Sorry Jean. There are so many criticisms to reply to it sometimes gets a bit overwhelming. I hope you will give me credit for attempting to answer at least some of the points people have raised in this forum.You essentially made two arguments. First, that we don't need another secondary school in Ealing. The existing schools were good enough for your children. Why aren't they good enough for mine? Second, how can a group of amateurs expect to do a better job than the local authority?Taking the second point first, we don't intend to manage the school ourselves. Rather, we'll subcontract the day-to-day operation of the school to an education provider with a successful track record of running schools. Together, we'll hire an experienced head and a senior leadership team. My role and the role of other people involved in setting up the school will be to sit on the Board of Governors. We'll be no more or less qualified than most school governors. Bear in mind that the Steering Committee now includes several experienced teachers.On the first point, the simple answer is that we're going to need some new schools in Ealing given the current population boom. Ealing Council recognises this which is why it planned to provide an additional 3,200 places – and that would only accommodate the anticipated demand up until 2018. After that, we'd need more places. Now that the BSF programme has been wound up, those plans have had to be shelved. Whatever your views about the pros and cons of winding up that programme, the fact remains that the need for more places is now more urgent than ever. Without some additional secondary school places, there are going to be some 10 and 11-year-olds in the borough with nowhere to go.Now your view might be that if we need another school in Ealing -- or, more likely, another two schools -- then the local authority should be the body to set them up. But why? Yes, the local authority has made a decent fist of running the borough's secondary schools and the average level of attainment in the borough at Key Stage 4 is above national average. Four of the schools have been deemed "outstanding" by Ofsted. But that isn't a compelling reason to insist that the local authority should have a complete monopoly over taxpayer-funded education in the borough (with the exception of the West London Academy). The fact that the status quo isn't awful doesn't mean it can't be improved. Why not give an independent group an opportunity to set up a school that's markedly different to the local authority controlled schools? Even if we don't improve on the borough's average level of attainment – and I believe we will – we will still succeed in providing local parents with more choice. It really isn't a case of not thinking the existing schools are good enough, though some of them plainly aren't. Just wanting something a little bit different.At worst, Free Schools will be a worthwhile experiment. They may not succeed in raising the average level of attainment in England, but then again they may. To assume that the system we have at the moment is the best we can hope for and that any departure from it will automatically mean a lowering of attainment is unduly pessimistic. Indeed, it's an attitude that, not so long ago, would have been categorised as "conservative". One of the ironies of the Free Schools debate is that Conservatives, like me, are criticised for being naive optimists, whereas Labour supporters, who one would have expected to be in favour of new energy and ideas in education, have become the reactionaries, clinging to the status quo and exploiting ignorance and fear in an attempt to preserve it.I hope this satisfies you Jean. But please do respond if I haven't adequately addressed your arguments.
Toby Young ● 5911d