Karl Marx is the latest and perhaps most unlikely person enrolled by Michael Gove in support of free schools.

Marx – whose dictum that "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce" could have been an observation on Gove's struggle to reform the national history curriculum – and his followers are cited by the education secretary as supporters of free schools, the controversial policy of state-funded schools outside of local authority control.

"Marxists support free schools because they embody the ideal of the soviet, a self-managing institution run by workers in the wider public interest," Gove writes in the Guardian.

His comments come as Ofsted releases its full set of inspection reports for the 24 free schools in England that opened their doors in 2011. The results show that the first group has modestly outperformed their traditional state school peers.

Three-quarters of the free schools are rated by Ofsted as outstanding or good, compared with two-thirds of maintained state schools inspected in the first quarter of this year. While four of the new schools earned Ofsted's highest rating of "outstanding", only one was given an "inadequate" rating: the Discovery New School in Crawley, Sussex. Five others were given a "requires improvement" rating.

"For any group of 24 schools, these results would be a cause for celebration. If a single local authority performed this well, we would applaud its commitment to excellence. But these schools have had no external support from local authorities or political sugar daddies," Gove writes.

Last month Stephen Twigg, Labour's shadow education secretary, pledged that a Labour government would end the opening of free schools.

Two of the four free schools rated as outstanding are part of the Ark Academy chain: the Ark Conway primary school in Hammersmith, west London, and the Ark Atwood primary academy in Westminster. They received the highest grade in all of the Ofsted categories, with inspectors praising "the way the rich cultural heritage of the community is celebrated" and, in the case of Atwood, the progress made by pupils with special educational needs. One of the outstanding free schools was the All Saints junior school, a tiny primary school in Reading with just 44 pupils. Inspectors were impressed by the school's library, which is open to students before the school day's teaching begins.

So far 81 free schools have opened, with a further 200 in the pipeline over the next two years. According to Department for Education figures, the total number of open and proposed free schools will create 130,000 new school places when full.

Critics say that the lack of coordination in the opening and planning of free schools means they are an inadequate solution to the severe shortage of places looming in the next few years.

Writing on Thursday, Gove says that John Stuart Mill – who never attended school and turned down a place at Oxbridge, unlike Gove – and his liberal supporters would also have embraced free schools because they embody Mill's "vision of the state paying for universal education through schools run by autonomous bodies".