Leading article: Reform schools

The Prime Minister's Academy programme has come in for a good deal of flak, as Hilary Wilce points out on page 4. Tony Blair must have expected a big dose of opprobrium, because what he was doing was so ambitious. You cannot set out to make over some of the worst schools in the country - those with the worst exam results and the least motivated pupils - and expect fast change. Improvements, if they come, will be slow and painful. These were schools that local education authorities had failed to improve over decades. If they can attract dynamic new heads and teachers, the reform will have been worth it.