davidf/Getty ImagesWe’ve just received the results of the latest PISA test – the international assessment of 15-year-olds’ science, maths and reading skills. In Australia, the reporting followed a script that will be familiar to anyone who keeps an eye on what happens in schools and academic results. Indigenous students were compared to non-Indigenous students and found to be 72 points behind non-Indigenous students in science, 76 behind in reading and 74 points behind in maths. Average scores for PISA are typically around 500 points. Those numbers are accurate – but they tell only part of the story. For example, in PISA, average Indigenous science scores rose 16 points since 2022, while non-Indigenous scores did not move. Indigenous scores in reading and maths also held steady, while non-Indigenous scores dipped. What NAPLAN research tells usThe PISA “gap” mirrors reporting of NAPLAN scores, the literacy and numeracy testing of Australian students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9.These also highlight how Indigenous students lag behind their non-Indigenous peers. And make no room for talking about Indigenous successes.There are other ways of looking at the scores. A 2024 study led by Peter Anderson, examined a decade of NAPLAN data and found comparing Indigenous students to non-Indigenous students’ averages obscured what is actually working.When Indigenous students were matched with their Indigenous peers who shared similar starting points, it showed some schools and systems were achieving real, sustained gains. These gains did not show up in conventional comparisons.Who are these tests designed for?PISA is designed by the OECD to measure how well 15-year-olds apply what they know to real-life challenges. This means Indigenous students are not just being measured against their non-Indigenous peers in Australia but against the OECD’s version of “real life”. Australian data on student and school characteristics shows 80% of the Indigenous students who sat the most recent PISA test come from the lowest two socioeconomic quarters. Half come from the lowest quarter alone.This tells us Indigenous students are not starting from the same position as their non-Indigenous peers. There are huge differences in access and resourcing – rather than aptitude or ability. When the results get reported as a straight issue of “performance” this over simplifies a much more complex situation. And is precisely how deficit framing works. When the benchmark is the non-Indigenous student, the shortfall is located in the Indigenous student – rather than the education system. Or the broader society. In 2022, Anderson and colleagues’ synthesis of 51 studies on Australian schools found a pervasive lack of teacher readiness, curriculum readiness and school culture readiness to teach Indigenous students. 19 years of an unused benchmarkIn September 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Australia initially voted against it, then endorsed it in April 2009. Three of its articles speak directly to education. Article 14 sets out the right of Indigenous peoples to establish and control their own educational systems, teach in their own languages and in ways appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning, and access every level of state education without discrimination. Article 15 sets out the right to have the dignity and diversity of Indigenous cultures reflected in education and in public information. Article 21 sets out the right to improvement of economic and social conditions, with education named explicitly among them. These rights describe what an education system must do, not how far a student falls short. But as studies have found, Australia has not adequately incorporated these rights into our education system. Using rights – not a ‘gap’ – as a benchmarkThis Indigenous rights-based framework can form the basis of a much more suitable and equitable way of looking at education and test results. For example: are Indigenous students able to learn in their own languages, and are those languages resourced as languages of instruction rather than as cultural supplements?is Indigenous knowledge present in the curriculum – as a distinct and equally valid form of knowledge? (Not simply as “enrichment” that can be removed without consequence) do Indigenous communities have a genuine say, grounded in free, prior and informed consent, in how the schools serving their children are governed and run?are outcomes tracked within cohorts over time, so that improvement is visible when it happens and the system is accountable for it?Under this framework, the 16-point rise in Indigenous science scores since 2022 reads as something to understand, investigate, and build on, rather than as a footnote to a gap that still exists. Non-Indigenous students’ PISA results should prompt questions for the education system. They are not a benchmark for everyone else to be measured against.The authors wish to thank Dr Thu Pham from the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute for her input into this article.Peter Anderson has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Centre for Student Equity First Nations FellowshipAngela Baeza Pena has received funding from the Australian government through the Research Training Program and the Australian Research CouncilBronwyn Fredericks has received funding from the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, the National Indigenous Australian Agency, the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success, and the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education. Levon Ellen Blue previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and Department of Education.