Director of education monitoring and research at the Australian Council for Education Research Sue Thomson said the TIMSS results showed "a substantial proportion of our students are below the Australian proficient standards, with roughly half of students in remote areas at or below that level. Clearly we have a problem".

On that, most are agreed. There's near universal agreement, too, on what broadly needs to occur for Australia to improve its international league table rankings. However, obtaining Commonwealth, state and territory government consensus on exactly what interventions would be the most productive, and therefore most deserving of extra funding, all too often appears an impossible task.

Federal Labor has argued that disadvantaged children, particularly those in remote indigenous communities, have to be better supported. Instead of detailing what forms that support should take, however, Labor resorts to blaming Coalition cuts to the Gillard government's needs-based funding model for the decline in Australia's international rankings. For his part, Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham says funding has to go to those who "need it most", but cautions that this must be determined by focusing on what "evidence-backed initiatives will lift student outcomes".

Such self-serving arguments are a poor substitute for proper and informed discussion about Australia's success in providing the necessary support for young Australians to become successful learners and which rankings like TIMSS seek to highlight. Clearly, progress to that end is not determined entirely by money, as Kazakhstan's improved performance seems to indicate. Indeed 20 years of TIMSS testing suggest there's little link between class sizes and level of achievement.

According to TIMSS director, Michael Martin, the quality and status of teaching is the most important factor to success. On that measure, Australia would appear to have homework to do. University entrance requirements for students aspiring to teach in Australia are not high – indicative not just of relatively poor salaries but of a lack of public appreciation for the work the profession does. Primary school teachers are failing to provide their students with adequate maths and science foundations and the shortage of people properly qualified to teach these subjects at high school is adding to the problem.

However disappointing the TIMSS results, there's every prospect Australia can bridge the gap in achievement between disadvantage and privileged students. For that to occur, however, policymakers and government must agree on a coherent approach that values teachers and learning.