A survey by pollster Emnid published on Sunday showed support for the conservative bloc – Merkel's CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union – rising by two points to 37%, the highest level since January.
But the national report card shows fourth graders' scores dropping by two points, while eighth grade students' rose by three points.
The poll suggested the number of voters wanting to quit had risen by three points on the previous week, the Times said.
Although in 2010 it rose by three points, to 119% of GDP, Silvio Berlusconi's finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, held the budget deficit to an impressive 4.6%, well below his target of 5%.
Andrew Cates, of UBS, calculates that in both Asia and Latin America the core rate of inflation (ie, excluding food and energy) has risen by one percentage point in the past year, to 3.4% and 6.2% respectively; in eastern Europe it has risen by three points, to 7.4%, largely because Russia is overheating.
In New York, the percentage of students scoring proficient in eighth grade reading on the state's own tests rose by three points from 2003 to 2005, while the percentage scoring proficient dropped two points during the same period on the federal tests, the Fordham study showed.
Its support rose by two points after the Chemnitz riots.
The Greens rose by two points to 5%.
However, the ISM's manufacturing index beat forecasts and rose by six points to 59.4.
The Conservatives have risen by two points since a week ago to 35%, while Labour has correspondingly dropped two points to 33%.
