The latest NAPLAN test results show Australian school students' scores are stagnating in the areas of numeracy and literacy.
Students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 take the test.
While results have improved since the testing began in 2008 and some year levels in some states and territories fared well, there is no significant improvement overall in recent years.
Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority chief executive Robert Randall has told the ABC the country should expect more for its children.
"We need to go further than the 'some schools in some states and territories.' It needs to be a more wholehearted, widespread effort to seek improvement everywhere."
The poor scorecard follows two international studies that found Australian students are lagging behind in maths and science education.
But it is not all bad news for all students.
In some crucial areas, students from non-English speaking backgrounds performed better than their peers.
Migrant students returned better scores in 19 out of 20 numeracy and literacy categories across primary and secondary schooling.
There was also a definite improvement detected among Indigenous primary school students.
The NAPLAN results indicate overall gains for Indigenous students in Years 3 and 5 in reading and numeracy, as well as improvements in early learning.
Mr Randall says that momentum needs to be built on, nationwide.
"We can see a closing of that gap, because we can see there is gain being realised. And what we need to do is to congratulate the people who've realised that difference and find ways to accelerate that, because, yes, unfortunately, a lot of those young people are coming from further behind, if you like. But you won't get improvement in results overall unless you get some gains in individual schools and individual states."
Federal education minister Simon Birmingham says the flattening results show educators and policymakers must work together to deliver reforms to lift achievement.
Education ministers meet on Friday to discuss a new deal on school funding, expected to be finalised in the first half of next year and start from 2018.
Mr Birmingham has told the ABC the key is early intervention and targeted funding.
"How we can better identify children in the earliest years who are struggling, so that we can have effective interventions. How we can better support our most capable teachers to stay in the profession, to be rewarded and recognised, not just those who have been there longest. How we can lift our standard of ambition for student achievement in the final years, in terms of minimum literacy and numeracy standards for school leavers."
Labor supports fully funding the Gonski scheme for the 2018 and 2019 school years, while the Coalition is trying to negotiate a new agreement to apply from 2018 onwards.
Opposition education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek has told the ABC the Government should reconsider its stance.
"It shows exactly why we've done needs-based funding. We've seen the early years of extra investment in kids from an Indigenous background, and we're seeing that Year 12 completion rates have gone up, for example, for Indigenous kids. So we are seeing some improvements. But we cannot rest on our laurels. It's the very beginning of needs-based funding."
