Despite the now indisputable evidence that Australia’s education system has been led down a deleterious path, the proposed cure might well be worse than the disease. The solution being put forward is a doubling–down on progressive approaches that are responsible for the decline in the first place. 

Australia’s education ministers came up with a new blueprint at the Education Council meetings held on Wednesday and Thursday. Unfortunately, rather than a mea culpa for the trajectory that policy has been steered, there appears to be little relief for the concerned parents and employers across the country. 

While the education gathering resulted in a new ‘Alice Springs Declaration’, it is...