Academies 'no better for GCSE results than comprehensives'

Academies are no better than conventional comprehensive schools, research suggests today.

A study that claims their GCSE results are "statistically indistinguishable" from other schools' figures has cast further doubt on the Government's £5billion education reforms.

Ministers say academies - secondary schools run by businesses, churches or charities free of some restrictions - are responsible for dramatic improvements in results.

It has been claimed the improvement in GCSE scores has been about four times the national average. The Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics studied GCSE results at 27 academies opened between 2002 and 2006.

It found these had improved but the achievement "looks less impressive" when compared with other poorly performing schools nearby as test scores there showed almost the same improvement.

The study by Professor Stephen Machin of University College London, and Joan Wilson of London's Institute of Higher Education said: "Overall these changes in GCSE performance are statistically indistinguishable from one another." It echoes a 2007 study co-authored by academics at Cambridge University that said specialist schools were no better at raising results than normal comprehensives

A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: "Surveys demonstrate parents like academies and pupils are proud to go to them."

The latest league tables compiled by the Evening Standard show 43 secondary schools in London teaching 42,650 pupils failed to meet a key target of having at least 30 per cent of pupils achieving five C grades in subjects including maths and English.

Ten of the schools were academies which cost an estimated £250 million in taxpayers' money to establish. Three have been open for at least five years - the Harris Academy in Peckham, Capital City Academy in Brent and the Business Academy Bexley.

Critics say this should have been more than enough time to bring about dramatic improvements from the weak comprehensives they replaced.

Ministers hailed the results as an improvement on previous years, when 67 London comprehensives failed to reach the target.

The academies have been attacked by unions and Left-wing MPs as a "part-privatisation" of state education.