The introduction of academy schools was opposed, notably by teachers' trade unions and some high-profile members within the Labour Party, such as former party leader Lord Kinnock.
Academies have continued to be controversial, and their existence has frequently been opposed and challenged by some politicians, commentators, teachers, teachers' unions, and parents. Even after several years of operation and with a number of academies open and reporting successes, the programme continues to come under attack for creating schools that are said to be, among other things, a waste of money, selective, damaging to 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 House of Commons Education and 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". The Select Committee was concerned that the promising results achieved by some academies may be due to increased exclusions of harder-to-teach pupils. They noted that two Middlesbrough academies had expelled 61 pupils, compared to just 15 from all other secondary schools in the borough.
The programme of creating academies has also been heavily criticised by some for handing schools to private sector entrepreneurs who in many cases have no experience of the education sector - most infamously, the Evangelical Christian car dealer, Sir Peter Vardy, who has been accused of promoting the teaching of creationism alongside macroevolution in his Emmanuel Schools Foundation academies. This is also linked to the wider debate in the education sector as to the benefits or otherwise of 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 (one estimate puts it at "more than half") being sponsored either by religious groups or organisations/individuals with a religious affiliation.
Former leader of the Labour Party Neil Kinnock has criticised the academies scheme saying that they were a "distortion of choice" and risked creating a "seller's market" with "schools selecting parents and children instead of parents selecting schools".
There are indications that several city academies are failing. Ofsted has placed the Unity City Academy in Middlesbrough and the Richard Rose Central Academy in Carlisle under special measures, heavily criticised the West London Academy in Ealing and condemned standards at the Business Academy in Bexley, Kent.
The Richard Rose Central Academy in Carlisle, sponsored by Eddie Stobart owner Andrew Tinkler, and local businessman Brian Scowcroft opened in September 2008. By January 2009, there were protests by parents and pupils regarding poor quality education and school facilities. The school was found to be failing and was placed in special measures, with the headmaster and chief executive being immediately replaced.
The original City Academy programme was attacked for its expense: it cost on average £25m to build an academy under this scheme, much of which was taken up by the costs of new buildings. Critics contend that this is significantly more than it costs to build a new local authority school. Some operators are paying senior staff six-figure salaries, partly funded by central government.
In 2012, the academy scheme was applied to primary schools. The government began transforming some schools that had been graded Satisfactory or lower by Ofsted into academies, in some cases removing existing governing bodies and Head Teachers. An example was Downhills Primary School in Haringey, where the Head resisted turning the school into an academy. Ofsted were called in to assess the school, and placed it in Special Measures. The head and the Governing Body were removed and replaced with a Government-appointed board. There was opposition from the school and parents.
A parliamentary report in 2015, entitled "Free Schools and Academies", recommends that "In the meantime the Government should stop exaggerating the success of academies and be cautious about firm conclusions except where the evidence merits it. Academisation is not always successful nor is it the only proven alternative for a struggling school".
In 2016 a major study by the Education Policy Institute found no significant differences in performance between Academies and local council run schools, and that multi-academy trusts running at least five schools performed worse than local council run schools.