About this education headline about "failing" schools in the Guardian

[OrlandoWoolf]

www.theguardian.com/education/2013/dec/12/primary-schools-fail-maths-english-standards

"More than 4% of primary schools failed to meet the benchmarks SATs standards"

More than 4%. Is that 5%? 10%?

Or did 96% of schools actually achieve the standards. But that would be a positive headline.

I expect that from the DM. Not the Guardian.

Slow news day

It's 4.5117647% - would you like it rounded up or down?

You could have done the maths yourself, the figures were all in the article.

It is more than 4% but not 5%, so rewrite the headline for them yourself.

Well, by your reasoning surely they would've said 5 or 10 or whatever % if they could to make it sound more negative? More than 4% tends to mean somewhere between 4 and 5%.

I like the way the child in the picture appears to be looking very suspiciously at Michael Gove's outstretched hand...I wouldn't want to shake his hand either

Bohemian, the article doesn't contain all the figures. The 17,000 is a rounded number not an exact one so it's impossible to give a percentage to any huge degree of accuracy using it.

I'd guess somewhere between 4% and 4.49%. I think 4.5% or over would have been rounded up to nearly 5% for the purpose of this article.

When did the Guardian do a U-turn on Gove? They normally hate him.

Bohemia

Less than 5% of schools failed to reach the baseline.
Only 5% of schools failed to reach the baseline.
95% of schools achieved at least the baseline.
About 5%
About 1 school in 20.
Only 1 school in 20.

So many options.

But more than 4%?

It's such a negative spin.

And 17,000 is not an exact number of schools.