As the Labour party tears itself apart over the education bill due next week, perhaps it's time to step back and ask how the "education, education, education" government has done so far.
Step forward the London School of Economics centre for economic performance to deliver a magisterial school report on what's been happening in English education since 1997. (Scotland and Wales now do their own thing with less and less reference to the Blair project.)
On spending there is no argument. "The government has committed significantly greater resources to education and training. Expenditure on education and training as a percentage of GDP was 4.9% in 1987/88 - and was still at that level in 1997/98. By 2003/04, it had risen to 5.5%, which is a little below the OECD average (5.7% in 2002).
"In real terms, public expenditure on education and training increased by 19% during the last two terms of the Conservative government (1987/88 to 1996/97) whereas it has increased by 36% over
the first two terms of the Labour government (1996/97 to 2003/04)."
And the LSE examiners conclude that this spending has had an effect. The number of teachers increased by 12,300 between 2001 and 2004. And class sizes have fallen: currently, 88% of primary pupils are taught in a class of no more than 30 pupils, compared with 72% in 1997.
But what about pupils' attainment? Attainment at school has improved in recent years, but there are concerns about the extent to which this reflects 'teaching to the test' and why, despite impressive improvements in primary school attainment in the late 1990s, this has subsequently stalled.
"The upward trend in attainment does not necessarily mean that the government's policies are working," they caution.
"Results may improve because teachers get better at teaching what is on the test rather than imparting
more 'real' knowledge. Even if the increases in attainment were genuine, the relationship between
expenditure and performance is hard to disentangle because general school expenditure is linked to
the degree of disadvantage in the school.
"More convincing evidence comes from studies of interventions such as Excellence in Cities, a policy
involving extra resources for schools in disadvantaged areas. Research shows that an extra £120 per
pupil expenditure leads to an increase of 1-2% in the number of pupils achieving the target (level 5) in
key stage 3 maths.
"When examining the impact of Excellence in Cities on particular sub-groups, the effect is much more
impressive. For example, it has delivered a 2.9 to 4.8 percentage point increase in the number of
pupils achieving level 5 or above in key stage 3 maths for the most able pupils in schools with the
highest rate of deprivation. This improvement has resulted from a 4.4 percentage point increase in per
pupil expenditure in these schools.
"But despite the success of such policies, the change in educational performance in the most disadvantaged local authorities remains stubbornly low," says the LSE report.
And on Tony Blair's flagship academies which are at the root of his current battles with his party? The LSE jury is still out it seems. "These are generally newly built (or extensively re-modelled) independent state schools fixed up with stateof- the-art equipment.
"The policy involves a heavy financial outlay and the involvement of the private sector (which
contributes about a fifth of the capital cost and also has a say in how the school is run). The reports adds (from the fence): "Although the cost is substantial, radical measures may be the only way to bolster performance among the hardest-to-reach pupils."
