Australia needs a national plan to stop declining performances in schools, an education report has warned.
Author and Australian Council for Educational Research chief executive Geoff Masters has called on State and Federal Governments to co-operate to find ways to turn around problems such as the long-term decline in the reading, maths and science levels of 15-year-olds, growing disparities between schools and the decrease in academically-able school leavers choosing to become teachers.
"The problem is not that Australia is standing still relative to other countries - we are actually going backwards," he said. "We ignore these warning signs at our peril."
Professor Masters said a national response was needed because the problems with school education transcended State borders, school sectors and political parties.
"The challenges we face are beyond the control of individual schools or classroom teachers but they are not beyond the control of governments," he said.
"We cannot keep doing what we have been doing and expect performances to improve."
In his report Five Challenges in Australian School Education, Professor Masters said other issues included reducing the number of children starting school before they were ready and cutting the number of underachieving pupils  falling behind their year levels.
He said international experience showed that declining performances in schools could be turned around.
Top priorities should include attracting more high-achieving people to become teachers and raising the status of teaching.
He suggested that Australia could monitor the percentage of university offers made to people with ATARs above 70, which put them in the top third of school leavers, and use that as a key performance indicator.
Though adequate school funding was essential for improving results, money alone was not the answer.
Professor Masters said standards had declined despite an increase in spending on schools, so resources had to be targeted on effective strategies.
"First we have to be clear about what we want to achieve and what the plan is for doing that before we start getting too far into a  conversation about funding levels," he said.