What Can a Nation Do When Over a Million Students Cannot Read Proficiently?

Commentary The perennial discussion about the reading ability of Australia’s primary and high school children reached yet another milestone with the publication of a report by the Grattan Institute. The report, The Reading Guarantee: How to give every child the best chance of success, reveals that Australia is experiencing a reading crisis. “Australia has an unacceptably high number of children and adolescents who fail to reach minimal proficiency standards in reading,” the report said, noting that “about one in three Australian students are not meeting grade-level expectations in reading.” It surmises that Australia “has too many ‘instructional casualties’–students who should read proficiently, but haven’t been taught well.”...