A DfE spokesman said: "Every parent should have the choice of a good local school for their child – our reforms will help create thousands of high-class new school places". The spokesman said that the government had introduced a number of reforms to improve standards, including turning weak schools into academies, allowing good schools to expand and opening free schools.
The promotion of "free schools", set up by groups of parents, and the policy of encouraging the best-performing schools, rather than the weakest, to become academies, could divert money from the neediest, he said.
"In particular it is encouraging schools it sees as weak to convert to academies where the new curriculum will not apply".Education secretary Michael Gove is to publish the final versions of the national curriculum revisions.
"The current government's policy is to turn weak schools into sponsored academies.
The research team says its analysis suggests that pupil attainment in the underperforming schools supported by City Challenge improved significantly more than it did in other weak schools, including sponsored academies.
Some pointed out the academy's weak governance structures and proposed a coup of sorts.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, is convinced of their value, and last year announced a plan to turn the 200 weakest primary schools into academies.
Looking at Smithsonian research from a management perspective, the academy noted weak communications between the Smithsonian's central management and its science centers.
Often, the worst examples of weak leadership are in "standalone" academies who do not have the support a multi-academy trust to help them run their schools.
Most recently, he took a stand against poor academy chains, saying weak performers were no better than the worst local authorities – a damaging blow to the government's all‑academy plan.
