We've come a long way in three short years

The Government View

In May 1997, we were elected on a schools reform programme more detailed than any government in recent times. We have been delivering since, as The Independent series has shown.

In May 1997, we were elected on a schools reform programme more detailed than any government in recent times. We have been delivering since, as The Independent series has shown.

Improving primary education has been central in our first three years - and our key policies began to develop with the literacy task force before the election. A numeracy task force was set up in government. From their conclusions, we introduced the daily literacy and numeracy hours. We faced criticism when we did so. The Tories claim they are too "prescriptive". Teaching unions said they meant too much work. But most parents recognised them as long overdue.

They are now working (as Hilary Wilce recognised in her article in the series), and we have provided extra guidance to help teachers working with gifted children and those with special needs. Indeed, not only did English and maths results improve last year, we saw similar improvements at level five, the best indicator of achievement among gifted pupils.

With the new focus has come better teaching and a structured approach with spelling, grammar and basic arithmetic back on the timetable. Teacher training has been reformed to meet the challenge. We set "impossible" targets which we are now on course to meet.

Smaller infant classes were a part of the package. We saw the reduction in the size of infant classes as complementing the new teaching of the 3Rs. There too, we are succeeding with 300,000 fewer infants in classes over 30 than at the election.

Our critics said it would affect older primary pupils. In fact, the numbers are down. It will hurt choice, they said. In fact, over 12,000 more places (net) have been created in popular schools. And secondary classes remain much smaller than primary classes.

If primary has been a clear success story, what then of diversity and improvement in secondary schools? You ignored the big expansion in specialist schools - up to nearly 500 this year and 800 planned for 2003. These are an essential part of our programme, as are the new beacon schools which share good practice between schools.

Wendy Berliner praised Independent State School Partnerships, but missed the decision to bring independent Muslim and Sikh schools into the state sector. We have also introduced crucial teaching reforms which will give teachers a proper career structure and performance-related promotion for classroom teachers for the first time - worth £2,000 a year extra for good performance - and the long-awaited new General Teaching Council.

Excellence in Cities is as important in reforming inner city school as the development of education action zones, which Ben Russell covered. In Excellence in Cities, we have since September 1999 sought to bring systematic improvements to every secondary school in our major cities. Each secondary school has a programme for gifted pupils, mentors to deal with truancy and disaffection and access to learning support units to remove disruptive pupils from the classroom. There are computer-rich learning centres, specialist and beacon schools as well - and schools and Local Education Authorities (LEAs) are working towards real improvementsin results.

Judith Judd began the series with a trenchant critique of our failing schools policy. However, the central point in the policy is that we must not leave schools to drift in failure because doing so lets down those pupils for whom school may be their only real chance to get out of poverty. The choice is between saving a school and losing it all together.

What we also argue is that expectations should not automatically be lower for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, but that extra resources are needed (as in the programmes described earlier) to overcome the effects of that disadvantage. Our critics often ignore that last part of the equation.

The main purpose of the policy is to ensure that failing schools are turned around quickly. As Judith Judd acknowledges, the real success story is that so many schools come out of special measures. In fact, the time it takes to turn around a failing school is now 17 months on average, compared to 25 months under the last government. But that can't be the whole answer. The most important change we introduced for failing schools was a target of two years for them to be turned around, closed or given a fresh start.

If a school hasn't been turned around in that time, a fresh start will continue to be the alternative to closure. Keeping a failing school failing with the same head and staff is hardly a long-term solution. It would be astonishing if such interventions in some of the poorest performing schools in the country had occurred without any problems. While two heads found it difficult to run a Fresh Start school, there are other heads who are making a success of Fresh Start.

City Academies will be an important opportunity for a new beginning in some inner city areas, with greater independence and flexibility, building on the best of American charter schools and City Technology Colleges. They complement our existing programmes and will not replace the need for a Fresh Start in some schools.

We move forward by taking on difficult problems, not brushing them under the carpet. This is also why the new targets I set for weak schools are so important. It is why we are focusing more on secondary school achievement at Key Stage Three and helping 12-year-olds who are weak in the 3Rs.

As with schools where we have had weak local education authorities or further education colleges, we have acted rather than shouting abuse from the sidelines.

Underpinning all of this change has been a huge increase in resources. This is not "overplaying the figures" and Tony Travers's article was the weakest in the series because it failed to recognise how things have changed under Labour. There are four key points.

First, we are spending more in schools than ever before. Contrary to Mr Travers's assertions, we are increasing support for schools by much more than an extra "2 or 3 per cent". The increase in education spending in real terms between 1999-2000 and between 2000- 2001 is almost 9 per cent throughout the UK and over 10 per cent in English schools. Schools did not "lose their position" to the NHS - the Red Book states that funding for the NHS will increase by 7.4 per cent in real terms in 2000-2001.

Second, the average real terms increase in education spending during the seven Budgets that John Major introduced was around 1.8 per cent, whereas with the three Budgets so far under this Government, the average has been 4.5 per cent.

Third, per pupil funding fell by £60 in real terms between 1994-95 and 1997-98. Under this Government, it will increase from £2,777 in 1997-98 to £3,096 in 2000-01 - an increase of over £300 per pupil. In this year alone it has risen by £180. And that doesn't even include capital.

And, fourth, Mr Travers ignores capital spending. In 1997-98, £586m was available to spend on capital improvements in schools. This year, there is £1,800m available. Overall, investment of £5.9bn by this Government means that over twice as many schools will benefit as would have been the case if we stuck to Tory spending plans.

In our first Budget in 1998-99 we did not see a big increase in spending. However, we increased planned spending by £835m. Had we not done so, up to 25,000 teachers would have lost their jobs. We also introduced the New Deal for Schools that year too. The 1997-98 Budget was a Major/Clarke responsibility, agreed and distributed well before the May 1997 election and was certainly not "Labour education spending".

These are real figures which are having a real impact after years of cuts. This year, for example, our plans for local authority schools spending have increased by £2.2bn overall, including an increase of over £500m in our contribution to the Standards Fund and £350m in direct grants to schools.

So far, we have 6,000 more teachers in our schools and 17,000 schools are benefiting from repairs and modernisation, including replacing temporary classes, repairing windows and roofs and improving heating and toilet facilities.

It has supported training and resources for the literacy and numeracy programmes. It has enabled 8,100 more primary schools to be linked to the internet. It is supporting more units for disruptive pupils, extra money for school music, new nursery places for three-year-olds, more books in school libraries. These are real, tangible results of the extra resources.

Our approach is something for something. That's why we have targets as well as funding. I accept that we have still more to do. I also accept that there are times when policies need to be improved - as I will today when I talk to the NASUWT about discipline and exclusions or as we seek to get the balance of bureaucracy right. I doubt anyone could deny that with the help of teachers, heads and governors, we have already done a lot in three short years. But I would be the first to acknowledge that we still have a lot more to do.