Most of the "reforms" announced by Rudd at the National Press Club last Wednesday simply extend what John Howard and his education minister Julie Bishop wanted to do. The main difference is that Rudd insists he will be a lot tougher about making the states implement his changes. There’s nothing wrong with copying Howard, provided schools really improve.

Rudd and Gillard show no sign of drawing inspiration from the success of the Finnish school system. Contrary to what Rudd and Gillard want, the Finland’s National Board of Education says its system has "no national tests of learning outcomes and no school league tables. Pupils and schools are not compared with each other". There is not even an external exam until age 16. Nor are there are any fees or charges for teaching, learning materials, daily meals, health care, dental care and school transport.

Although funded nationally, Finnish schools are run at the local level. There is no central government interference. Teachers are encouraged to develop their own interpretation of the core curriculum objectives in what officials describe as a system of "intense delegation".

Although the pay is relatively low, teachers are so highly regarded in Finland that the number of applicants far exceeds vacancies. Reports on the Finnish system stress how the government refrains from criticising teachers, focusing instead on giving more support where internal surveys show some schools are facing difficulties.

The schools reportedly are relaxed places with an emphasis on "student centered democracy". There is no streaming. Students start school at age 7 and go through until age 16, before beginning secondary school or vocational college. All schools have to take all students who want to attend, regardless of their ability or behaviour. Which is one reason that Finland has few private schools, even though they get a government grant equal to the payment to the state schools. Private fees are not allowed.

This rather "touchy-feely" approach has been in place, almost unchanged, for 30 years. But it works, as acknowledged last week by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in a study praising Finnish schools for their outstanding performance in international tests.

In contrast, US students do poorly in international tests. However, Gillard says she was "inspired" by a recent meeting with the head of New York’s school system Joel Klein, who is renown for closing schools that score badly in city wide tests. Unlike New York, Gillard says her government plans to release test data without ranking all schools from top to bottom.

Nevertheless, New York is a strange place to seek inspiration about a high quality education. Despite Klein’s "tough love", not a single New York school rated in the top high 200 schools in nation-wide survey released in May.

Most Australian parents would probably welcome more information on educational performance, especially if the data is used, as Rudd promised on Wednesday, to put more resources into schools that are falling behind.

Both Rudd and Gillard, however, have used the media to play up their threat to sack teachers and close schools which don’t lift their game. Despite his earlier claims to be committed to "co-operative federalism", Rudd seems to be spoiling for a fight with the states if they don’t do what he wants on schools.

Few parents will object to giving the flick to teachers who are demonstrably not up to the job. However, some parents might have second thoughts about the wisdom of closing local schools instead of fixing the problems. Gillard says she wants to release test data to make it easier for parents to choose a good school.

But many parents have little practical option other than to send their children to nearby schools, particularly in regional Australia where the next public school might be three hours drive away, or further. Even in the cities, most parents don’t want young children having to change buses or trains to travel long distances to a new school.

When the public school system was established, governments were expected to provide a good education within a reasonable distance of most households. The goal was not to shift the responsibility onto parents to seek out the best schools; let alone add several hours a week to the travel time for their children.

Yet Rudd has focused on giving parents the necessary data to decide whether to move their children to different schools, or, as he clumsily put it at the press, to "walk with their feet". Earlier in the speech, he came out with "each one . . . are", before decrying falling literacy standards in schools.

More disturbingly, he promised to impose a national curriculum throughout Australia. While every one needs to acquire some basic literacy and numeracy skills, a healthy society thrives on diversify. Australia would be a much duller place if every student in every town in every state were made to read the same list of dreary novels and forced to learn the same narrow set of historical facts.