Education bosses have raised alarm over the state of Liverpool's secondary schools after provisional GCSE results suggested worrying trends for the city's results.
Liverpool has plummeted down national rankings for English and Maths, coming 129th out of 150 English local authorities for the proportion of students who get Grade 5 or above in both subjects.
Under the new GCSE system , students receive numbered grades between 1 and 9, with 9 being the best and Grade 5 being the equivalent of a C under the old system.
Two years ago Liverpool was ranked 76th in the same table.
At the worst performing school for English and Maths, De La Salle Academy in Croxteth , only 4.3% of pupils got a Grade 5 or above in both subjects.
Speaking to members of the council's education and children's social care select committee, cabinet member Barbara Murray said the results were "really not good enough".
Councillor Murray, who oversees schools as part of her education brief, said: "We have a problem with the quality of education across all the schools, even the better performing ones.
"I think it is not right allocating children at 11 to schools that are failing and we are doing that at the moment."
Councillor Murray said none of the city's maintained secondary schools are currently ranked good by Ofsted.
There were very few positive comments about the results, which saw overall scores for both attainment and progress slip against last year's results and national averages.
And concern was raised for specific subjects, schools and pupil groups.
Chief education officer Heather Duggan said a steady performance for girls in the city masked a worrying drop in attainment for boys.
Councillor Murray singled out grades in humanities, particularly geography, as a drag on the city's results.
And councillor Leon Tootle said the gap between different schools across Liverpool amounted to a gulf that means children in some areas face an uphill battle to achieve good results from the start of their secondary education.
Even the top two schools for English and Maths attainment, Bluecoat and Belvedere Academy, are separated by a 30 percentage point gap in the proportion of pupils achieving acceptable scores.
Across the board, Blue Coat's results stood in stark contrast to others across the city, raising concerns about pressure on places at the school.
Councillor Tootle said: "I think that gap is extremely unhealthy - we need to do something to address it because the effect on children in our city will be very negative."
Committee members also singled out Schools Improvement Liverpool, the body charged with driving better education in the city, for criticism, calling its lack of key performance targets for schools "shocking".
They called for representatives from SIL, which receives council funding, to come to a future committee meeting.
Last night's discussion at the education and children's social care select committee came the day before the deadline for secondary school applications across the country.
