Schooling and the common good (Inside Story)

Education reform is back on the national agenda. Among the many issues being discussed are the need for a significant improvement in teaching skills and standards and the knotty and persistent problem of entrenched inequity of opportunities and outcomes. A marked flight away from government secondary schools has been amplified by the previous government's approach to parental choice and funding patterns. Professor Jack Keating from the University of Melbourne has written a report, A New Federalism in Australian Education: A Proposal for a National Reform Agenda, which argues for a major shift in funding and accountability arrangements across government and non-government schools and between state and federal governments, a new national quality agency and better early childhood education. Jack Keating summarised the main thrust of his suggestions for Peter Clarke