Perverse reform  
Shirley Williams (“‘Perverse’ reform best left undone”, 9 April) is right to criticise the UK Government’s plans to turn all schools into academies. Academies are in effect government schools, contracted directly (or indirectly through the academy chain) to the Secretary of State with powers therefore to direct the governance of schools as she or he thinks fit. The partnership between central government, local government (with representatives of the local community) and the voluntary bodies (that is the Churches), which has slowly evolved since the 1902 Balfour Act and was so carefully enshrined in Butler’s 1944 Education Act, will be destroyed, and the independence of the Church over important matters of governance, religious education, selection of staff and admissions will be destroyed.

(Prof) Richard Pring
Green Templeton College, Oxford