But .... however .... yet ...
The challenge the government faces is not to explain to the public that some academies are actually quite good. The challenge is to explain the following:
1. What makes them think that academies are always better than local authority schools?
2. Why does a change in governance structure make any difference to performance?
3. Are all local authorities automatically incapable of setting up effective networks of schools?
4. Does that include Conservative run local authorities?
5. If it does why hasn't the Conservative party challenged its own party members to do a better job with their local control?
6. Is it possible for an academy to be badly run?
7. Does every little Primary School in the country have the capacity to be self governing?
8. Without the right to any parent governors how will local parents exercise any control over a badly run academy?
9. How much time will primary school Head Teachers spend on preparing to turn their school into an academy?
10. Could that time have been spent more usefully e.g. on improving educational performance?
11. Why is a national chain of academies automatically better than an elected local education authority?
12. How will a national chain of academies know what local parents want?
13. How does a local authority provide a school place for every child if local schools are controlled by a variety of different national academy chains?
14. How will local parents find out whether a national chain of academies is helping or hindering the local teachers to improve their child's education?
15. How can the general public get rid of an ineffective academy chain?
16. By what mechanism will a national chain of academies find out quickly and reliably whether an individual local Head Teacher is ineffective?
17. Why do so many leaders of academy chains need to award themselves such large salaries?
18. How are payments to academy chain leaders to be monitored and controlled by taxpayers?
19. How will central government be able to find out quickly and reliably which academy chains are effective when the chain has an incentive to hide bad news?
20. How many members of the public know what a school commissioner is and what they do for their large salaries?
21. How many members of the public know who to complain to about an ineffective academy chain that is damaging their child's education?
22. Why are local electors considered incapable of forming a reliable opinion about the quality of their child's education yet capable of electing an MP?
23. Why is central government promising to devolve increased amounts of central government spending to local mayors if they don't trust local government to oversee the education system?
24. What control will local people have over the disposal of land used by the local school but owned by a national academy chain?
25. How much will it cost to get back the land they have given away from the chains of academies that now own that land?
26. How many small local schools will be closed by academy chains that have decided that they are 'uneconomic'? Who will pay the extra travel costs?
27. Why is central government creating increased numbers of separate faith 'free' schools when integration has never been more important for social cohesion?
28. How will central government know what is taught to a child in a separate 'faith' school between rare inspection visits?
29. Whatever happened to the Conservative Party's opposition to pointless top down re-organisations?
30. Whatever happened to the Conservative Party's opposition to bureaucratic change instead of focusing on school improvement?
These are just some of the questions that have not been properly answered by Nicky Morgan. But the real killer question is the very last one.
If local parents want their school to remain in local authority control then why is the state denying them that choice?