Beyond Blair

If ministers discuss it at all, they do so in whispers. But by their actions they seem to be shuffling away from the educational policies of Tony Blair. Gone is the former prime minister's insistence that vocational and academic qualifications must remain separate. Fast fading from memory, too, is the provocative war cry of the final Blair years, "every school an independent school". The current education secretary, Ed Balls, wants schools to cooperate more than ever - with each other, with social services, and with those local authorities that Mr Blair once seemed keen to freeze out. Most dramatic of all is the change on admissions. Only the threat of parliamentary mutiny persuaded a reluctant Mr Blair to accept a new legal code that bans various ruses that schools use to select pupils from well-heeled families. But now it falls to the Brown government to implement that code - and there is nothing reluctant about the way in which it is doing so.

Yesterday Mr Balls released analysis he had commissioned into how admissions are working. He went out of his way to stress that the code was being breached in very many - one in six - of the schools studied, and that particularly grievous offenders had been found to be breaching the rules on as many as 10 different counts. In six cases schools had asked prospective parents for cash contributions. If state schools pick their pupils after passing round the brown envelope, that is a serious breach of the comprehensive principle, even if there is not firm proof that this was determining their admissions decisions. The question, though, is what will be done about it. Mr Balls proposes that the schools adjudicator, who currently reviews decisions only when disappointed parents demand it, should be transformed into a proactive policeman. Councils will be required to assess whether local schools are respecting the rules, and where they find fault to pass details on to the adjudicator.

Just how many poor children will really see their education improved is open to question, not least because good local schools drive up house prices in a way that ensures rich families will continue to secure the best places. It is harder to dispute, however, that Mr Balls is making a real attempt to shake up the process to egalitarian ends. If he succeeds, social justice will be advanced - though perhaps at a political cost. The corollary of more poor children getting into the best schools is likely to be more affluent parents ending up disappointed. Pledges to raise standards across the board may prove a less effective answer to middle-class anxieties than the eye-catching Conservative idea of financing thousands of additional places in good schools - even if that would be a wasteful approach at a time when the school rolls are falling.

The emerging differences of principle may prove less decisive in the political battle than the practical question of money. That is the issue about to spark teachers' first national walkout in 21 years. The National Union of Teachers this week voted for a one-day strike on pay, despite the fact that it has recently been enjoying a rapprochement with the government on most other issues. With some justice, the NUT complains that with overall inflation at 4.1%, the 2.45% rise offered amounts to a pay cut. But when two-thirds of members did not take part in the ballot, and when other teaching unions oppose the action, it is not likely to succeed - and especially not when ministers know that any cave-in would spell disaster for their relations with other professions, such as the police, that have received even stingier settlements. Even so, the strike will attract more attention than almost anything the government can do. After the long years of plenty, the public expenditure slowdown is starting to hurt. Its effects could overwhelm any new ideas the Brown government has - even where, as in education, these ideas are refreshing.