Yet anyone reading the document itself would surely have come away with a different - and arguably more encouraging - impression. Certainly there is cause for concern about what schools' greater independence may mean in practice. But the wording of these measures is precise, and does not imply that schools will be exempt from the Government's wider policy aims.
The proposed new freedoms will not help the joining-up process, but they need not directly hinder it.
Elsewhere in the strategy there is a welcome emphasis on the early years.
Its proposals include increased flexibility in nursery provision, as well as a commitment to enabling 1,000 primary schools to become extended schools. It also proposed increases in childcare and Children's Centres - plans further strengthened by the Chancellor's spending review on 12 July, in which he announced at least 120,000 more child care places and an extra 100m to increase the proposed number of children's centres to 2,500 by 2008.
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