THE gap between Australia's best and worst students is widening, and those at the top of the class are not performing as well as they did a decade ago.
The final report into last year's NAPLAN tests reveals Queensland still sits below national means for literacy and numeracy across Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Girls are also out-performing boys, and children whose parents are professionals are beating children whose parents work in trades, hospitality, labouring or are unemployed.
Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett said it was not acceptable that the gap between students at the top and bottom of the class was widening, and added that Australia's Asian neighbours had "raced ahead''.
Overall, Australian results in the tests have remained steady since the first NAPLAN tests were held in 2008, with the yearly report breaking down results by indigenous status, geolocation, gender, language background other than English and parental occupation and education.
State Education Minister Cameron Dick welcomed Queensland's results.
"We have improved from sixth to fifth our ranking for the percentage of children who achieved at or above the national minimum standard, showing that we are heading in the right direction,'' he said.
Since 2008, Queensland has improved in 19 of the 20 test areas against national standards, but still significantly lags behind some other states, including Victoria and the ACT.
The gender divide shows girls in all grades beating the boys in literacy, with the report labelling the gap "substantial and consistent'' - an average 21-point difference.
More boys than girls also fell below the national standard benchmark for literacy.
In numeracy, the boys outshone the girls, but by a lesser margin - between nine and 12 points - with the same number of boys and girls falling below the national minimum standard.
The gap between indigenous and non-indigenous students is smaller in Queensland than in Australia overall.
About 87 per cent of the state's indigenous students achieved at or above the National Minimum Standard in Year 3 numeracy.
The state's indigenous students were equal top with Victoria for the percentage of students at or above the National Minimum Standard (NMS) in the Year 7 persuasive writing task, on 74 per cent in their category.
But the students mostly came fifth overall in terms of national indigenous pupil rankings in the NMS categories.