Nelson takes a leaf out of Bush's education reform plan

Likewise, under the Nelson proposals, struggling students would be provided with a $700 voucher to spend on private tutoring (oddly, the voucher will not be means-tested).

Moreover, the Howard government's reforms to the private-school funding formula over recent years appear to have been aimed at making the system as close to a de facto school voucher system as possible. How has the Left responded to testing, accountability and choice?

In the US, NCLB was co-sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy, an icon of the left-wing of the Democratic Party. And while the package has come under fire from some Democrats (such as Governor Howard Dean), the party is aware that it needs to tread carefully.

NCLB commands significant support among inner-city African-Americans, who have long been frustrated at the state of their children's schools. In a curious parallel, Nelson claims that Aboriginal parents have been among the strongest supporters of his proposed reforms.

The Australian Labor Party is right to support Nelson's proposals, creating a bipartisan consensus for schools policy that is driven by research and results, not stymied by inertia and ideology.

Labor should also remember that the reforms represent a shift in the thinking of their political opponents. Just as US Republicans argued in 1994 that the federal government had no place in schools policy, so the Coalition's 1993 Fightback! manifesto contained little of the activist educational policymaking now evident in Nelson's reforms.

This is not to say that either NCLB or the Nelson reforms represents more than a starting point for reforming education.
Testing, accountability and choice are all important but other reforms should be on the agenda too: improving teacher incentives through a carefully designed system of performance pay; raising the school leaving age (as Queensland has done); exploring options for a longer school day; and targeting resources to the neediest schools.