The 200 worst-performing primary schools in England are to be transformed into academies, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced.
Warning that the English education system was failing to keep up with its international rivals, he said the Government needed to go "faster and further" with the academies programme inherited from Labour.
However, his announcement came as the funding system for academies came under fire for the level of overpayments that had to be clawed back later.
Unions questioned how the Government would cope with additional academies when funding for the existing ones was being "messed up".
About 1,400 primary schools in England currently have less than 60% of their pupils reaching a basic level in English and maths at age 11, and children making below average progress between the ages of seven and 11.
Some 200 of those - who have been below the threshold for the past five years - will now be turned into academies from next year, meaning that they will receive their funding directly and have more powers over areas like the curriculum and staff pay and conditions.
A list of the schools has not been published and it is not yet clear how many primaries in Greater Manchester will be affected by the move.
In a speech to the National College for School Leadership in Birmingham today, Mr Gove warned that the education debate in this country had not "confronted reality".
Mr Gove said: "Education systems across the world are improving faster than England. We have to set our sights higher.
"We should no longer tolerate a system in which so many pupils leave primary school without a good grasp of English and maths, and leave secondary school without five good GCSEs. We want all parents to have a choice of good local schools.
"Evidence shows that the academy programme has had a good effect on school standards. Heads and teachers should run schools and they should be more accountable to parents instead of politicians.
"We must go faster and further in using the programme to deal with underperforming schools."
The chairman of the Local Government Association children and young people board, Baroness Ritchie, said: "Councils support the idea of greater freedom for schools - freedoms that academy status offers are freedom from central, not local controls; freedom from the National Curriculum, from national pay and conditions and from national regulations about the length of school days.
"Today it has been reported that academies have received more funding than they are entitled to. This has arisen because the Government has misinterpreted council education expenditure returns for purposes for which they were not intended in the way that it calculates the top-up grant for academies.
"We have made it clear that school choice is something that councils support, but whatever you think of academies they should be funded on the same basis as other schools."
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So a school is out of the 200 for years then becomes 199 on the list, does this mean it becomes an academy
Quote from Mr Gove: "Heads and teachers should run schools and they should be more accountable to parents instead of politicians." So how is turning a primary school into an academy going to do that, when it means removing the school from any local accountability and reporting directly to the politicians in the Department for Education in Whitehall? The key to pupils learning is GOOD TEACHERS. End of. Get teachers motivated and engaged and don't distract them with all this political tinkering. I speak as a school governor so I think I know what I'm talking about.
The key to children engaging in education is parental involvment and positive influence, along with good teaching and leadership from the head teacher. There has to be aspiration and motivation.....not something this country has a lot of at the moment.
It not always the Management of a school or leadership. Sometimes it down to Locals.
Local people need to support the kids give them support give them hope for a better life. And even more a clamp down on bad parents that dont care about there kids.
Flood the country with grammar schools and give the primary children something to aspire to by preparing for their 11 plus exams! Other secondary schools,turn them into technical and vocational schools to prepare children for a trade! The 3 Rs are critical for good education! Children who cannot speak English should be given separate English lessons instead of holding other children back! Preferably,their parents should pay for them to learn English as they do in many other countries!
academies = numbers
Schools = pupils and people.
End of!
Get some form of control back in schools and save a billion. Simple arithmatics . "Oh and educate the teachers better."
Why not turn them into universities - see if anyone notices?