Nearly a quarter of a million children travel well beyond their neighbourhood each day in the quest for a good education, a report by the Conservative thinktank, the Policy Exchange, will say this week.
According to its findings, 240,000 out of a population of almost 3 million pupils attend schools outside their local authorities. Half of the children in the worst local authorities choose to be taught in another council area and nearly a third of the enrolments in schools in good council areas come from elsewhere.
The phenomenon is more pronounced in London, where parents seem to be more demanding - almost one in four secondary pupils in London travelled outside their home boroughs during the 2006/7 school year. But it is not solely a London problem. Thousands in Hull, Leicester and Nottingham travel to schools in nearby counties.
The Tories have leapt on the figures to try and wrestle the "choice agenda" away from government. They would free schools from the stranglehold of local authorities and increase the number and types of suppliers by galvanising more independently run schools funded by taxpayers.
As far as Labour is concerned, this is the Tories simply copying its policies. It says the academies scheme provides the choice that parents seek for their children's education.
But the Policy Exchange concludes that, with thousands of parents (more than 20% in more than one fifth of local authorities) failing to get a place at their first-choice school, the government isn't providing enough high quality school places.
And it hints that Gordon Brown's version of the academies programme will throttle any chances it has of raising standards and therefore genuine parental choice.
