The scores below come from the evaluation directorate of the Ministry of Education, from the OECD's PISA survey. The rule, after that, is the Empire's.
- 458
- points in mathematics, PISA 2025
- 456
- points in reading
- −16 pts
- in mathematics since 2022
- 1 in 3
- below level 2 in reading
DEPP, note on PISA 2025, September 2026. Mathematics: 458 points, 16 fewer than in 2022 and eight places lost. Reading: 456 points, 18 fewer. Science: 483 points. About one pupil in three is below level 2 in reading, and the very high performers are down to 4%.
The record
Schooling was lengthened. Reading was not taught.
In 2025, French pupils score 458 in mathematics, 456 in reading and 483 in science. Since 2022, mathematics have fallen by 16 points and reading by 18. The fall in mathematics is steeper than the average of the comparable OECD countries. About one pupil in three sits below level 2 in reading.
This is not one year's accident. In 2022 the DEPP already placed France at 474 points in mathematical literacy, in the OECD average, with 29% of pupils below level 2, against 22.4% in 2012. The share of the highest performers, above level 4, had fallen from 15% in 2003 to 7% in 2022. There is a system. There is no longer a standard.
The voucher
The money follows the pupil. The school that fails closes.
Milton Friedman* described the education voucher: the State finances, it does not operate. The Empire makes that the rule. The value of the voucher varies with results. The money follows the pupil. Schools are private and in competition. Those that do not teach reading close. Inspection checks the conditions and the content, not an ideology.
We instruct: reading, reckoning, the history of France, a trade, a critical mind. Moral education returns to the parents. The dogmas of manners leave the curriculum. That is not the schoolmaster's trade. It is the family's.
Free schools may be fully Catholic. Nobody is obliged to send a child there. We merely stop forbidding a school to say what it is. The Empire is Catholic. It does not nationalise consciences, and it does not subsidise a state pedagogy.
The ministry
There is no longer a National Education.
A ministry that claims to educate fourteen million children in place of their parents ends by instructing nobody, and by holding a speech to everyone. The Empire has no such ministry. It has a voucher, a short inspection, and schools that live on the trust of families.
Merit becomes readable again. A child who cannot read is not moved up in order to protect a statistic. An instruction that lies about the standard is not an instruction. It is a custody.
Instruction, not education. The family chooses. The school answers for what it teaches. The State pays, and it keeps quiet.