Do you know the first place we should start when we are thinking about what we should be investing in today? It is our people. And what is the major tool the State has for investing in the capability of its people? It's our education system. So we should all be very concerned that in New Zealand today, not only relative to the countries we like to compare ourselves with but also relative to our historic performance, the achievement of New Zealand school students is slipping. It is slipping across those core measures of ability: literacy, numeracy skills—reading, writing, and maths. 