This is an extraordinary story about the decline of British Education. But let me start on the subject of football. Because there are some interesting parallels.

Last week the various UK soccer sides all fell out of Euro 2008. Only 14 teams were able to qualify - and not one of our national sides made the cut. England promptly fired their national coach. Newspapers agonized over the decline and fall. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. This was, by all accounts, a national disaster.

This week the OECD published its Pisa survey. This is a comparative study of academic performance around the world. It publishes every three years and considers reading, maths and science skills. It too points to a national disaster.

The UK did VERY badly. Among 15-year-olds in 57 countries the UK ranked "between 12th and 18th place".

The organisers give a country's position as being ranked between certain positions because it says with a sample of students it is not always possible to state a comparative ranking with 100% accuracy. Instead, OECD calculates, with 95% confidence, a range of ranks that the country falls within.

So we can be 95% certain that UK school science is bad enough to see the national coach sacked.

Only that isn't quite how the BBC reported the story. Read on and be amazed:

UK among school science leaders

The UK is among the better performers in an international league table on school science

This is unbelievable reporting - not just rose-tinted spectacles but a full-blown case of myopia. Nor is this the first time that the BBC have reported an educational disaster as some curious form of triumph.

It obviously occurred to the BBC that people might - just might - check some of the facts. So the report continues with this extraordinary excuse:

In 2000, the UK was 4th, but the organisers say comparing results is not strictly valid because the tests have changed.

Note: not strictly valid. Hmm. I can't help thinking that a fall from 4th to 14th is sufficiently dramatic to be worthy of comparison despite some minor caveat.

The BBC then throws in this curious observation:

The UK as a whole was not included in the last Pisa study.

Well, yes, that's true - but a quick search of the BBC's own pages would reveal that in the last survey of 2003 the UK failed to provide enough data for the analysis of Maths and Science to be statistically valid (there's some deep irony in there somewhere).

So the last time the UK was properly assessed was back in 2000. And everything has been in decline ever since. The BBC reported that millennium survey in euphoric terms - and even managed to employ a footballing metaphor. Sadly the report is now most notable for the unfulfilled optimism of its closing paragraph.

Of course, it isn't only Science and Soccer that are in decline. Only last week it was announced that England had dropped from third place to 19th in the world in an assessment of reading.

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FactFile

The Pisa survey is based on tests carried out in 2006 in 57 countries which together account for 90% of the world's economy. It tested students on how much they knew about science and their ability to use scientific knowledge to address questions in daily life.

Finland come out on top, followed by Hong Kong (China), Canada, Chinese Taipei, Estonia and Japan. Countries that have moved 'sharply upward' include Canada, Germany, Austria and Denmark.

Note that Estonia were part of the Soviet Union until 1991. Next thing you know, we'll be losing football games to Croatia...

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Update

The BBC have now changed their article to better reflect the reality of the original Pisa Report. It now reads:

UK schools slip down in science

The UK is above average in a major international league table on school science - but it has slipped compared to its previous top-four ranking.

The whole article remains depressingly apologetic in tone - but it is at least a fairer reflection of the facts.

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For those of us that think our characters are quite sufficiently developed...

A cricket team which lost without anyone scoring a run is blaming a "dodgy wicket" for its failure.

Statisticians are checking the record books to see if Goldsborough Seconds' dismal performance against local rivals Dishforth is the worst ever recorded.

The team scored a total of five in their Nidderdale Amateur League clash at Dishforth, North Yorkshire.

But all the runs were extras and none of the batsmen troubled the scorers - with 10 ducks and a nought not out.

Goldsborough chairman Henry Webster defended his team, saying the wicket was terrible and pointing out that the league-topping opposition also struggled.

He added that there were a number of youngsters in the side and he hoped the experience would be "character-building".

Link: BBC NEWS | England | North Yorkshire | Row of ducks bowl cricketers over.

Science News Online, Peter Weiss, April 17, 2004

Got an extra 400 bucks? How about spending it on a yo-yo? A really nice yo-yo, a state-of-the-art, forged-magnesium-alloy, ultralong-spinning yo-yo. Later this year, Duncan Toys, a seller of inexpensive yo-yos for 75 years, will roll out this new high-end yo-yo, which the company plans to call the Freehand Mg. It comes with the latest in axle and bearing technology, and its balance is ensured with precision tooling to micrometer tolerances by a computer-controlled lathe.

Not so long ago, Duncan sold only $2 or $3 yo-yos, many of them not much different from the product that the company offered in 1929, when Donald F. Duncan Sr. bought a fledgling yo-yo company. In the last decade, however, the company has been scrambling to keep up with a wave of technological innovation launched by other yo-yo aficionados and small manufacturers. Those developments have been transforming yo-yos into precision instruments.

Fans today commonly pay $40 for a competition-grade yo-yo. It can sport features such as minimal-friction axles, a string-grabbing response system for enhancing tricks, and modular construction for easy repairs and upgrades.

The high-teching of yo-yos has fomented a revolution in the ways in which people play with yo-yos. Today's hotshots put their ever-spinning yo-yos through long-lasting sequences of leaps, bounces, and swings as they weave the string on their fingers into patterns resembling configurations in the game cat's cradle.

Yo-yoing has gone extreme.

BBC Health

Doctors have found more evidence to suggest that heading a football may be bad for health.

Doctors in Turkey carried out tests on 30 amateur footballers. Many were found to have potentially serious neck and spine problems.

These ranged from poor flexibility to damaged discs at the top of the spine, according to New Scientist magazine.

Interesting legal position created in schools now this information is in the public domain... Presumably it wouldn't be the end of the world to remove "head-ing" from the game of, (wait for it) "foot-ball"...