Hugh Reilly: Learning tower of PISA tilts the figures A FEW weeks before my marriage to my first wife (a second victim has failed to materialise), my intended insisted I mastered some waltz steps for our wedding dance. hile she was an amazing ballroom dancer - and had the awards to prove it - I possessed the coordination of a puppet controlled by elastic bands. At dancing events, kindly mature gentlemen would ask my permission to dance with the sequined Goddess. On receiving a tribute of a Tennent's lager, consent was granted to sweep my concubine onto the dance floor. I have to say her claims that I was pimping her for pints greatly upset me. Despite learning from the best, at the wedding reception I somehow still managed to break the sixth toe on her left foot (she was from Kirkintilloch). This week, Michael Davidson, the new head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) division responsible for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), outlined ways Scotland could learn from the world's highest performing schools. I had been concerned with Scotland falling down the PISA international league table but my fears were somewhat allayed by Mr Davidson pointing out that it's not so much Alba spiralling downwards, more a case of others overtaking it. Worryingly, he stated that the main "challenge" was a failure of kids at the lower end of the spectrum to engage with education. For example, 43 per cent of youngsters do not read for enjoyment out of school. He also cited the negative impact of kids being taught in schools where pupil indiscipline is largely unchecked. In recent years, local authorities such as Glasgow have trumpeted a remarkable decline in student suspensions, achieved in part by creative solutions such as on-site exclusion from timetabled classes and greater collaboration with outside agencies (Children's Hearings, social work departments, psychological services). A downside, however, is that the failure to exclude persistently unruly pupils results in a denial of respite time for the motivated majority. Rightly, in my view, Mr Davidson says Scotland needs to address the diversity within a school and end the obsession with making comparisons between schools. The attainment gap between the top and the lowest performing pupils in the same establishment has long been identified as a key problem but is essentially ignored. I was fortunate enough to finish my teaching career in a so-called magnet school where many of the students went on to tertiary education. But the admirable success of the high achievers masked the miserable attainment of many youngsters, a disproportionate number of whom received a free school meal. It surely cannot be coincidental that countries with a fairer distribution of wealth - Finland and Canada come to mind - are PISA high fliers.. Impoverished supply teachers on cut-down rations and chalkies enduring a three-year wage freeze will be encouraged by Mr Davidson's pronouncement that education systems which amply reward teachers are usually successful ones. Currently, among parents, teachers and pupils, the very mention of Curriculum for Excellence excites more dread than receiving an invitation to a Come Dine with Me evening hosted by Count Dracula. Depressed salaries and education upheaval are hardly portents of a positive future for our schools. The latest figures from PISA show a great leap forward in achievement of pupils in the Far East. The constant demand made by the Scottish teaching profession for smaller class sizes is somewhat undermined by the fact that the OECD countries with the largest class sizes, Japan and Korea, sit at PISA's top table. Many people disagree with the fundamentals behind the learning tower of PISA. Is it really possible to compare a school in Auld Reekie to a school in Shanghai where a different culture and school system exists? In China, with its one-child policy, supportive parents take a keen interest in the education of their only son (gendercide means it is unlikely to be a daughter) by bombarding the school with complaints about inadequate teachers and hints that the lad's uncle is a member of the Communist Party politburo. Who said learning from the best was easy?