Will May pass her first school test?

The report card for the British education system shows that it is not failing, as the latest international comparative research by the respected OECD makes clear.

But there are two respects in which it can and must do better:

1) in a fiercely competitive global economy, British schools lag the best in Asia and northern Europe, in equipping students with the skills they need to succeed;

2) a disproportionate number of those in top jobs, in business, the law, politics, media and all the commanding heights of our society, were educated in fee-paying schools (which even yielded a disproportionate number of our medal-winning Olympians).

Or to put it another way, the challenge for government is to continue to improve school standards in general (they have been on the rise) and to reverse the long-term decline in social mobility.

They are the criteria by which the school reforms to be unveiled today by Theresa May - and which are largely the homework of her working-class, grammar-school educated joint chief of staff Nick Timothy - should be judged.

Whether we like it or not, we are all to an extent the prisoners of where we come from (Larkin might have extended his "they f*** you up, your mum and dad", to "your mum and dad and your school" and the opposite also holds, that a good school can make all the difference).

In my case, I can't pretend to be anything but immensely proud of the north London comprehensive, Highgate Wood in Crouch End, that contributed hugely to my identity and abilities.

And one of Timothy's mantras is that he would not have been the first in his family to have got to university, or be where he is today, were it not for the brilliant grammar school he attended in Birmingham.

His firm conviction is that his privilege, at having had a first-class education thanks to having been bright enough to pass an exam aged 11, did not come at the price of an inferior education for those either lacking his ability or the many who develop more slowly.

But that is not a view widely shared, or even held by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Sir Michael Wilshaw.

Mr Wilshaw is utterly savage about Mrs May's ambition to encourage the creation of new grammar schools, fearing we would see a return to a pernicious two-tier schools system, in which those who don't make it to grammars would be condemned to mediocre schools and mediocre lives.

So what really matters is not the headlines of the policy - more grammar schools; removal of the restriction on the ability of faith schools to be set up, especially Catholic ones; pressure on universities to nurture good schools -but whether in the round these are rational reforms that both improve social mobility and raise standards in general.

To be clear, even if the government succeeds in its stated aim of preventing the successful middle classes from taking all the new grammar school places, that does not mean the reform would be widely seen as appropriate.

Even if life chances of a minority of supremely able children from poorer backgrounds - young Nick Timothys - were improved, if prospects for the rest declined that would probably neither be optimal for our economic prospects or seen as fair.

And Mrs May would have failed in her own terms too, since she acknowledges her great challenge to be the improvement of life prospects for ordinary people, those in households with incomes of £30,000 or less.

So what Mrs May and Mr Timothy have to demonstrate is that they are fostering a diverse educational ecosystem, in which prizes are won not just by those born to privilege or who happen to be endowed with particular talent.It is a noble aim, but hugely difficult - especially in a Britain where the thrust of underlying economic trends, normally characterised as"globalisation", tends to widen inequalities rather than narrow them.

Here's perhaps the big exam question for May and Timothy: are they creating the conditions for Britain and Britons to prosper or to languish in a global economy where every other country wants our lunch and is better placed than ever to take it.

Is Mayism a thoroughly modern investment in improving British competitiveness or dangerous nostalgia for grammar schools and jobs for life of an England that's gone forever?