Oxford Anti Academy Alliance Meeting- 7pm Peers School Thursday 20th Sept

Letter in Oxford Mail- It's backdoor privatisation

To the Editor

Your editorial notes the lack of response to the official consultation exercise for academy status at Peers School (Oxford Mail, September 4). It's easy to become apathetic when local councils and the Government pay lip service to community empowerment and then regularly ignore the results of consultations.

No wonder people are turned off when the official literature doesn't put any arguments against academy status.

Perhaps the fact that the consultation brochure comes across as simply a propaganda exercise populated with photographs of smiling children (not from Peers), with a series of leading questions in the back, is the reason for the lack of responses.

Clearly, there is no popular desire for an academy experiment at Peers - only an obvious desire for increased funding and support for the existing school. Now that representatives of all political parties in Oxford have taken a position against academy status it is surely time for the county council and the Church of England to reconsider their plans for Peers.

The Anti Academies Alliance is campaigning to raise awareness over this backdoor attempt to privatise education in Oxford. I encourage anybody who wants to find out more to come to our next meeting at Peers School next Thursday, at 7pm.

DAVID RADFORD Oxford Anti-Academies Alliance

4:27pm Wednesday 12th September 2007