UK turning every school into a charter school!

The BBC reports:

Chancellor George Osborne has used his Budget speech to say all schools in England will become academies and extend the school day.

Schools must become academies by 2020 or have official plans to do so by 2022, he told MPs. …

Mr Osborne said: “Providing schooling is the single most important thing we can do to help children from a disadvantaged background to succeed.”

It was also the single most important thing that could be done to boost the long term success of the country, he added.

Therefore, he pledged to “set schools free” from local bureaucracy, so by 2020 all schools must have converted or be in the process of converting to academy status.

This is huge.

Academy schools are very similar to charter schools. They have enhanced flexibility. They were set up by Labour and have proved so popular that half the schools are now academy schools.