The school of new national standard

National standards are benchmarks in reading, writing and maths which primary and intermediate students are measured against.

Education Minister Hekia Parata released the data on Tuesday and it shows more children are achieving national standards but performance is declining as students get older nuskin.

The data for 2012 shows "small but incremental" improvements across the board, with reading achievement up 1.2 per cent to 77.4 per cent of students reaching the national standard.

Maths achievement is up 1.4 per cent to 73.6 per cent, and writing is up two per cent to 70 per cent.

Teacher unions opposed national standards when they were introduced two years ago and the Principals' Federation says it's "outrageous and completely misleading" to assert there are measurable gains.

"The national standards are so imprecise that every school in the country makes their own judgment about what they think they mean and how to measure them," federation president Philip Harding said.

"The variability from one school to another is huge."

NZ First's education spokeswoman, Tracey Martin, nu skin hk says the data should come with a warning label for parents saying "completely useless".

She says the Ministry of Education has admitted testing was flawed and adjusted marks downwards without telling schools.

"That means there will be inconsistencies in the data," she said.

The Green's co-leader, Metiria Turei, says the data is neither national nor standard nuskin group.

"It was completely irresponsible to release it and make a big statement attributing meaning to it," she said.

Ms Turei says parents have told her national standards reports are meaningless.