By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent Labour is calling for a more "coherent" way of running the different types of state-funded schools in England, including academies and free schools.
Former education secretary David Blunkett has published a report calling for all state schools to be co-ordinated under local control.
He proposes local "Directors of School Standards" to monitor schools.
Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said they would provide "robust local oversight of all schools".
The government argues that free schools and academies are already held more rigorously to account than council-run schools - but is in the process of introducing its own regional school commissioners to monitor academies' performance.
This blueprint from Labour sets out a structure for how different categories of state schools, with separate forms of accountability, should be co-ordinated in local areas.
Academies and free schools, which currently operate outside council education services, would be monitored by these local directors, who could intervene if there were problems with underperformance.
Academies, which have autonomy over staffing and the curriculum, are now the majority of secondary schools.
Under Labour's plans they would become accountable to these new directors and would not return to local authority control.
Council schools would also be under the scrutiny of these local "standards tsars", with one in each local authority area.
Extra placesPlanning for extra places and creating new schools would also be the responsibility of these directors of school standards, who would be appointed by councils from a list of candidates approved by the education secretary.
Labour says that this would provide a more consistent form of oversight - and would be more effective in identifying problems with academies and free schools.
It highlights concerns over the E-Act academy chain and the Al-Madinah free school.
Mr Blunkett's report said it was "unsustainable" and "undemocratic" to have thousands of individual schools "contractually bound to the secretary of state and free-floating from the communities they serve".
"All publicly funded schools should be held to the highest standard - without fear or favour," said Mr Blunkett, who was Tony Blair's first education secretary.
'Fragile' schools"New local directors of school standards will monitor, support and challenge schools to improve, driving up standards in underperforming and 'fragile' schools - irrespective of the status of school. This has to be an agenda of high standards and fairness for all."
Labour's current education spokesman, Tristram Hunt, welcomed that this report drew on the lessons of the London Challenge programme, which aimed to support struggling schools and improve results in schools in the capital.
"Spreading this success means an end to Michael Gove's 'sink or swim' schools policy, with new and robust local oversight of all schools to root-out underperformance. That's what directors of school standards will bring," said Mr Hunt.
A Department for Education spokesman said: "We have consistently demonstrated quick and decisive action if children are being denied the education they deserve, no matter what type of school they attend.
"We moved to close Discovery New School just seven months after its inadequate Ofsted rating, while Al Madinah is already seeing real improvements thanks to our swift intervention.
"In contrast, local authorities have presided over schools which have been in special measures year on year and done nothing. There are currently 40 council-run schools that have been in special measures for 18 months or longer.
"Since its inception, the academies programme has freed schools from interference by politicians and bureaucrats and put teachers back in the driving seat.
"It is thanks to this government's reforms, including the expansion of the academies programme, that the number of pupils being taught in failing secondary schools has fallen by 250,000 since 2010."
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