NSW students have topped the spelling bee in the first national comparison of literacy and numeracy test results.
In May, children in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 from around the country took the same tests in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation and numeracy.
The results were posted yesterday on the website of the national education ministers committee.
From Monday, parents in every state and territory will receive a report showing how their child performed, as well as how they ranked against the national average and minimum standards.
Students in NSW will receive a second report that provides additional data, including how each of the state's 350,000 students ranked against the average mark at their school for each of the areas assessed.
They will get a breakdown of which questions the student answered incorrectly, along with the percentage of NSW students who answered correctly.
While state and federal governments seized on the test results as evidence of high educational standards, some schools had trouble obtaining their results yesterday.
Some also complained that the late arrival of the test scores would give teachers only until the end of the year to address any detected learning difficulties.
The executive director of schools in the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta, Greg Whitby, said that at best the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy would help teachers diagnose problem areas. At worst, it could encourage teachers to limit students' potential by training them to perform well against a narrow set of standards.
"When used in the right way, we can help inform the teacher in delivering relevant and personalised learning for students. When used in the wrong way, we run the risk of pressuring teachers into teaching to the test and limit a student's potential," Mr Whitby said.
The Federal Government said the results showed that more than 90 per cent of students were performing at or above the national minimum standard in each of the tested areas. About 80 per cent achieved above the minimum standard.
Students from NSW, Victoria and ACT performed within the same range and better than other states and territories.
NSW ranked ahead of Victoria and the ACT in the spelling test for students in years 3, 5 and 7. But the ACT and Victoria performed much better than NSW on grammar and punctuation in year 7.
NSW students ranked second in numeracy in years 5 and 9.
Between 3 per cent to 8 per cent of NSW students failed to meet national standards in most of the areas tested. But when it came to year 9 writing tests, the percentage rose to 11 per cent, with NSW ranked below Victoria (8 per cent).
Up to 41 per cent of Northern Territory students in years 3 to 9 had failed to meet minimum standards considered necessary for further learning progress.
The NSW Director-General of Education, Michael Coutts-Trotter, said NSW had a relatively high proportion of students from low socio-economic backgrounds.
"Notwithstanding these factors, our students have performed extremely well, with more students achieving at or above national minimum standard than any other jurisdiction in the following domains: year 3 writing, spelling and numeracy, year 5 writing and spelling and year 7 writing," he said.
Previous test results had shown NSW year 7 students to be performing poorly against the national numeracy benchmark.
Jenny Donovan, the general manager of the department's Planning and Innovation unit, said the recent results confirmed this had been an aberration.
The president of the NSW English Teachers Association, Mark Howie, said the results also challenged the notion of a literacy crisis.
The chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research, Geoff Masters, warned against making comparisons between states because of different school-starting ages.
"One has to remember the children in Queensland, WA and South Australia are younger than those in NSW, Victoria and the ACT," Mr Masters said.