DCSF targets are a load of 'Balls'

According to the Daily Mail, more than half of Whitehall's education targets will be missed. The official report shows 23 out of 53 goals have already been missed, while there is "slippage" in progress towards another seven and a further three are recorded as "cannot be assessed" or "yet to be assessed'. Failures include drives to raise standards in the three Rs and curb truancy.

The autumn report for the Department for Children, Schools and Families records progress against all targets set since 1998, which cover everything from maths and English standards to teenage pregnancy, obesity and joblessness among young people.
The failures cast serious doubt on Government claims to be investing in schools in return for reform - Labour has nearly doubled education spending from £29billion in 1997 to £63.7billion this year.

Opponents also said the Government had fallen foul of its own target-setting culture. For example, a target set in 2002 to reduce truancy by a third has been spectacularly missed with unauthorised absences running at their highest recorded level.

The Government has now dropped national targets for curbing truancy.
Progress in other areas, including a drive to reduce the teenage pregnancy rate by 50 per cent by 2010, has already slipped, the report reveals.