Comment 77 by Alan4discussion :

Comment 76 by Viveca What's comment 71 got to do with this thread?

Some of the "academies" being set up are faith schools. Sponsorship is part of their terms of reference. It opens up new opportunities to set up more faith schools.

The political thinking behind them is to remove them from accountability to the locally elected council education authorities. It is claimed that this will give parents more control, but the parents already elect a significant proportion of governors in LEA schools. The real difference is that Local Education Authority governors are replaced by the sponsor's governors, and that the funding is independent of the LEA.

O please, do me a favour, the issue the unions and teachers are opposing here is NOT the legitimisation and propagation of faith schools. The teaching unions are NOT against faith schools, they are perfectly happy with them. The fact that new legislation may, or may not, have consequences for faith schools is, for the unions, beside the point.