Britain's town hall leaders, teacher's unions line up against "classroom revolution"

The classrooms of thousands of schools across Britain became a new battleground Sunday when civic leaders of the organisation representing local town and city councils attacked the biggest ever education shake-up.

Their attack came less than 24 hours after the country's biggest trade union representing teachers, the NUT, decided to ballot its members on possible strike action over the "classroom revolution."

Saturday also saw Education Secretary Nicky Morgan jeered as she addressed a meeting of the other main teacher's union, the NAS/UWT, that the government would not be reversing its controversial plans that would affect around 16,000 schools.

Since the days of Queen Victoria in the 1800s most junior and high schools have come under the control of local education authorities.

That will change under plans by the Conservative government who want every school to be a self-rule academy by the early 2020s.

The leaders of the National Government Association, the body representing hundreds of local councils, laid down their opposition Sunday in a joint letter to The Observer newspaper.

Condemning the plans, the letter was signed by four councillors who lead the main groups on the LGS, David Hodge, leader of the Conservative Group, Nick Forbes, leader of the Labour Group, Marianne Overton, leader of the Independent Group and Gerald Vernon-Jackson, who leads the Liberal Democrat Group.

They say: "The wholesale removal of democratically elected councils from all aspects of local education, to be replaced by unelected and remote civil servants, has rightly raised serious questions around local needs and local accountability."

They say there is no evidence academy schools perform better than council maintained schools. Around 85 percent of primary schools (for children aged 4 to 11) are council run, and of those 82 percent have been rated good or excellent by the national schools inspectorate, Ofsted.

"Where a school is failing, there is no question action must be taken, but converting every school to an academy will not tackle these issues," say the four leaders. "Forcing the change upon every school goes against, in many cases, what parents and teachers want, and there will be a large financial implication for local authorities at a time when communities are already suffering the impact of significant budget cuts."

They close their letter we a plea to the government, saying "We urge the government to listen to the concerns of families, teachers, politicians and experts and rethink the proposals."

Morgan was the first Conservative education chief to address to NAS/UWT conference for 20 years. During her speech she said the government plans would put control over schools into the hands of headteachers and teachers. Endit