First minister Nicola Sturgeon has made tackling the gap a key part of the Education Scotland Bill, now before Holyrood, but MSPs on the Education Committee said new laws would be most effective by identifying good and bad practices and establishing a more strategic and co-ordinated approach.
In its report on the Bill, the committee also said there was currently no comprehensive definition or measurement of “attainment” across all ages.
Stewart Maxwell, convener of the Education and Culture Committee, said: “That the attainment gap in Scotland persists is a source of concern for us all.
“Over the past 50 years there has been a great deal of work focused on narrowing this gap and improving the opportunities for some of the most deprived children in our society.
“While the committee supports the general principles of the Bill, we believe a more radical approach may be required and this Bill needs to be part of that.”
A clear understanding of what would be needed to deliver improvement has to come first, Mr Maxwell said.
The government and local authorities should consult widely to ensure their reports on tackling the attainment gap are as useful as possible.
“It is in no-one’s interests for reports simply to list actions taken. What is needed is an understanding of what works so that positive outcomes can be repeated throughout the country.”
The Bill sets out to impose duties on both councils and national government in terms of reducing inequalities of outcome for pupils. Education authorities and Scottish ministers are supposed to have “due regard to the desirability” of reducing inequalities of outcome.
“Given the consensus among the Scottish government, local authorities and other stakeholders that narrowing the attainment gap is of fundamental importance, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where an education authority would not consider a reduction in inequality to be desirable,” the report stated.
“We therefore ask the Scottish government to look at how the provision can be made more effective.”
MSPs also urged the government to set out “the efforts it is making to improve the quality of information it provides”.
They said ministers had failed to consult on all the proposals in the Bill “in part because some provisions were added at a late stage”.