There's nothing like a crisis for concentrating ministers' minds and getting things done.
You might say that today's sudden announcement that key stage 3 Sats tests for 14-year-olds in England are being abolished was put out during the week when Gordon Brown was saving the banking system - I couldn't possibly comment.
But it has the merit of being decisive and popular, with teachers, if not with the compilers of newspaper league tables.
Ed Balls, the children's secretary, did not underplay the significance of his announcement. "If you ask are we abolishing half the national testing system, yes we are."
And what about the other half – the key stage 2 Sats taken by 11-year-olds that form the basis of all primary school league tables?
Balls has established a review group to oversee the key stage 3 reforms, and it has also been charged with looking at the impact of tests on 11-year-olds and to tackle charges of teaching to the test.
That sounds rather as if the days of all Sats are numbered in England - they have already gone in Wales and never existed in Scotland - in favour of testing when the teacher thinks the child is ready. This system is already being piloted. Good news all round?
