Interesting piece in the Guardian today highlighting how business sponsors are making money out of academies. This links to a long-running debate about the role of business in schools. Governments since the Labour government in the 1970s have been keen to get businesses involved – primarily to ensure that schools meet the needs of employers – but many have found it difficult to get business people to give up their time and become involved in schools, whether as governors or sponsors. Since then, subsequent governments have attempted to incentive businesses to get involved in schools. Involving individuals and companies in schools is clearly going to lead to attempts to exploit money-making opportunities. This used to be limited to ‘soft-marketing’ opportunities provided to companies that are able to gain from their association. But clearly there are other opportunities, as highlighted by this Guardian article:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jun/12/academy-schools-cash-cow-business
For a background into some of the issues, see this paper (now a little dated):
http://csp.sagepub.com/content/26/4/817.abstract