@pintohoo; there were very strong connections and considerable interactions between some of the leading educators in the USA and those at Monash University in Melbourne.
What matters is how governments responded!
In Australia's case it was shameful and very much a matter of squandered opportunity. Instead of leading the World we now have the World's most segregated youth [ie. courtesy of education apartheid] and the western world's most under-resourced public education sector.
