If there's one thing you can rely on any flavour of government to do, it's abusing numbers.
This lunchtime, a little while behind the other local authorities, Anglesey has appeared from behind the bushes to announce - wait for it - that "99.5% of students attained grades A*-G."
Ha ha! They may as well say "100% of students got a grade A*-Fail." It's a pathetic, pointless number to quote that deliberately serves to produce a short-lived 'ta-da' moment.
So, where did Anglesey score? It's using the word "maintained" in relation to its results. That means not up, not down. Is this correct?
Anglesey got 67.7% in the still very wide grouping of A* to C. The emerging national (UK) average is 68.8% (BBC figures). So whatever Anglesey is doing, it's 1.1% below the national average. Anglesey seems to mean "Wales" when it uses the term "national."
As to maintaining its position, Anglesey appears to be doing itself a bit of a disservice. Its own press release claims the 2013 figures A* to C was 65.6%, so 2014 seems to be a 2% improvement. Similarly, the pointlessly wide range of A*-G is up a very tiny 0.2%, which we can accept is treading water.
Anglesey's spin doctors haven't said what proportion achieved the grades A* and A. If they are anything like the national picture, they will have dropped markedly.
According to sources, education chiefs are "not in the country" at the moment. This may well be reflected by the disappointing revelation that a councillor hasn't even bothered coming up with anything new to say, this year's press release containing the verbatim-same note of congratulation as last year's:
"We can be proud of the educational success of our young people which is crucial to the future prospects for Anglesey."
Well, any sensible students and their parents will be taking their academic successes thus far and crossing over the nearest available bridge to the Great Wide World beyond, just as soon as they possibly can. That way, they can get away from the shame of Anglesey and its council, famously described as a "basketcase" by Private Eye.
So, Anglesey is treading water once again this year. This despite special measures following its failure to provide a good service. In the end, how many people get any sort of grade is utterly meaningless smokescreening. It is how many people get the top grades that counts. Sadly for any spin doctor charged with making things look better than they really are, Anglesey, like the rest of Wales, continues to occupy the abyssal depths of the PISA tables - a much more telling result.
