In recent days, the media have echoed the report PISA 2009, presented by the high school of assessment.

It is very positive that the media and social and educational agents are sensitized to the results of assessment of the educational system, as this will help them to acquire a greater knowledge and become more aware of the problems and results of our school.

Ideally, this would lead to the establishment of a serious discussion educational -not ideological or partisan- about the future of our Education, that is, of Spain.

The report of the Spanish results, magnificently presented and accessible in electronic format on the web www.institutodeevaluacion.educacion.es offers a number of relevant data that cannot be dealt with in a short space.

For this reason, I will refer only to some of them, which now seem to me to be of greater interest and represent a minimum approach to the state of the question.

What PISA measures in terms of reading comprehension is "the ability of students to extrapolate what they have learned and apply their knowledge to new situations" (foreword report Spanish).

The programs of study PISA are not curricular, but evaluate what students are able to apply. Their results are primarily intended for the establishment of more far-reaching educational policies.

The 2009 Spanish results reveal three major problems. The first is that the percentage of students in the lower levels of performance is alarming, with 20% of them (in Finland, for example, they are at 8%).

These levels do not guarantee that students can follow their programs of study or integrate into working life without certain problems, as report itself points out.

Along with this, we find 36% of students repeating one or two years, which seriously depresses the results for the country as a whole.

Thus, students who repeat two years have an average of 371 points, and those who never do so have an average of 518. This produces a national average of 481 points.

This is a serious problem that requires an in-depth analysis, as it implies that many students do not reach the minimum levels of skill and negatively affects those who want to study.

The second problem is that of higher levels of performance. Only 3% of our students are in the top levels (5 and 6), while Finland has 15%.

The inability of the Spanish system educational to promote the performance of the most capable is truly evident, when these students should play a more prominent role in the scientific, cultural and social development of any country.

Countries that do not make a serious effort to promote the talent of their most capable students have an uncertain future and run the risk of losing their most important capital: the human capital.

The third aspect refers to equity. Having said this, it cannot be said that the educational system is equitable because its results are very homogeneous. The homogeneity of results would only be desirable if these were very high, but never if they are average, because this does not solve the problem of those who do not reach and greatly exacerbates that of the most capable.

Equity is a moral concept that has nothing to do with homogeneity, but rather with giving to each one what he/she needs according to his/her personal conditions.

This, which is so well understood in sport, is systematically ignored in the school environment, making equality of opportunities equivalent to equality of results.

Educational systems must guarantee ex ante equality or equality of opportunities, which will mean allowing access to an adequate Education for each student. Adequate to their personal conditions, to their capacities and talents.

To pretend equality of results or ex post, is to mutilate any opportunity for the most capable to progress according to their personal conditions, which is the proper of an egalitarian school that groups the student body according to their age, not their capacity.

Eisner pointed out that the good school does not ignore individual differences; it increases them. It raises the average and increases the variance.

Our system educational has to get rid of a certain paralyzing egalitarianism that will prevent it from building a better school.