What's the difference?

How do you feel about this idea that all schools should become Academies?  I think I've mentioned before that in my opinion, the closer you can get decision making to the "sharp end" the better that decision making is likely to be.  I'm a great believer in the "lowest level of competence" approach (see 12/4/09). And the point about Academies is that, as regards schools, decision making is taken out of the hands of local authorities and put in the hands of the teachers - well, head teacher actually - and clearly this has the potential to result in decisions being made in the best interests of the school rather than the best interests of local politicians.