Free schools but no free lunch

PETER Downes’s recent comments on the move to academy schools (The Hunts Post, July 6) was a brave attempt to introduce both objectivity and rationality into the debate on that most thorny of merit goods, education.

We might not agree with Mr. Downes’s point of view, but we are now able to understand it and to follow it due to his objectivity and rationality.

Sadly, I have not seen any similar articles from the proponents of academies. Until I do, I will be forced to hold to the view that they have no rational and objective bases for their attitudes and subsequent actions.

Information and analysis are the fundamentals of debate and decision but they are on only one side of the argument here. The majorities in parliament are advancing their ideological views as argument and ignore the fact that there is only one size of national cake for all of us.

It is the equitability of distribution of that cake that makes the greatest impact on our daily lives and, therefore, the lives of our children, who are all our futures.

Do Mr Gove’s followers not realise that there may be ‘free’ schools but there is no such thing as a free lunch?

MALCOLM TALBOT

Beech Avenue

Great Stukeley