Shadow education secretary tells Labour conference the schools will divide communities and disadvantage children with special educational needs
Free schools, one of the coalition government's flagship reforms, are the "most socially divisive education experiment" for 60 years, Ed Balls said today.
The shadow education secretary told the Labour conference in Manchester that research had shown that the schools, which are being founded by parents, teachers and private firms, will lower standards and increase inequality.
He said free schools, which are inspired by similar initiatives in Sweden and the United States, will divide communities and disadvantage children with special educational needs.
Balls, who was schools secretary for three years until the general election, warned that the current education secretary, Michael Gove, was intent on narrowing the curriculum. Gove wanted schools to only focus on "academic" subjects, he said. He accused Gove of encouraging teachers "to shun what he sneeringly calls 'soft' subjects like design and technology, construction, music, sports or dance".
"I really don't think [Gove has] got a clue about education in our country," he said. "We should celebrate our pupils' achievements and not keep running them down."
Balls said the coalition government's decision to scrap a £55bn school rebuilding programme Building Schools for the Future in July was "short-sighted and unfair". More than 700,000 children in 700 schools up and down our country would now not be getting the new school buildings they were promised, he said.
Balls told the conference that by shelving reforms started under the Labour government, the Tories would be depriving vulnerable children of the help they need to overcome special needs.
"I have had a stammer all of my life," he said. "That's why in the past I've often had to speak without notes. I only started to talk openly about this recently – since being in the cabinet – because it's only by talking about it, and being open about the challenge, that I've been able to deal with it.
"I was lucky. I am pretty tough. I have had help and support. But the lesson for me is clear. There are hundreds of thousands of children struggle with their speech, or communication or their reading or their learning or a disability which so often holds them back.
"Struggling on alone without support – and the understanding of those around you – will never get you through."
A spokesman for Michael Gove said the coalition government was giving teachers the powers they needed to keep discipline and "reversing the devaluation" of the curriculum and exam system.
"We are working closely with successful providers to identify new projects where academies will replace underperforming schools, to add to the substantial range of projects already in progress."