New Zealand reading skill takes a drop, reads the headline in today's Herald, reporting breathlessly that New Zealand has fallen from 13th to 24th place in the Progress in International Reading Study. But then it goes on to say:
But despite dropping on the list, New Zealand students have maintained a consistently high standard of reading in the past five years.So, while the headline says we got worse, reading skills actually improved. Except, obviously, for those of the people responsible for the Herald's headlines...Their average reading score was 532, higher than the study's international average of 500.
The average score for New Zealand students in the first study in 2001 was also high, at 529.
