Making the Grade

PROGRESSIVES IN AUSTRALIA have generally adopted a conservative approach to reform of primary and secondary education. This would be entirely justifiable if our schools were performing well. But troubling new evidence suggests that literacy and numeracy scores have stagnated or fallen since the 1970s despite a doubling of resources. While it is difficult to be sure of the reasons for this decline, one possibility is a fall in teacher quality. In this environment, Australian progressives should be more open to new reforms being favoured by social democrats in Britain and the United States: publishing test results, promoting healthy competition between schools and finding new ways to attract and keep the best teachers.