Whether in the business center of Sydney and its suburbs to the east, in the mining and agricultural communities of the remote Kimberley region in the northwest, or elsewhere, most of Australia's 3.3 million K-12 students share the customary features of schooling--from physical structures to academic schedules. The content also has a common structure across the country, but there are often vast differences in what and how well students learn, depending on where they live. Now, as parents and policymakers Down Under recognize that young Aussies will need to be competitive not only with their counterparts in the commonwealth's six states and two territories, but also with students around the globe, officials have undertaken an ambitious plan to standardize the system to improve equity and raise the country's standing on the world stage. The federal government in Australia is taking a similar approach to tackling the problem as one being debated in the United States: national guidelines for the content of core subjects. This "education revolution," as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's initiative is called, is intended to ensure that children have access to high-quality academic programs, whether in Tasmania, the Northern Territory, or the far reaches of Western Australia. A principal feature is development of a national curriculum, now under way, that will standardize what is taught in all public and private schools, beginning in 2011. Previous efforts over the past three decades to define on a national level what all students should know and be able to do have met with fierce debate, and varying degrees of cooperation--just as such undertakings have in the United States. This time, though, there appears to be widespread support for the measure. State leaders are involved in devising the guidelines for mathematics, English/language arts, science, history, and other subjects.