The serious charge was made by shadow education minister Baroness Jones, who demanded that her Tory counterpart, the schools minister Lord Nash, return to parliament "at the earliest opportunity" to correct what she said was "false information".
The controversy blew up after a free school in Bradford, the Kings Science Academy, became the latest to be thrust into the spotlight, this time over allegations of financial irregularities.
In a letter to Nash, Jones said that his statement in the House of Lords on 17 October that free schools had been judged "good and outstanding in 75% of cases, as opposed to 63% of all other schools" was incorrect and gave a false impression the schools were better than the rest.
Jones agreed that the figure for the 24 free schools that had been inspected was correct, according to information from Ofsted on 31 August, with 18 having been judged good and outstanding, but said that data for the rest of the state sector showed that other schools that did not enjoy the greater freedoms were performing better, rather than worse, than free schools.
She told Nash that "for the remaining 21,162 schools, 16,614 were good or outstanding" – 78.5%, adding: "The group 'all other schools' are performing better than the free schools." In a statement, she said: "Lord Nash has given false information to parliament and he should correct the error at the earliest opportunity. What also concerns me is why these figures came to be used – another example, perhaps, of the Conservatives' ideological drive to champion free schools."
A Department for Education spokeswoman said that Nash had been referring only to inspections under Ofsted's more rigorous inspection process, introduced last year. Sources confirmed that not all schools had been inspected under this system.
The spokeswoman said: "Three-quarters of the free schools that opened in 2011 were rated 'good' or 'outstanding' by Ofsted under its new framework. This compares with under two-thirds of all schools inspected under the same regime.
"All free school inspections have been under Ofsted's new tougher framework. Figures referring to all schools inspected – under both the old regime and the new tougher framework – do not provide a true comparison." Free schools are state-funded but enjoy greater freedoms compared with local authority-run schools, including the right to employ unqualified staff and greater leeway in what they teach.
Earlier this month, the Muslim Al-Madinah School in Derby, a free school, was described by Ofsted inspectors as "dysfunctional" and rated inadequate in every category within a year of its opening. In two other free schools, headteachers who were unqualified when appointed have since resigned.
Last week it emerged that special controls on people who want to be headteachers at free schools had been scrapped, despite warnings from civil servants.
A week ago, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, broke ranks with the Tories over free schools, saying that they the schools should only employ qualified staff or those who were working towards qualifying, that they should be compelled to teach the national curriculum and to apply school food standards imposed on local authority-run schools.
Labour's new education spokesman, Tristram Hunt, said recently that his party is not against free schools in principle, but that Labour's parent-led academies would only be established in areas of need, and if they employed qualified teachers.
Source: theguardian.com
Author: Toby Helm
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