This week, The Northern Echo revealed that a Government summit will examine poor GCSE results at 22 of the region's secondary schools.

The article triggered a furious response from headteachers, and a letter from the Children's Secretary, Ed Balls. Political Correspondent Robert Merrick reports

LABOUR has a good story to tell about steadily improving GCSE results during its 11 years in power - but Gordon Brown knows that too many schools have missed out. That is why the Prime Minister, in his first education speech last October, was determined to send out the message that he had what he called an "agenda to end failure".

This agenda set out a new benchmark for success - 30 per cent of pupils achieving five GCSEs no lower than grade C which, crucially, must include English and maths, the most important subjects.

It also contained a new threat to any school falling short. It would either be shut down, turned into a privately-sponsored city academy, or taken over by a successful school - either state or private.

Mr Brown could not have been more unequivocal, telling his audience: "This is a determined and systematic agenda to end failure. We will see it through. We will not flinch from the task."

In case anyone was in any doubt, in March, the Government brought forward the deadline for hitting the 30 per cent target to 2011 - only three years away.

However, it was only when the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) crunched the numbers from last year's GCSE results that those schools guilty of "failure" could be identified.

There are 638 of them, including in County Durham (four), North Yorkshire (four), Middlesbrough (four), Redcar and Cleveland (three), Stockton (three), Darlington (two) and Hartlepool (two).

Since Monday, headteachers of many of the schools identified have protested at being described as "failing", arguing passionately that there are better ways of judging success than a figure plucked from thin air.

And, in a letter to The Northern Echo, Mr Balls wrote that many of the 638 schools were doing "absolutely brilliant work in difficult circumstances", saying: "I have never described these as failing schools."

That may be true, but there is one problem. It is not The Northern Echo that introduced the word "failure" to describe these schools - it was Mr Balls' boss, the Prime Minister, last October.

Mr Balls is also keen to point out that his June summit is designed to find ways to offer "extra help over the coming months", rather than to warn of possible closure.

And there can be no doubt that he is desperate to boost results quickly at these 638 schools, rather than launch a wideranging - and probably unpopular - closure and takeover programme.

But it is only a little over six months since Mr Brown set the policy and asked Mr Balls to implement it. The Children's Secretary has not repudiated it - in fact, he has speeded it up. Furthermore, a statement issued by the DCSF on Monday specifically referred to "closure" for any school missing the target, while insisting that would "always be a last resort". Make no mistake, the threat is there.

The difficulty for the Children's Secretary - who is passionate about improving state education - is when a general condemnation of "failure" by Mr Brown is narrowed down to named schools.

The Prime Minister wins good headlines with his pledge to "end failure", but it is his minister who must face the headteachers and governors of the schools to which he is referring.

Mr Balls is smart enough to know that threats and harsh criticism of schools, many of which serve the most deprived areas of the country, can crush motivation and shatter morale.

Perhaps, before his summit gets under way next month, he should tell the Prime Minister.