with a group of school governors, some of whom are appointed by the Local Authority, others are elected by parents or staff.

Whatever its weaknesses, this system has many benefits:
*It allows planning for school demand according to population developments.
*It allows for co-ordinated teacher training and development, Special Educational Needs, Early Years teaching, and much more.
*It means there is co-operation between schools over pupil admissions and exclusions.
*Governors and councillors are elected. Their decisions can be, and have been, challenged at elections.

Michael Gove, MP for Surrey Heath And Education Minister wants to rip this up.
He wants every ‘Outstanding’ school to become an Academy. This would introduce a two tier education system, where the schools deemed most successful would be independent from their Local Authority, while Local Authorities would be left with the schools that needed most help. It would be a return to the Grammar school / Secondary Modern era where some pupils were considered a success, and others as ‘factory fodder’ to receive a basic education.

Currently schools belong to the whole community. The Academies Bill proposes that schools can become Academies simply by a vote of the governors – no consultation with parents, teachers, support staff or the local community. Why should such a small group of people be allowed to decide the future of our schools?

Academies are not democratic. They are not accountable to the Local Authority, so they are not accountable to the public. Their governors are appointed, not elected. Academies are not covered by Freedom of Information legislation.

Staff Terms and Conditions. Every Academy can set their own terms and conditions. This proposal will see the end of national negotiations, with headteachers and governors setting pay and conditions school by school.

Is there extra money? The only extra money available for schools that opt to become academies will be taken from money the local authority holds centrally for support services. Each new academy will get its share of this money and the central fund will be reduced accordingly.The Academy would then have to buy in the services currently supplied by the Local Authority.

Improving Standards? This will introduce brutal competition into the education system. The Tories believe that this will drive up standards. The same thing was done in Sweden in the 1990s. Per Thulberg, director general of the Swedish National Agency for Education, says “This competition between schools that was one of the reasons for introducing the new schools has not led to better results.”.

One of the most respected international bodies that measures student performance is TIMMS – Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. In 2007 TIMMS reported on trends in average scores from 1995 to 2007. Its conclusions make interesting reading.Do Academies get better Grades? Gove claims that “Over a third of academies with GCSE results in 2009 have seen an increase of more than 15 percentage points”. He forgets to mention that of the 74 Academies which have entered pupils for GCSE’s for 2 or more years, a third have seen their results fall.

Who will run the Academies? Existing Academy chains, and Edu-businesses are lining up to take over our schools. The biggest Academy chain in England is ULT. The government told them they could have no more Academies after Ofsted failed their 2 Academies in Sheffield.

In 2002 Edison USA was caught in the stock market meltdown, with its shares plummeting from over $21 to under $1. The company solved this by selling off its books, computers, lab equipment and musical instruments! Edison are already running schools in England

32 schools have become Academies another 150 have applied. This is a major setback as Michael Gove had expected thousands to apply. Opposition to Academies runs across the education system. All the education unions oppose Academies and ‘Free’ schools. The National Governors Association, National Association of Head Teachers, National Grammar Schools Association, the Catholic Church, and the Church of England have all raised major concerns with the Academies proposals.

Save Our Schools in Surrey. There are 400 junior and secondary schools in Surrey. One junior school has already become an academy school. Nine secondary schools are set to become academies in April. Under present legislation once a school becomes an academy there is no way back.

Teachers in a school in Derby have already gone on strike against their school becoming an academy. Teachers, students and parents should prepare to support this type of action here in Surrey. A Save Our Schools in Surrey campaign is being launched by local unions and Save Our Services in Surrey. For details of the campaign in Surrey email: ginny.eaton@surreycc.gov.uk

Visit the National Anti Academies Alliance web site: http://www.antiacademies.org.uk/Home

You can contact Michael Grove, the Education Minister and MP for Surrey Heath by Email: office@shca.org.uk
or telephone his constituency office: 01276 472468.