Literacy isn’t in decline. It’s mainly mathematics that is. This of course is a good example of why it is probably *not* the fault of the schools. If schools were really getting generally worse overall, we would expect a decline in both.

Or it could be that maths/science teacher quality has declined but teaching other areas hasn’t (there is a shortage of maths teachers so that wouldn’t be surprising). I’d take a guess and say there are increasingly more better paying jobs available for those with maths skills compared to a couple of decades ago.

Alternatively it may be that the curriculum is putting less emphasis on maths and science these days. Schools are increasingly being expected to do a lot more. Or perhaps its the way that maths/science is taught these days – from what I have seen of exam questions it looks like higher literacy skills are required.

Literacy isn’t in decline. It’s mainly mathematics that is. This of course is a good example of why it is probably *not* the fault of the schools. If schools were really getting generally worse overall, we would expect a decline in both.

Actually, I don’t see why it is the school system’s problem more than anyone else’s, apart from the often unfair criticism it will cop for the decline — I would think that the main idea of the system is to do the best it can with the resources on offer. If standards go south, well, that’s just the way life is if you are trying your best.

“My frustration with the school system is that you have two choices (maybe)”

I think this problem is more confined to poorer neighborhoods where the public schools are often of poor quality (which leaves bad or private). In my neighborhood, for example, the public schools are all quite good (people actually move to the neighborhood to send their kids to one of the schools, which makes the school even better, since you get the type of parent that makes schools good), so it isn’t a problem.

Apart from hyperbole, the system gets good outcomes, and the areas educational outcomes are declining in are probably not because of the school system.

Now what are the reasons for declining literacy? I’d speculate it has something to do with teevee.
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It might not be the school system’s fault that educational outcomes go south but it is the school systems’ problem. My frustration with the school system is that you have two choices (maybe): St. Poshnuts Schools for breeding male arseholes and teaching girls to put up with it and marry it, or Bogan Heights State High school. In either case you’re treated like a number. There’s little variation in methods, environment, subject matters.
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There’s little consideration of the students as individuals.

Maggie – if you’re suggesting that there is a lot of factors outside of the school which affect how much and how well students learn then I’d totally agree! It not coincidence that you find people at uni who come from schools where they are only a handful of students from their school to get in, and discover that also happened to their siblings who went to the same school.

Love the idea of assessing numbers of SUVs in the car park, hours spent watching the Simpsons, etc. I think that would provide a much more accurate picture of results in schools! Basically it’s extremely unfair to underfund public schools, then judge ‘em on their results and call it ‘choice’ when people scared of all the ‘bad public schools’ fork out for private. They’re not usually bad, many public schools are quite excellent (yes yes, I went to one – great teachers, crappy infrastructure).

No need to bleat about Catholic schools getting no money… even all Catholic schools aren’t created equal. Within the system there are certain schools who get more than their fair share of the funding, grants etc, and others who miss out.

Here’s the answer to your second question of why we shouldn’t change it substantially: Apart from hyperbole, the system gets good outcomes, and the areas educational outcomes are declining in are probably not because of the school system. The fact that people think the school system doesn’t get good outcomes is because they don’t seem to be aware that constructing an education system is hard and some students will inevitably do poorly no matter what. The important question is what the distribution is, in terms of outcomes in key areas (i.e., science, literacy, and mathematics), and to what extent the school system is responsible for that. Given that Australians are not high up the “work hard to get a good education spectrum”, it means the school system is currently working well.