What's funny is that one of the articles actually points out that such kinds of statistic usually look *even worse* than that when they really aren't. (It's in lesson 4: averages.) I'll bet that if you really looked at the statistical data, the real statement could be made into something like "70% of our schoolchildren are performing at below average levels". Read the article and you'll see what I mean. He gives a couple of good examples in the article, but the funny one is: "most people have an above average number of feet".