Today the Conservatives have successfully blocked sections of the Children, Schools and Families Bill that posed a direct threat to the professional autonomy of heads and teachers and to the freedom of parents.
"This Bill would have meant a great new wave of bureaucracy swamping schools and it is good news that it has collapsed", a Conservative spokesman said. "Teachers will breathe a sigh of relief".
The Government have been forced to drop a series of pupil and parent "guarantees" that would have piled additional bureaucracy on to teachers and headteachers creating 38 new boxes to tick and taken time away from the classroom.
This Bill would have led to extra money being spent on more bureaucrats to enforce compliance rather than in the classroom. It would also have opened up schools to endless expensive and time-consuming litigation through the courts.
Conservatives believe the way to raise standards is not through bureaucracy but rather greater freedom for professionals. Academies which are not bound by the national curriculum and have freedom from bureaucratic intervention in running their schools have raised standards in some of the most deprived areas in the country.
Rather than bureaucrats or politicians dictating where and how children should be taught, professionals should be given greater to freedom to give children things like one to one and small group tuition where they feel it is needed.
Other sections blocked include:
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The "Licence to Teach", which would have been a Big Brother restriction on teachers that will do nothing to raise standards and will be an expensive and bureaucratic waste of time.
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A school report card that would have replaced league tables which give parents vital information about the quality of schools with a meaningless grade.
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Draconian proposals for the compulsory registration and monitoring of home educated children that were strongly opposed by home educators across the country.
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Proposals to deny parents the final say over the sex education of their children.
The spokesman said the Conservatives supported having better sex education but "the Government insisted on removing parents' rights to withdraw their children from classes they thought damaging - and we think parents must have such a right".
"We also opposed Balls' attempts to impose even more damaging red tape on teachers via his foolish new licensing scheme and we are glad that has been dropped."