The latest report on education from the Council of Australian Governments Reform Council paints a picture of an Australia with huge gaps between children with good education outcomes and those with persistently poor education results.
Among those missing out are Indigenous students, who the report says are twice as likely to lag behind their non-Indigenous peers.
And it notes circumstances don't get any better when they leave school.
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Deputy Chairman of the COAG Reform Council Professor Greg Craven says the latest education report shows that governments have made progress in a couple of areas, but there's still a lot of work to do to improve overall education outcomes.
Professor Craven says the best news in the report is that COAG reform initiatives in early childhood are starting to show improved results.
"So we can see for example improved results in literacy among the group of children who are now entering years like year three who were the first beneficiaries of those COAG reforms so it's quite clear on the figures, and this is consistent with every international study, that there has been a significant pay off in terms of the COAG reforms in early education, which is now trickling down the system and we can expect further improvements as time goes on."
The report also highlighted an increase in the rate of young people completing Year 12 or equivalent in all States and Territories.
Nationally, 85 per cent of young people had a Year 12 qualification in 2011, up from 82.8 per cent in 2006.
But that improved result still means the 90 per cent target for 2015 is unlikely to be met.
However, Professor Craven is confident the increased rates of high school completion will see generational change for the better.
"It's concerning that some of the results for secondary students are not progressing as well as anyone might have hoped. On the other hand, it is not true that there is uniformly bleak picture. One of the things we can see is that year 12 attainments in secondary school is going up significantly. Now, all of the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) and other studies show that there is a direct link between educational attainment and the educational attainment of parents. So if more Australians are attaining the end of school, we can expect the children of those Australians are going to do better."
Elsewhere though, the generations are not necessarily seeing change for the better.
The COAG report found that huge gaps continue between the performance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, with Indigenous children twice as likely to lag behind in development and unprepared for starting primary school.
The report also says after school, 60 per cent of young Indigenous people weren't fully engaged in study or work - almost three times more than non-Indigenous people.
In the Northern Territory, where 44 per cent of the students are Indigenous and more than 40 per cent of them live in remote areas, the Australian Education Union's Peter Clisby says a long-term approach to the issues is required.
"All the analysis of this says short-term funding arrangements don't work. This is a long-term task and it requires some sort of stability in funding."
Mr Clisby says the COAG report makes a clear case for long-term planning and the need for resources in the Northern Territory to be maintined, if not increased.
But instead of that, he's accused the Territory government of cutting $200 million from its education budget, which Mr Clisby says could see 100 teacher positions go.
He's called on the Prime Minister to put a stop to those changes.
"Tony Abbott made promises about funding education and really what we want to do now is have this NT government brought into line. Particularly in this area of remote education. This attack on remote education and the withdrawal of services and the withdrawal of teachers is so out of step with what the rest of Australia is doing and it's got to stop."
Northern Territory Education Minister Peter Chandler admits 71 jobs will go in the education department, but says a further 66 teacher positions will be allocated to the early years for 2014.
Meanwhile, the Smith Family charity says it's the largest provider of education support to disadvantaged young people in Australia and has described the COAG report as "depressing reading".
It says reform is urgently needed to halt the growing divide between disadvantaged young Australians and their more fortunate peers.
Anne Hampshire, from the Smith Family, says it would be wrong for people to assume that all Australian children have the same access to a quality education.
"It's unfortunately not the case as this data would suggest so we've got really big gaps depending on where young people live and in terms of what their backgrounds are so it matters more in Australia your family's background and where you live for your educational outcomes than it does in others countries like Canada or Finland. Canada and Finland are high quality education systems, as is Australia, but the difference is that there's much more equity in those systems."
Ms Hampshire warns that if the gap continues to grow, the community will pay one way or another.
She says children from disadvantaged backgrounds grow up to be adults with a greater likelihood of being long-term unemployed or working in short-term, casual roles.
"There's a cost for that. They're more likely to be on welfare. They're also more likely to have in the longer term poorer health outcomes. We know that strong education is strongly correlated with health, but more importantly, we know that if young people are not engaged in employment and education and training they start to become very disengaged in the broader community. So they end up feeling very isolated and that can really lead in the longer term to social breakdown and a lack of community cohesion and that really is where we get major problems for the community long-term."
Anne Hampshire says the Smith Family has found a number of measures can bring great improvements in the educational outcomes for disadvantaged communities.
She says needs-based school funding is a key starting point, school-community partnerships can help direct resources and support into areas of need, while mentoring can encourage more young people to pursue further education and higher achievement.