I MUST take issue with Cllr Stuart Barnes’ letter (The Press, May 16). Cllr Barnes’ suggestion that schools are being privatised though the academies programme is pure hogwash and he knows it, but why let the facts get in the way of scaring residents.

Academies are funded directly from the Government, a very strange kind of privatisation indeed.

The reality is that the academies programme rejects the outdated, one-size-fits-all approach of the past, freeing schools from the diktats of local and national governments in the process.

Academy status also means that school leaders have the vehicle to achieve higher standards, it puts the power in headteachers’ hands to innovate and to try new things, to get great results and to give children better life chances.

Cllr Barnes is also wrong to suggest that our Conservative-led council remained silent on the plans for all schools to become academies. Cllr Chris Steward, then leader of the council, said in The Press that he backed the academisation policy, saying it will “enable the best in our strongest schools to be better shared with others”, but stressed that there were discussions within the group.

The rejection of academies by Labour is a rejection of the aspirational principles behind them.

Jason Brown, Foxwood Lane, York