This article critically examines the Labour Party's policies for local school systems, focusing on its proposals for regional Directors of School Standards, for academies and free schools, and for local democracy, and offers an alternative approach.

Free schools are new state-funded but privately-run schools set up under the academies legislation. Free schools represent the most overtly market-oriented policy within the Conservative-led Coalition government's school reform programme in England and have provoked intense controversy, centering on issues of pupil attainment, social equality,…

The unprecedented extent of privatisation of provision in the school system on a for-profit basis is clearly one of the most significant transformations accomplished by the Blair government. However, another aspect of private sector involvement has proved much more problematic: the direct involvement of employers in the formation of the future…