Thankfully, a second annual survey, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) is available to assess the performance of a school system which seems to be focused on acting like an ostrich burying its head in the sand after sensing upcoming danger. ASER evaluates student performance and its latest 2013 report (released by Montek Singh Ahluwalia), shows that only 54% of Class V rural school kids could even read at a Class II level in 2010. This number further deteriorated to 47% in 2013. So not only are our kids the last in the world, they are getting worse and rapidly so (perhaps a good time to start an imaginary dilapidated country with which we compare ourselves against and feel better). The numbers are even worse for government schools (50% versus 41% of Class V kids being able to read at the Class II level in 10 versus 13 respectively) and only the maintenance of learning outcomes by private schools tempers the utter disaster that is the Indian education system.