Starbucksification of schools

Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, was billed as a steady hand when she took office in 2014. Her predecessor, Michael Gove, had enraged teachers and their unions (which he christened the “blob”, after a monster from a 1958 science-fiction film) with his shake-up of the education system. By the end of his four years in office there were around 4,000 academies, state-funded schools that are mostly free from government control, nearly 20 times the number at the start of his stint. It was expected that the pace of change would slow under Ms Morgan.

Instead, she has proposed what some reckon to be the most radical reform of school governance in decades. Under plans outlined on March 17th, all schools would become academies by 2022, giving them the freedom to decide their own curriculum, pay teachers what they want and set shorter holidays. It would be a big, rapid change: currently 59% of secondary schools and only 17% of primary schools are academies.

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Supporters of the reforms argue that running a dual system, made up of both academies and local-authority schools, is expensive and confusing. But so far there is little evidence to suggest that chains are more adept than local authorities at supervising schools. Last year a report by the Sutton Trust, an education charity, found a wide range of performance in existing chains—and that the gap between good and bad ones was growing. It suggested that new chains should not be allowed to expand until they have demonstrated good results.

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