Dozens of schools from Greater Manchester want to break free from council control.
New figures show 31 have applied to become independently-run academies.
The schools, including some of the region’s biggest secondaries Wright Robinson College and King David High, both in Manchester, say they will get extra cash and freedom by going it alone.
But some teachers have sounded an alarm over the changes fearing they could leave schools unaccountable to parents.
Some staff at Crompton House CE High in Oldham have taken strike action this week over the proposed change.
The coalition government is continuing the Labour policy of allowing secondary schools to break free from local authority control.
Education secretary Michael Gove initially invited any primary or secondary school rated ‘outstanding’ to apply to become independent, but this has now been opened up to all schools.
So far, only five Greater Manchester schools have made the switch.
The greatest potential exodus is in Trafford, where half of the borough’s 18 secondary schools have applied to become academies.
But schools from across the region are seeking to go it alone.
Neville Beischer, headteacher of Wright Robinson in Gorton, which has 1,800 pupils, said the move would allow the school to open its own sixth form.
He said: "We will get 10 percent more cash as no money will be top-sliced by the local authority.
"The other major thing is that we will get the opportunity to open our own sixth form.
"We would be able to get one up and running straight away without a drawn-out consultation. We would bypass some of the issues about objections from sixth form colleges.
"It would not be a huge change. We would still be going to the high school heads meetings and working closely with neighbouring schools."
Other Manchester secondaries are understood to be considering applying for academy status.
The National Union of Teachers has previously raised fears the new schools, which can set their own admission, could exclude vulnerable pupils and that staff could be short-changed by the switch-over.
Avis Gilmore, a regional officer with the union, said: "We have got huge concerns about what it will mean for both staff and individual pupils.
"As time goes on we are seeing more academies which are in financial difficulties."
List of the schools which have applied for academy status since May 2010:
The schools which have applied for academy status since May 2010 (* denotes schools which have already been granted academy status):
BOLTON
- Lever Edge Primary*
- St Bede CE Primary
BURY
- Manchester Mesivta High
- Yesoiday Hatorah Primary*
MANCHESTER
- King David High
- Wright Robinson College
- Cheetham CE Primary
OLDHAM
- Crompton House CE High
- Blue Coat CE High
- Hathershaw College
- Limeside Primary
ROCHDALE
- Middleton Technology School
- All Souls Primary
- Bamford Primary
- St James CE Primary
SALFORD
- Swinton High
- Broadoak Primary
- Stockport
- Mellor Primary
TAMESIDE
- Audenshaw School*
- Fairfield High*
- West Hill High
TRAFFORD
- Altrincham Grammar School for Boys
- Altrincham Grammar School for Girls
- Flixton Girls’ School
- Sale Grammar
- St Ambrose College
- Urmston Grammar*
- Wellacre Technology College
- Wellington School
- Park Road Primary
WIGAN
- Fred Longworth High
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The downside of this is that local councils won't reduce their office based education staff when they have less schools to administer.
Councils don't get rid of staff just because they have nothing to do.
And as the schools themselves will hire extra admin staff to replace the work done currently by council staff the net result will be more people on the public payroll and higher taxes.
Back to the school dictionary, please. A score is 20, so 'scores' in you headline would have to be 40 schools as an absolute miniumum. 'Dozens' is technically correct in the body of the article as there are over 24 but is an exaggeration as it would lead the reader to believe that there were several dozen instead of less than three.
Apart from, perhaps, Trafford there is no rush to academy status.
i wonder if trafford is pushing this more because of the 11+ system and continual concerns over the council trying to scrap it (and the associated grammar schools etc) - though if academy status allows schools to set their own admission policy, how would this then fit in? would all trafford academy schools come to an agreement much like the current system? .. and ebble, i fear you are exactly correct in terms of admin staff etc!
How will the schools get 10% more income? What is it "top sliced" by the councils for?
Is it that councils don't pass on all the funding or is it because the councils provide some services for that 10% that the schools will now provide themselves or chose to not have?
And what are these extra freedoms that academies have, if they improve things so much then why don't all schools have them?
The reason school budgets are "top sliced" by the local authority is that the LA provides services for all schools such as HR support, training, IT support, bulk purchasing, consultancy, building maintenance and a host of other things that a head teacher could not be expected to handle without expert advice. Academies are free to choose whether they buy these services from the local authority or anyone else, as they are given that money directly from the DfE. But - and this is the big but - the more academies there are, the less likely it is that the remaining non-academy schools will be able to rely on the local authority for support, as the LA won't have the funding to keep their staff on if they can't rely on the numbers. Head teachers are being cut adrift from experienced and committed local authority support staff whether they like it or not, because the local authority is having to cut its budgets and staffing levels drastically. And it drags schools into the marketplace for any charlatan with a convincing website and sales patter to rip them off with sub-standard services, when they were getting decent support from the local authority in the first place. Local authorities have been branded as over-controlling monster organisations to be got rid of by the Tories, when the one in Salford at least is nothing of the sort. And what happens when all schools are more or less forced into being academies and acting semi-autonomously because the local authority has been starved of funds? Duplicated effort in every school, wasted money, no local accountability and no regional oversight of school places and funding. The nightmare is happening right now.
Schools that opt out of democratic local authority control should give back all equipment paid for by local taxpayers and they should pay for any buildings to the local authority.
King David School is in the wrong place anyway and 55% of pupils come from outside the city anyway with many being bussed in from yorkshire and merseyside and no black or asian faces even though its in an area with a large ethnic community.
Computers, playing fields, swimming pools, etc, should all go back to the people that paid for them if any school is to opt out of local democratic control to become what will actually be state funded private schools.
Turn them all into grammar schools in the long term!
The schools would be far better off out of council controls as councils,like governments are the pits at organizing anything apart from their own perks and pensions!
This should also result in the closing down or reductions in the LEA departments which would be a further cost saving (wouldn't hold my breath though!)
Stockport leading the way as usual. Oh I forgot. They close schools don't they?