It is time for Australians to rediscover the original ideals and optimism of public education. Because of pressure groups and wedge politics, the grand objectives have been forgotten or frustrated of late. Where did we go wrong? How can we reverse our present direction?

It would be hard to imagine a more noble aspiration than the original idea of public education in Australia. The young William Wilkins came to this country to head up colonial education with knowledge of the new national schools in Ireland. The young Henry Parkes drafted the first Public Schools Bill. It passed into law in NSW in 1867, against powerful opposition from the churches and the new University of Sydney. They wanted to keep education in private and religious hands.

Suddenly, the notion of creating public schools across continental Australia grasped the infant country's imagination. Quality education was to be available to every Australian child. We would be the first continent on Earth with a legal right to schooling. There were three core principles: it would be free, compulsory and secular. Only the scattered communities in the United States aspired to anything like it. Look at any established town and suburb in Australia and it's next to certain that you will find a public school building with ''1888'' or ''1896'' carved over the entrance. And as Parkes hoped, these schools would accompany and stimulate Australia's moves to federation and nationhood.

When I was at school I was raised in these ideals. Learning the alphabet from Miss Pontifex in Class 1A at Strathfield North Public School in 1945. Learning about the new Declaration of Human Rights from Mr Redmond at Summer Hill OC class in 1949. Striving for success at Fort Street High in 1951. My later schools were ''selective''. But the ideals we were taught were exactly the same. Egalitarian. Democratic. Excellence. Secular. Religion, apart from a one-hour optional period, was a private matter. Never did I hear homophobic propaganda or classist superiority. We were proud of our teachers and quietly confident about the superiority of public education.

So what went wrong, such that Australia now spends a higher proportion of public money on private schools than any other developed country except Chile and Belgium? Why have teachers' salaries in Australia slumped compared with teachers in other OECD nations? Why is Australia placed 18th out of 31 OECD countries, and below the average, in spending on school education? The burdens of these below-average performances fall heaviest on our public schools. This is undoing a great national dream.