Tony Blair has invited the people to judge his legacy. Education was supposed to be the cornerstone of that legacy, the triple priority on which Britain's future was to be built.
In schools and universities there were plenty of headlines and ministerial activity over the past 10 years. There was also a massive injection of money - in both schools and higher education the Blair era will be marked in bricks and mortar. This in itself must surely have had some effect, although the annoying thing for politicians is that educational effects take years, even decades to show.
Two thoughtful commentators, Prof Alan Smithers and Sir David Watson today pass judgment on the Blair legacy in schools and universities. Both express a certain disappointment at the final achievement in the light of new Labour's high hopes and high spending.
At the London School of Economics, the Centre for Economic Performance has also produced its own balance sheet.
The record on universities seems to me better than elsewhere - improved science spending and the introduction of tuition fees, a genuinely progressive measure after messing it up when Labour first came to office in 1997.
But in schools there is nothing to match the radical shift to the national curriculum and testing under Margaret Thatcher and Kenneth Baker. Mr Blair seems to have felt he was doing the right thing by following in their footsteps with regard to the curriculum and on academies.
