Commissioned by the Liberal Party thinktank, the Menzies Research Centre, this book has as its subject the ‘crisis’ in education. It opens with an endorsement by Malcolm Turnbull and closes with a Glossary of Edubabble, the entries of which include: progressive education, fuzzy maths, political correctness, black armband, whole language and phonics. If Turnbull’s enthusiastic foreword and the title of the glossary are not enough to suggest the conservative politics of the book, the cover is a dead give-away. The words Why Our Schools Are Failing are written as if in chalk on a blackboard, wistfully signifying a time in the past when teachers stood at the front of the class and transmitted knowledge in a neat cursive script using a dependable technology.

Donnelly knows there is a crisis in the school system. Low staff morale, student absenteeism, the exodus of parents to the private sector, falling standards and the politically correct nature of the curriculum tell him so. Even excellent schools and teachers, says Donnelly, are undermined by unresponsive bureaucracies, left-wing academics and teacher unions more concerned with ideology than with what happens in the classroom. Instead of a rigorous system based on high standards, Australian education has been overwhelmed by a series of fads: process and outcomes-based approaches to curriculum; undue emphasis on student-centred learning; and a commitment by educators to change society and turn students into ‘politically correct, new-age warriors’.