Parental involvement is a perennial struggle in poor urban neighborhoods, where many innovative school leaders have run parent academies and strongly encouraged school visits or committee membership in hopes of mimicking the success of the suburbs.
For parents, academy trusts can also feel impersonal.
The government plans to set up a parenting academy where social workers and other professionals can learn how to instruct others in the arts of child-rearing.
"Although establishing a national parenting academy may sound impressive in theory, more money needs to be invested into schemes that we know are really making a difference to individuals, families and communities," he said.
Few have departed much from the national curriculum or changed the length of the school day.Rather than answering to parents, academies and ordinary state schools alike are scrambling to hit ever-moving central government targets.
Janet Lalleysmith, whose four-year-old daughter attends Downhills, said she was not aware of any support among parents for academy status.
The Warwick study, funded by the Centre for British Teachers charity, also highlights how disconnected some parents of academy students feel from school governance.
"Children who are born to or adopted by one member of a same-sex couple deserve the security of two legally recognized parents," the academy says in a policy statement published in its scientific journal, Pediatrics.
"There is an emerging consensus, based on extensive review of the scientific literature, that children growing up in households headed by gay men or lesbians are not disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents," the academy said.
As much as possible, the decision about whether to use contraception should be made by patients, not dictated by their parents, the academy advises.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has been contacted by a number of parents of Academy cadets who have fallen prey to the Warricks' ministry, and one of these families has been brave enough to go public with their story.
