I am writing this ahead of the vote in Parliament on Labour’s Education Bill, the outcome of which still seems in the balance – which makes picking words that will make sense when read after the result interesting! But regardless of the outcome of that vote, it will mark a missed opportunity – for so much of the debate has been around Labour party politics (“will the Bill pass?”, “will Tony need Tory support to get the Bill through?”, “have the Labour rebels got any more concessions?” and so on and on) rather than about what is needed to make schools as good as possible.

For there is no doubt, that some urgent improvements in our education systems are needed. Here in Haringey, there are two major challenges – raising standards, especially in the east of the borough, and providing more school places, especially in the west of the borough. The latest figures dug out from Haringey Council by my colleague Cllr Gail Engert (Lib Dem, Muswell Hill) show that 189 children have not been offered a place at any of the up to six secondary schools their parents have applied for. That is a massive crisis in the applications system – and makes a mockery of Labour’s mantra of providing parent choice. It is no choice when 189 children do not even get the bottom option asked for.

This is but one aspect of the bigger problems with the use of choice as Labour’s preferred tool for improving schools. First, for choice to be meaningful there have to be enough places available – and in Haringey, as in many other places, there clearly are not. Second, “enough places” actually means a surplus of places – because if there is to be real choice, there need to be enough spaces to accommodate different choices. This all would require a massive investment in building up a large surplus of extra school places – yet would this really be the best way of spending money?

Moreover, it is not just an issue as regards money. Top quality, talented staff for schools are often in short supply -as with maths teachers and head teachers. For many schools it is hard enough to get enough such people, let alone what would be required to build up an extra surplus of capacity to make real choice meaningful.

What of course happens instead is that without enough places to go around to really service choice, there are those lucky parents who manage to work the system best and get their children in the schools they want, leaving other parents out in the colds. Of course parents are going to try to do the best for their children but what sort of choice is it where the schools children end up depends in large part on how good their parents are at filling forms, working bureaucracy or able to pay for a home in the right catchment area or a place at a private school? I make no apologies for doing all I could to get the best education for my own two daughters, but I know the real answer is not just for me to be able to look after my own daughters, but for all parents to be able to get the best deal too.

After all, what is meant to happen to those who don’t get the choices they seek? You don’t get to rewind your kid’s body clock and try his or her school years again. So, whilst giving parents choice over schools is important, to me the key is raising the standards of all schools. We need to do that by giving teachers the resources they need, cutting back on bureaucracy and form filling and by giving real accountability to the local community, not standards-obsessed Whitehall people.

There’s rather a tendency in our culture to latch on to American phrases and fads at the drop of a hat, but I do particularly like the phrase given to one education act – “No child left behind.” As it was a measure pushed by George W Bush, I don’t agree with all its contents (!), but the phrase has just the right message to it – and one we should all aspire to here. As long as Labour sticks to choice as its main policy for improving schools, that aim won’t be achieved.