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Abstract
This article examines the way the national press have reported school performance and, in particular, the different strategies they adopt to compare one school with another. Though the author suggests that the press have shown a striking degree of ambivalence towards league tables, nevertheless she argues that when it has referred to them, it has frequently presented misleading and unreliable accounts of the comparative performance of schools. She concludes by arguing that, though this area is difficult and complex, different, and in some cases distorting, strategies muddy the waters of educational understanding and do not contribute to better performance by schools.