Hashem promised that he will make Israel the head not the tail. Thanks Hashem for preparing these children to achieve their full potentials and soon accomplish your plans for them for the benefit of mankind. G_d bless and keep Israel

By our own consistent starting point we have done very well indeed. So why are we falling over trying to apologize for success? Is this self-deprecation part of Israel's British heritage? Perhaps the teachers, pupils and parents deserve some credit.

T.T.T= Teach for the Test Measures nothing. Means nothing Statistics is the science of telling lies with numbers. Somehow meaningless and endless testing is deemed the end all. Can say this after 40 years in education.

I am not so surprised about this rise. Someone should check the syllabus changes in the way math was taught in Kita A and B, and allow for the time lag. My son (Kita A, 2003) was taught math from basics, memorizing times tables etc. The student group before him was taught to use a calculator from Kita A. I think if you teach rubbish, you'll get rubbish. The opposite is also true.

Chosen schools and students now I can add, chosen tests and cooked numbers to make the politicians look better,...

...you prove a puterland truism - garbage in, garbage out.

According to Pearson's Global Index of Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment, (that's a total score of PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS in Reading, Maths and Science) where out of 39 tested countries Israel comes 29th, far behind US (17), Russia (20) or Poland (14) ,...