No, we have not betrayed a generation

The Spectator's two-part analysis of Labour's failure in education has caused fury at the apex of government. Here Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, claims that we were wrong 1 mpatience for improvements in education is something I share. It is not a new phenomenon: in 1439 William Bingham, a London rector, petitioned Henry VI about the 'great scarcity of masters of grammar'.

What amazes me in the modern age is our collective complacency on education since the war. The independent National Foundation for Educational Research pointed out in the early 1990s that reading results in primary schools scarcely budged for almost 50 years. Staggeringly, this appeared to placate governments of both colours who were simply concerned with ensuring that things didn't get worse.

In 1997 we rejected that quiet life. We set ourselves an ambitious task: to make farreaching social change in a country where the scales of justice and opportunity were tipped against the poor and where public services were suffering from years of neglect and underinvestment.

So we famously made education our number one priority and backed that commitment with a significant increase in funding, with spending on education rising from 4.5 per cent of national income in 1997 to 5.6 per cent today. We now spend on sports facilities alone roughly what was spent across the entire schools network in capital investment in 1997.

This investment in Britain's future has rebuilt crumbling schools, introduced modern IT, recruited 36,000 more teachers and 150,000 more support staff and paid them a decent wage. As a result, the ratio of pupils to adults is now far lower in both secondary schools and in primary schools.

I believe most taxpayers support this extra investment but (as The Spectator rightly says) we need to show that it is delivering results. So let me for the record state some indisputable facts.

In 1997 there were over 600 schools where less than a quarter of pupils obtained five good GCSEs; today there are only 47. A decade ago there were just 80 schools where over 70 per cent of the pupils achieved five good GCSEs; today that has risen to over 600. The percentage of pupils who got five good GCSEs was 45 in 1997, today it is 58.5.

The Spectator rightly points out that selective schools do better than the national average — no surprise when they select the top quartile of pupils. More offensive is the claim that achievements in the state sector are the result of 'grade inflation'. It's an easy headline, but it is not a view shared by the independent bodies whose job it is to monitor standards; nor by the Independent Committee on Examination Standards, which says that no examination system is so tightly managed as our own.

School success has improved faster in poorer areas, faster among underachieving groups, and faster in London. London had particular historic problems and achievement was low across the board. With extra support for headteachers and schools, inner London schools that were once written off have seen some of the biggest improvements in the country. The number of inner London pupils gaining five good GCSEs has doubled over the last decade.

These successes occurred through a combination of extra investment and continuing reform. Some of that reform has been difficult but essential. From the literacy and numeracy hours and tougher Ofsted inspections to including English and Maths in the GCSE league tables, we have not taken the easy road.

Perhaps the most contentious reform has been our academies programme, which deliberately targets areas of social, economic and educational deprivation. Most academies replace poorly performing state schools. They are non-selective, admitting more poorer pupils than the average in their areas, and they represent a successful model for tackling entrenched social disadvantage. Academies are improving results at six times the national rate, despite starting from a low base. That's why we will increase the pace of this reform.

Governments from across the world are keen to learn how we've made such advances at all levels since 1997 and frequently send their ministers and officials to Britain to learn from our reforms. The negative OECD evidence cited in your magazine showing England lagging behind our global competitors actually tracked a cohort of people who ended compulsory schooling in 1995.

So I would argue that our investment, the changes we have made and most importantly the hard work of teachers and pupils are delivering real results. That doesn't mean we can relax or assume that continued increases in investment will yield similar improvements in attainment. As Jim Collins identified in his book Good to Great, 'good' can be mandated but greatness has to be unleashed. That's the challenge for the next decade.

Our existing school targets allow parents to see how many pupils, at a general level, are reaching above a certain grade. This transparency and accountability has brought about massive improvements, with parents receiving proper information for the first time, and there will be no retreat from these reforms. But parents also want to know whether a school is enabling every child to reach their potential, irrespective of their starting point.

This is as important for the high achiever who is coasting as for the low achiever who is making insufficient progress. We are therefore introducing a new way of identifying and measuring the individual progress of every child. This will demonstrate to parents, in the simplest of terms, whether a child is making good enough progress at every stage of their education. It is about shifting responsibility and power away from the state and into the hands of those who are closest to what's going on, who care most deeply about the outcomes.

There will be more individual tuition to help those pupils who are falling behind and we'll pilot `testing when ready' alongside the existing end of key-stage tests. These will provide a timely, easily understood signal to parents helping to engage them, and motivate pupils to reach the next level.

I do not disagree when The Spectator argues that the state and the independent sector have much to learn from each other. Indeed I want the barriers between them to be removed, not so that we can return to an assisted places scheme that benefits a few, but to use the skills and resources of private schools to the benefit of all children and the wider community.

The new Charities Act will require private schools to do more to justify their charitable status I think that should involve the sharing of teachers with maintained schools, more community access to their superior facilities, and the involvement of private schools in academies and trust schools. Winston Churchill said to the boys at Harrow in December 1940 that 'after the war the advantages of the public schools must be extended on a far broader basis'.

Private schools get better results principally because they select their pupils and have greater financial resources — which is why investment in the state sector is so important. We will have matched the independent sector in respect of capital funding by 2010. In the long term we want to match spending per pupil as well.

The Spectator argued that a generation of British children have been betrayed. This gross distortion, with its out-of-date statistics, uninformed analysis and unwillingness to face up to the failure of the previous government, does at least show an interest in state education among people who, by and large, have little experience of it.