The DfE’s sidelining of the user perspective through the academies scheme

The Department for Education is in complete denial about the importance of meaningful parental engagement in the governance of state-funded schools.

Strong evidence for this was provided in the DfE’s response on Thursday to the Commons Education Select Committee’s inquiry into the work of multi-academy trusts.

The DfE’s responses to this inquiry, and to another on assessment, which was also published on Thursday, seem a case study in a government effectively putting its fingers in its ears and vowing to continue on exactly its previous path, as I wrote briefly on the day.

But the section in the MAT response seemed to me to be particularly striking.

The DfE’s response quotes a section in the select committee’s report, published more than nine  months ago and which has resonated very powerfully since, which ran as follows: