What do the school systems in Finland and Korea have in common? They lead the developed world in numeracy, literacy and science. They don't have standardised testing for students until year 12, they don't segregate children into different school systems and they respect teachers.
The big question is why Australia would want to emulate a country like the US where academic performance standards are, on average, much lower and where educational opportunity for many children depends on the luck of a lottery draw.
The big question is why Australia would want to emulate a country like the US where academic performance standards are, on average, much lower.
Like America, Australia has an embarrassingly widening gap in education standards between students from socially and economically advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds.
Both countries have talked a lot about education reform. Julia Gillard modelled her transparency agenda – standardised national literacy and numeracy tests and reporting of school results on the My School website - on New York education chief Joel Klein's example. Like George Bush junior's No Child Left Behind policies (based on the discredited "Texas miracle"), the Joel Klein improvements, according to respected academics, have amounted to little more than smoke and mirrors - demonstrations of academic improvements where there were none.
Linda Darling-Hammond, Professor of Education at Stanford University, said the perception of improved results in New York was created after performance standards were lowered. Once standards were readjusted, results "crashed".
Professor Darling-Hammond, who advised US President Barrack Obama on education during his presidential campaign, and who was reportedly among candidates for the position of education secretary in the Obama administration, will address educators in Sydney tonight, warning Australia against repeating the same mistakes the US has made.
She says NAPLAN-style testing has failed in America. Standardised tests in the US have been criticised for narrowing the school curriculum to reading and maths and multiple choice formats. Punitive measures had resulted in teachers "teaching to the test" to improve results, which determined whether schools and teachers would receive bonus payments. Judged by student results, many of the best teachers fled the underperforming schools that most needed them.
As in America, Australia's white children have taken flight from what have become all black schools in country towns. In the city, a growing proportion of children from advantaged backgrounds share that advantage in selective and independent schools. In the US, opportunities for children in disadvantaged areas to gain a place in a charter school – publicly funded and privately run – are offered in the form of a lottery. Only a lucky few can win. The NSW version of the lottery appears to have become a selective school place.
Many government policies have provided distractions from the lack of resources needed to address the complex social problems in disadvantaged communities, which underpin poor performance in education.
In a speech recently delivered to the Grattan Institute in March, School Education Minister Peter Garrett promised a Band-Aid to address the festering sore of growing inequity.
"In a country as wealthy as ours, too many students are achieving results below what we as a nation should tolerate. Too many of these students are from socio-economically disadvantaged communities," he said.
"So in 2009 this government made $2.5 billion available to the Smarter Schools National Partnerships, and low SES schools were the main target of this investment.
"Improvements must be demonstrated through improved literacy and numeracy outcomes and other indicators, and we believe that the key to these improvements lies in teacher quality."
New classifications for teachers have been promised, but only a handful delivered.
And choice in schooling was endorsed as an important aspect of Australian democracy, even where there was none. "Similarly the choice of parents to enrol their children in public schools is respected," Garrett said.
Non-government schools had "won the right to be funded and would not lose a single dollar per student as a result of its funding review, chaired by David Gonski". Garrett also acknowledged that "government schools are the backbone of our education system. The place where most students' formal education begins, the crucible of the democratic right to accessible, affordable, quality education.
"Government schools teach the majority of students from poor families, the majority of students with disability, the majority of indigenous and migrant students," he said. "The success of Australian education is predicated on the existence of strong, vibrant, high quality public schools."
By following the US example, Professor Darling-Hammond believes Australia is on the wrong path to achieving that aim.