Towards Franchising in Education? An Empirical Investigation Of Chains of Academies in England

Daniel Muijs, University of Southampton

David Reynolds, University of Southampton

Chris Chapman, University of Manchester

The context• Educational reform in England

• Moves towards greater autonomy of schools from local government

• Academies programme one for of this

The context• An academy:

– a school that is directly funded by central government

– independent of local government control

– may receive additional support from personal or corporate sponsors

– Self-governing though fully subject to government accountability regime

Chains of academies?• Academies programme started under Blair, but

rapidly expanding under Cameron

• Many academies run by a single sponsor, forming a chain

• Many chains take on traditional LA functions, though are often national

• Diverse set of sponsors and educational approaches

Chains of academies?• a group of three or more schools working together

under a common brand and governance framework. This structure is controlled by a central organising body that delegates some decision-making to the local level so school principals and local governance arrangements can adapt central ³chain policies² to their school and community context.

Theoretical framework• Educational effectiveness: what factors may make

one chain more effective than another?

• Franchise theory: what balance between central control and autonomy is optimal, and in what areas?

Research Questions• Do chains differ in terms of central control?

• Do chains differ in educational effectiveness?

Methodology• Preliminary documentary case study of four chains

Methodology• Centralisation measured on 21 items using 5-point

scale, e.g.

– Management appointments

– Target setting

– Vision

– Pedagogical project and materials

– Student selection policies

Results: do chains differ by centralisation?• No chains fully centralised or decentralised – range

from 47 to 76 (min=21, max=105)

• Significant diversity between chains

Results: Do chains differ in effectiveness?• Very preliminary analyses

• School contextual value added compared to predecessor schools

• Only schools opened in 2009 or earlier and 2005 and later (data issues)

• Not more than two predecessor schools

• 6 c1, 5 c2, 8 c3 meet criteria

Results – c1

Results – c2

Results – c3

Results – CVA pre and post

Chain Predecessor rolling average

Chain rolling average

C1 1010.39 1009.41

C2 923.1 1038.8

C3 976.3 1006.6

Conclusion• The more centralised chains appear more effective

– support for franchise model?

• Many caveats:

– C1 schools more recent joiners

– Missing data

– Causality

Conclusion• This first phase of study:

– More chains to be analysed

– Full models to be run

– More qualitative data to be collected