Opposition/criticism
Academies are considered controversial and the policy questioned from their inception, both politically and educationally. Even after several years of operation and with a number of Academies open and reporting successes there are frequently calls made in the media and education sector to either scrap the programme or radically reduce it. The Academy policy is often attacked for creating schools that are (for example) a waste of money, selective, a negative impact on the schools and communities around them, forced on parents who do not want them and a move towards privatisation of education by "the back door". The truth of the matter is often difficult to ascertain with many sections of the media and education sector dogmatically negatively presenting one side of the argument and the government staunchly defending the policy with little call for debate.

The House of Commons Education & Skills Select Committee reported in March 2005 that it would have been wiser to limit the programme to 30 or 50 academies in order to evaluate the results before expanding the programme, and that "the rapid expansion of the Academy policy comes at the expense of rigorous evaluation."[6] This view is also held by the Liberal Democrats who stated in their 2005 election manifesto that they would suspend the creation of any new Academies if they came to power (although they did not commit to abolishing the programme).

The committee was concerned that the good results achieved by some Academies may be because they excluded harder to teach pupils and reduced the proportion of those from deprived backgrounds, whom they were intended to serve. They noted two Middlesbrough Academies had expelled 61 pupils, compared to just 15 from all other secondary schools in the borough, and in one Academy the number of pupils entitled to free school meals had fallen to 47% compared to nearly 60% at its predecessor school.

The programme of creating Academies has also been heavily criticised for handing schools to private sector entrepreneurs who in many cases have no experience of the education sector - most notoriously, the Evangelical Christian car dealer, Sir Peter Vardy, who has been accused of pushing the teaching of creationism in two academies he sponsors in Gateshead and Middlesbrough (the latter being The King's Academy). This is also linked to the wider concerns held in the education sector as to the growing role of religion in the school system being promoted by the New Labour government in general, and Tony Blair in particular, with many Academies being sponsored either by religious groups or organisations/individuals with a religious bias.

The past failings of the Unity Academy in Middlesbrough and the West London Academy in Ealing have been highlighted as indications that the programme is not wholly successful.[7] However since these claims were made both schools have started to improve after intervention from the DfES, and West London Academy's recent OFSTED inspection commented on how much the school had improved in a very short space of time. It is also widely held that sponsors "run" or control Academies, although in reality this falls to the governing body and the principal (however the majority of the members of the governing body are initially chosen by the sponsor giving the sponsor a strong role in the direction that the school takes).

The programme has further been attacked for its expense: typically it costs on average £25m to build an Academy (more in London) much of which is taken up by the costs of new building. It is frequently cited that this is more than a new school although these comparisons are often drawn between the total cost of building an Academy including start up grant and all initial outlay, and the cost of a new school building for a maintained school. That said Academies are not cheap in real terms, although the Government and sponsors maintain that it is money well spent to help those that the Academies serve (namely disadvantaged and chronically low performing children in deprived areas).

In Newcastle upon Tyne the City's deprived West End is to see the replacement of West Gate Community College by Excelsior Academy. Its wealthy sponsor, Lord Irvine Laidlaw, lived as a tax exile on Monaco for almost two decades, thereby avoiding the payment of at least £50 million in UK taxes. He is now to receive £25 million from the Exchequer in order to fund this venture. Observers on Tyneside have asked how many schools a UK based Laidlaw might have provided through normal payment of taxes, and are perplexed that this arrangement is not considered a national scandal.