Years of NAPLAN and international test results have shown that students from a non English-speaking background are ahead of Australian kids with English. 

Former NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli, said that Australia is “culturally a bit complacent” in terms of education. 

“We have a cultural issue in Australia, mainly on the basis of how lucky we are as a country,” Mr Piccoli said. “Kids from non English-speaking backgrounds are doing better in Australian schools than Australian kids with English-speaking backgrounds- in the same schools.” 

This was evident in the 2017 NAPLAN scores. 
According to the 2017 NAPLAN result report, students from non English-speaking background were exceeding in areas of writing, spelling, reading, grammar, and numeracy in Year 3 and Year 9. 
The average spelling score for non English-speaking background Year 3 students was 31 points higher than students than the students from an English-speaking background. 

Mr Piccoli criticised parent’s higher interests in their children’s sports over their education.
“A lot of parents get more worked up about sport at school than how their kids are doing at school. And then the country goes into meltdown each time the NAPLAN results come out,” he said. 
“If people are expecting schools to solve all problems of education and parents take their hands off, that’s not going to work,” he added.