The Children We Leave Behind How School Could Be Done Differently

1. The Need for Reform

2. The Evolution of Schooling

3. Enormous Learning Gaps

4. Do Gaps Reflect Differences in Merit?

5. Could All Students Learn Successfully?

6. Are Higher Expectations the Answer?

7. Is Tighter Prescription the Answer?

8. What Every Child Needs to Flourish

9. A Curriculum Designed for Growth

10. Assessments Designed for Growth

11. Mapping Long-Term Growth

12. Reimagining Schooling

Biography

Geoff Masters was head of the Australian Council for Educational Research from 1998 to 2024, was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contributions to Education, and led a 2023 study of high-performing school systems for the US National Center on Education and the Economy.

"We’ve built education systems around the wrong question. We’ve been asking how to give children the right dose of quality schooling, when we should have been asking how school might be organised so every child can learn. The book asks us to see the children who don’t thrive in our systems as evidence that the system itself should be redesigned. But this is not a pessimistic book; it’s reason for optimism. This is not an argument for lowering expectations, but for making success more possible: meeting learners where they are, supporting visible growth, and refusing to treat learning as a race in which some are permanently left behind."

• Martin Westwell, Chief Executive, South Australian Department for Education.

"It takes a highly experienced and informed person to reveal the biggest self-deception that we have lived with for centuries in education: When students come back from annual school vacation, we somehow assume that they will all start the new semester from the same level of knowledge and skills. This book demonstrates undeniably that we have planned schooling, curricula, and assessment on wrong assumptions. It is high time to think about equality and equity in education in a new way."

• Olli-Pekka Heinonen, Director General, International Baccalaureate Organization

"Geoff Masters offers a necessary critique of modern education’s industrial architecture. For decades, global school systems have operated as assembly lines, binding students to inflexible schedules that systematically manufacture failure rather than nurture human potential and flourishing… This is why Masters’ book is such a significant contribution. He expertly tears down the obsolete paradigm of age-based batch processing and replaces it with a bold and practical alternative: expect absolute mastery, but liberate the timeline...This book is an urgent blueprint for any leader serious about designing schools that finally adapt to the learner, rather than forcing the learner to adapt to the school."

• Iwan Syahril, Former Director General, Indonesian Ministry of Education

“The Children We Leave Behind speaks powerfully to officials, educators, students, and parents who know, with certainty, that the current model of schooling has not and cannot meet the needs of each young person’s learning to enable their growth and development. In proposing ‘how school could be done differently’, Masters lays out with remarkable foresight and precision (not prescription) redesigned learning environments capable of operating ecosystemically — transforming our learning systems and providing a new grammar of schooling. Inspiring and motivating for all committed to the new definitions of excellence and equity we so desperately need.”

• Anthony Mackay AM, Board Co-Chair, National Center on Education & the Economy, Washington DC, Learning Creates Australia, Melbourne

“This book lifts the lid on how our approach to assessment of students in school is failing. It presents a compelling argument for change. For many students assessment is having a negative impact on student engagement, on student learning, and on progression and growth. The evidence is strong for the case for change to a model of assessment which enables every child to flourish and grow.”

• Helen Drennen, Chair of the International Baccalaureate Board of Governors

“Schooling is in crisis, with up to fifty per cent of students not engaged emotionally or intellectually. Our communities are looking for leadership on how to address this crisis. Well, here it is – in one small, readable, professionally researched volume by an expert in the field. The author distils the critical issues, writes about them in non-technical language and offers alternative ways forward from his research about good practice from around the world.”

• David Loader, 32 years’ experience as a school principal, and author of two school-focused books, The Inner Principal and Jousting for the New Generation

“A deeply insightful and humane book that challenges the very machinery of schooling. Masters combines rigorous evidence with real stories to show what’s possible when we design systems around growth, not failure.”

• Brad Gaynor, Education Performance Improvement Leader