It's getting better all the time

In Lake Wobegon 'all the children are above average'. That's a really old joke, so old that there's even an effect (or syndrome) named after it. Can somebody please explain the joke to the Secretary of State for Education?

Chair: One is: if "good" requires pupil performance to exceed the national average, and if all schools must be good, how is this mathematically possible?
Michael Gove: By getting better all the time.
Chair: So it is possible, is it?
Michael Gove: It is possible to get better all the time.
Chair: Were you better at literacy than numeracy, Secretary of State?
Michael Gove: I cannot remember.

If this is what a private education does for you, I'd think twice before telling everybody that state schools in England should be more like private schools.



via Michael Rosen