Simon (the saint)
The three factors below are predictive to a child's success at school. Research shows a big difference between their effects.
Rank them in order of importance.

Parents
Intra school differences
Differences between schools

Not withstanding the above, rank the relative success at university of students from the following background who had equal TE scores

Public
Private
Selective public

What organisation runs PISA?

In PISA are Australian school students ranked high medium or low in ternational comparisons.
What was TIMMS ? what is its new name?

Richard
ACER research shows clearly that while home and demographic indices give a little clue as to a child's likely academic and educational achievement, the single greatest factor is teacher quality. That may be related to between class differences because it is measuring between teacher differences.

There is less difference between schools but enough to suggest that attention must be paid to good governance, good management, resource management and community engagement.

Simon can you provide a reference to the Acer research?

Fickle Pickle

Here are three key references but I can't yet find the URLs.

What matters most: Evidence-based findings of key factors affecting the educational experiences and outcomes for girls and boys throughout their primary and secondary schooling
Kenneth J. Rowe, PhD and Katherine S. Rowe, MD Principal Research Fellow, Australian Council for Educational Research
Senior Consultant Physician, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne
Supplementary submission to House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Training: Inquiry Into the Education of Boys May 2002

Submission to Inquiry Into the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Teaching Profession) Bill 2004 by the Australian Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee
Kenneth John Rowe Australian Council for Educational Research

The importance of teaching: Ensuring better schooling by building teacher capacities that maximize the quality of teaching and learning provision – implications of findings from emerging international and Australian evidence-based research
Kenneth J. Rowe PhD Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)
Supporting paper to invited address presented at the Making Schools Better conference: A Summit Conference on the Performance, Management and Funding of Australian Schools Sponsored by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, in association with The Australian and the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne 26-27 August 200

Simon thank you. I have found the following
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/edt/eofb/subs/sub111.pdf

and

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/edt/eofb/subs/subs111_1.pdf

This is compelling stuff

Fickle Pickle,
This is also interesting reading and I have included a snapshot from Chapter 7 which is relevant to this discussion.

http://www.dest.gov.au/nitl/documents/report_recommendations.pdf

7. Quality teaching and ongoing professional learning
The importance of quality teaching

Despite the focus on the relative effectiveness of instructional strategies in the present report, it is important to stress that teaching practices and instructional strategies per se are not independent of the teachers who deliver them to children, whether or not those children experience learning difficulties and behaviour problems. Effective schooling for all children is crucially dependent on the provision of quality teaching by competent teachers, especially in reading instruction. They must be supported by capacity-building to maintain high teaching standards via strategic professional learning at all levels of schooling (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005; Hattie, 2003, 2005; Kennedy, 2001; OECD, 2001, 2005b; Rowe, 2003b, 2004b,c,d).37 The summary of findings from evidence-based research for the effects of quality teaching on student outcomes provided by Linda Darling-Hammond at Stanford University (US) are pertinent and require emphasis: