Content uploaded by Amanda Keddie
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Amanda Keddie on May 16, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
1"
"
Keddie,"A."(2016)"Maintaining"the"integrity"of"public"education:"a"comparative"analysis"of"school"
autonomy"in"the"US"and"Australia,"Comparative+Education+Review+60(2),+249-270."
Maintaining the integrity of public education: a comparative analysis of school
autonomy in the US and Australia
Abstract
This paper takes a critical comparative approach to examining autonomous schooling in the
US and Australia. Amid the market imperatives currently driving education priorities, its
focus is on how autonomy can be mobilised in ways that preserve the integrity of public
education. Through reference to key debates and research about school autonomy in the US
and Australia, integrity is defined with reference to three values: 1) public ownership (i.e.
governance that is responsive to the people it serves), 2) equity and access (i.e. adequate
funding and inclusive student admission practices) and 3) public purpose (i.e. prioritising the
moral and social purposes of education) (Darling-Hammond and Montgomery 2008). The
analysis is mindful of the resonances and differences between the education systems in the
US and Australia and the fluidity and complexity of the notion of autonomous schooling.
Against this backdrop, the paper illustrates the significance of embedding these values within
school autonomy policy in order to preserve the integrity of public education.
Introduction
All international evidence points to the fact that the more autonomous a school, the better the outcomes
for students. (Christopher Pyne, Federal Education Minister, Australia)
…high-performing charters1 have irrefutably demonstrated that low-income children can and do
achieve at high levels. (Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education)
Government reforms in contexts such as England, the US, New Zealand and Australia, albeit
to varying degrees and over varying time periods, have increasingly enabled the conditions
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
1"Charter schools, while publicly funded, operate under a charter or contract with an authorising agent who
oversees and holds the school to account. Agents can include school districts, state boards of education,
universities or organisations (both non-profit and for-profit) (see Hubbard and Kulkarni 2009)."
2"
"
for schools to exercise greater self-management. Granting schools more control and authority
over their governance aims to generate more effective, responsive, and innovative education
systems. These conditions are associated in policy discourse with improving school
management and leadership, the quality of teaching and learning, and resource efficiency.
Autonomous schooling is presented in such discourse as the flagship for driving up education
standards. There is strong political faith in the idea of autonomous schooling as key to
improving education. This faith is captured well in the above comments made by Australia’s
Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne and US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.
For Smyth (2011 school autonomy is an education idea that has been “adopted around the
world with remarkable speed and consistency” (p. 95). Indeed, it is presented by proponents
as inevitable—a necessary condition to enable education systems to compete on the world
stage. Certainly, at a global or transnational policy level, influential organisations such as the
OECD and the World Bank have endorsed school autonomy (see World Bank 2014; OECD
2011). The OECD, for example, which according to Rizvi and Lingard (2010) has established
itself as an international organisation par excellence in evaluating educational performance
globally, draws on PISA data to illustrate a connection between greater school autonomy and
improved student performance. The OECD (2011) also illustrates, however, the complexity
of the relationship between school autonomy, school accountability and student
improvement, suggesting that autonomy and accountability need to be “intelligently
combined” in order to improve student performance.
International endorsement and focus on school autonomy as a mechanism for driving up
education standards is reflective of its status as a globalised policy discourse that is set within
the parameters of another globalised discourse—accountability on international standards and
measures such as PISA (Lingard and Rawolle 2011). These are key discourses within what
Lingard and Rawolle (2011) describe as a “global field” that reflects a rescaling of politics
and political authority to a supranational level. The authority of this global field is reflected in
its driving of “national systems of education towards a similar policy outlook” (Rizvi and
Lingard 2010, 42), which has led to a new era of “policy borrowing” and sharing across
countries (Lingard 2010). Such authority is not fixed, however; it actively constitutes and
reconstitutes education policy and practice at a national level, with nation-states’ differential
3"
"
engagement with it reflecting national and local histories and cultures (see Rizvi and Lingard
2010; Lingard and Rawolle 2011; Dale 2005).
In relation to school autonomy, this differential engagement is evident in the great variance
across and within nations in terms of take up and efficacy. Such variance exemplifies the
futility of pinning down a simple definition of school autonomy because it is “grounded in a
particular politics at a particular time … continually contested and rearticulated across time
and political changes” (Lingard et al. 2002, 15). In the US, for example, autonomous school
governance has proliferated to include a diverse variety of for-profit and non-profit
stakeholders, while in Australia such governance remains more securely tied to the state. In
both of these contexts, there is also great variance in terms of “efficacy”. Counter to the more
general global findings of the OECD, research can find little conclusive evidence to link
school autonomy with improved academic outcomes, notwithstanding conclusive indications
that some autonomous schools, in line with Arne Duncan’s comments above, are working in
highly productive ways.
In light of this evidence, it is generally agreed that autonomous schools have not yet delivered
on their promise of school improvement and innovation. For progressive commentators
across western contexts, this failure is in large part attributable to the ways in which free-
market ideologies have seized the upper hand in this movement. As Ravitch (2010, 227) aptly
puts it: while “the market serves us well when we want to buy a new car”, it is not the best
way to deliver public services. Reflecting the hegemony of neoliberal policy and politics in
the broader social world, these ideologies have become taken-for-granted as the most
effective and efficient means of improving education.
For Lubienski and Lubienski (2013), the ongoing faith in market mechanisms to drive up
educational innovation and standards has been strengthened with the increasing involvement
of the philanthropic and corporate sector in public education. The strong and growing
financial investment of this sector in public education, as these authors argue, has managed to
obscure and effectively counter the 1) weak empirical justification for this reform, and 2) the
growing evidence that associates school autonomy with undermining public education (see
Lubienski and Lubienski 2013; Darling-Hammond 2008; Lingard et al. 2002; Smyth 2011). It
has long been the view that school autonomy, when driven by market imperatives,
4"
"
compromises the “hallmark” values of public education; i.e. public ownership, equity and
access, and public purpose (see Darling-Hammond and Montgomery 2008).
This paper takes a critical comparative approach to examining autonomous schooling in the
US and Australia. Amid the market imperatives currently driving education priorities, its
focus is on how autonomy can be mobilised in ways that preserve the integrity of public
education. Given its variance and complexity within and across education contexts, the focus
here is not on pinning down a definitive view of school autonomy (Lingard et al. 2002).
Rather, the focus is on the shifting political terrain within the US and Australia that frames
the policy imperatives to grant schools greater self-management from centralised forms of
governance. More specifically, the analysis considers how education politics at the national
and more local levels mediate these imperatives in ways that are both enabling and
constraining of the values of public education (as elaborated in subsequent sections).
The review begins with an explanation of the selection of the US and Australia as contexts
for comparative analysis, followed by an account of key literature and research relating to
charter schooling in the US. While charter schools are only one version of school autonomy
in this context, they are focused on here, as they are perhaps the most prolific example of this
reform in the world. From 1999 to 2013, the percentage of charter schools increased from 1.7
to 6.2 per cent of all public schools. As of 2013, more than 2.5 million children were enrolled
in more than 6,000 charter schools nationwide, with nearly 1 million names on charter school
waitlists across the nation (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 2013). These figures
are expected to rise with the recent passing of a bipartisan bill in the US House of
Representatives to increase federal spending on charter schools from $250 to $300 million
(see Mendez, 2014).
Following this account, the paper highlights the values seen as contributing to the integrity of
charter schooling: 1) public ownership (i.e., governance that is responsive to the people it
serves), 2) equity and access (i.e., adequate funding and inclusive student admission
practices) and 3) public purpose (i.e., prioritising the moral and social purposes of education)
(Darling-Hammond and Montgomery 2008). These values, it is argued, support the integrity
of school autonomy in their centring of educative rather than market-oriented goals. These
5"
"
values are then drawn on to critically analyse some of the key debates and policy trends
currently shaping autonomous schooling in Australia.
The US and Australia as contexts for comparative analysis
There are distinct parallels and divergences between the US and Australia in relation to
education governance that provide a strong rationale for the choice of these nations as a basis
for comparative analysis. Australia and the US are both federal systems where education is
ostensibly a state responsibility. These contexts share a substantive history of state- and local-
level school governance as well as an established commitment to school autonomy as a driver
of school improvement. There is also resonance across these contexts in relation to the
debates for and against school autonomy. Such parallels provide a useful backdrop from
which to consider the distinct differences within each nation that mediate how autonomy is
taken up. Of particular interest in this review are differences associated with the diversity and
complexity of education governance, and the varying power and influence of federal
governments on state education (Savage and O’Connor 2014).
The system of education within the US is markedly more complex and diverse than the
system of education in Australia. Across the nation there are approximately 14,000 districts.
Each of these districts operates differently and with varying relations to state agencies (see
Savage and O’Connor 2014). The now key role of non-government policy actors, such as
philanthropic foundations and corporate stakeholders, in national education reform in the US
has added significantly to this complexity. The system of education in Australia, by contrast,
is much smaller and far less complex. There are, however, different challenges for this
system such as those associated with providing quality education services across this nation’s
huge land-mass with its particular population spread and concentration areas. This has led to,
for example, challenges in resourcing, especially in relation to adequately staffing schools in
rural and remote areas. Despite these challenges, the state and territory education systems in
Australia are relatively cohesive with less district influence than in the US. Moreover, while
the influence of philanthropic and corporate actors on Australian state education is growing,
educational governance is far less polycentric than it is in the US (see Exley and Ball 2010;
Savage and O’Connor 2014).
6"
"
Another key difference between these two contexts is the varying power and influence of
their respective federal governments. Although the states are responsible for schooling in
both contexts, there are different funding arrangements across the US and Australia. In
Australia constitutional measures that provide for significant funding to state education from
the federal government have led to substantial federal intervention in the governance of
public schooling. In relation to equity, for example, such intervention has enabled
redistributive funding to poor schools in poor communities through, for instance, policies
stemming from the Karmel Report (Australian Schools Commission, 1973) and the more
recent “Gonski” reforms (Gonski 2011, although these reforms have been scaled back by
Australia’s current conservative government). By contrast, in the US, local (not federal)
taxation is linked to school funding; thus, federal intervention in the governance of public
education is limited because there is less direct funding to the states. Under this arrangement,
redistributive equity priorities are managed at a perhaps more disparate and fragmented local
level (Savage and O’Connor 2014).
Certainly, the differences between these contexts in terms of system diversity and complexity
and processes associated with federalism provide different conditions of possibility in
relation to school autonomy reform (Savage and O’Connor 2014). Such differences are
clearly important in considering how school autonomy can be taken up to either ascribe to or
undermine the integrity of public schooling. The research and writing selected for this review
are set against this political and conceptual backdrop. The following provides an account of
the charter school movement in the US from which to situate the paper’s view of integrity.
The charter school movement
!
The charter school movement in the US, which began in the early 1990s, is perhaps the most
diverse and complex example of autonomous schooling in the world. The key imperative
driving this movement was to improve the public school system especially in relation to
better addressing pronounced inequities associated with race and class (see Dingerson et al.
2008; Fabricant and Fine 2012). Such improvement was meant to occur through charter
schools sharing their innovations and ideas with their sponsoring public system. Charter
schools, while publicly funded, operate under a charter or contract with an authorising agent
who oversees and holds the school to account. Agents can include school districts, state
7"
"
boards of education, universities or organisations (both non-profit and for-profit) (see
Hubbard and Kulkarni 2009). Like Academies in the UK, these schools are free from local
district control and are granted flexibility in relation to the delivery of curriculum, the hiring
of staff and setting of staff pay and conditions, and the determining of term and school day
duration.
Charter schools vary widely in scope, size and type. There are, for example, publicly
approved “stand-alone” schools that reflect the teaching and learning values of a particular
community; non-profit networked charters like the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program)
franchise, which is based on a common curricular and school structure; and for-profit
charters, such as the White Hat schools, that are run by private industry (see Sizer and Wood
2008). Charter schools also vary widely in governance in relation to the different agreements
they may have with their particular authorising agent and the differentiation of governance by
state, with some agents and states exerting greater control and regulation over schools than
others in areas such as curriculum, assessment, teacher accreditation and broader goals like
inclusion, citizenship and innovation (see Hubbard and Kulkarni 2009; Bulkley and Fisler
2003; Darling-Hammond and Montgomery 2008).
While the charter school movement was originally driven by a progressive agenda, its focus
on devolution and deregulation meant that it also appealed to conservatives wedded to free-
market and privatisation ideologies. Many argue (see Dingerson et al. 2008; Fabricant and
Fine 2012) that these ideologies have seized the upper hand in the charter schools
movement—supported, of course, by the hegemonic status of neoliberal and neoconservative
policy and politics in the broader social world and a seemingly ever-present moral panic
about the dire state of American public schooling. Amid these policies, politics and panic,
mainstream politicians of all persuasions have supported calls for greater and more rigid
accountability through high-stakes testing. Certainly, at one level, charter schools enjoy a
measure of autonomy and freedom, but such autonomy and freedom is set against a backdrop
of unprecedented levels of state-imposed and international accountabilities in the form of an
ever-increasing myriad of standardised testing regimes. This is a high-stakes environment
where a school’s success or failure, indeed its survival, depends on student performance on
these regimes. Through neo-conservative lenses, the choice and competition generated by the
charter system is seen in this environment as a positive mechanism for driving up standards—
8"
"
an environment in theory that is set up to ensure that “good” schools (i.e., those that adhere to
the narrow priorities of the high-stakes testing culture) flourish and “bad” schools (i.e., those
that cannot measure up to this culture) fail and disappear.
As already suggested, there is much conflicting and inconclusive evidence as to the efficacy
of charter schools in raising academic achievement. While some research highlights the great
success of particular charter schools in improving educational outcomes, other research draws
attention to their spectacular failure (see Dingerson 2008; Lake, 2102; Welner 2013;
Lubienski, 2013). There are critical factors that are seen as contributing to charter schools
realising their original progressive ideals. Such factors go well beyond a concern with how
students perform on standardised tests—although this is obviously important—to a concern
with maintaining the integrity of the “hallmark” values of public education: public
ownership, equity and access, and public purpose (see Dingerson et al. 2008). For Darling-
Hammond and Montgomery (2008, see also, Sizer and Wood, 2008), this means ensuring that
charter schools 1) are governed by and responsive to the people they serve; 2) are in receipt
of adequate funding and inclusive in their student admission; and 3) prioritise the moral and
social purposes of education.
Maintaining the integrity of public education: public ownership, equity and public
purpose
Within the current parameters of high-stakes accountability and competition, there are aspects
of the charter movement that are seen as compromising the integrity of public education and,
in particular, the core values of public ownership, equity and access, and public purpose.
Such compromising is perhaps ironic given that it was the perceived failure of the public
system to live up to these values that helped give rise to the charter movement (Sizer and
Wood 2008). The first of these values, public ownership, is significant because it supports
schools to be governed closest to the people they serve and enables students, families and the
general public access to those with authority over the school (Darling-Hammond and
Montgomery 2008). As explored further in the next sections of this paper in relation to
Australian education policy, these conditions can facilitate inclusive and participatory
governance of schools where the school community can be involved in school decision-
making. Charter school type impacts on a school’s capacity to reflect this form of
9"
"
governance; stand-alone charters, for example, are more likely to be responsive to, and
inclusive of, their local communities while other charter arrangements, for example large
network charters, are more difficult and unwieldy to govern and monitor. They often adopt"
standardised and regulated approaches and boards that are not comprised of the local
community; they are thus less able to reflect localised and community responsive governance
(see Dingerson et al. 2008; Sizer and Wood 2008). State policy also impacts on forms of
governance that may support or undermine the value of public ownership, with some states
requiring extensive parent and community participation in establishing a charter while others
require little or no participation (Darling-Hammond and Montgomery 2008).
The complexity and diversity of public education in the US and its increasing deference to
the logics of the market seem antithetical to preserving the value of public ownership.
Operating within this space, the charter school system has rapidly proliferated with many of
its schools “rushed into operation and allowed to expand without careful evaluation” (Sizer
and Wood 2008, 15) with dire results in some cities. In New Orleans, for example, the
disaster of Hurricane Katrina led to a “flea market of entrepreneurial opportunism”
(Dingerson, 2008, 30) which dismantled the institution of public education, replacing it with
a charter system that included very little public consultation or deliberation on the models
that might be tried or processes for replicating what works in order to advance the system.
One of the original aims of the charter school movement was to promote and share
innovation in order to improve all public schools (Dingerson et al. 2008). However, as
Dingerson et al. (2008, xviii) argue, the “unfettered free-market ideology” framing this
movement, “with its notion of propriety ownership of any formula for success, has been
especially harmful in undermining” this aim. Not only are charter schools far less innovative
than promised, when they do purport success, they tend not to collaborate with other schools
to share what works and what doesn’t work (see also Sizer and Wood, 2008; Lake, 2012;
Lubienski and Lubienski 2013). This reality of propriety ownership and non-collaboration is
clearly at odds with the ethos of inclusive and community/school-led governance reflected in
the value of public ownership. !
Equity and access are also core values of public education. There are concerns that the
chartering movement is undermining equity in drawing material and human resources away
10"
"
from traditional public schools, thereby promoting a deterioration of these schools. The worse
these schools get, the more appealing the escape to charters becomes (Dingerson, et al. 2008).
This situation has created, in some areas, a view of public schools as dumping grounds for
under-performing and under-privileged students (see Dingerson 2008). Converting public
schools to charters does not reconcile or remedy the already highly segregated and stratified
public education system; rather, it tends to perpetuate, or in some cases exacerbate, this
segregation and stratification (Lopez et al. 2002; Ravitch 2010). This is because the
chartering system, in proliferating school diversity and choice, amplifies competition between
schools for their “market share” of students. Such competition increases the value and
attractiveness of “good” schools (that tend to be class and race privileged) and decreases the
value and attractiveness of “bad” schools (that tend to serve under-privileged students).
While it is the case that charter schools have been consistent in serving disadvantaged
communities in the recent past (Henig, 2012), the chartering movement has contributed to an
intensifying of the gap between privileged and under-privileged schools and students
(Ravitch 2010; Fabricant and Fine 2012; Lubienski and Lubienski 2013).
This competition, according to Lubienski and Lubienski (2013), has not led to better
outcomes and opportunities for students but, rather, it has forced schools to focus on, and
improve the impact of, their marketing strategies. It has also led to schools excluding costly
and difficult-to-educate students. As Darling-Hammond and Montgomery (2008) explain,
when market ideologies drive the agenda of charter schools, they are “likely to engage in
admission practices that decrease their costs and increase efficiency” (p. 99). While selective
enrolment is prohibited in many states, there are tacit ways in which schools can exclude
potentially lower attaining students. For example, schools may not offer services to high-
needs students such as those with disabilities or ESL requirements; they may encourage these
students to enrol at an alternative school; or they may adopt onerous admissions procedural
requirements that deter or exclude these sorts of students (Welner 2013; Ravitch 2010).
Additionally, many under-privileged parents and students do not have the social, cultural or
language resources to access relevant information associated with charter schools that may be
appropriate for them (see Lubienski and Lubienski 2013). Such practices have contributed to
grave inequities in the system, especially pronounced in relation to students with special
education needs who are increasingly overrepresented in traditional public schools (see
Dingerson et al. 2008).
11"
"
The value of public purpose is associated with the social and moral outcomes of schools and
their broader systems, a “moral compass” that, as Darling-Hammond and Montgomery
(2008) argue, sways schools to work for the betterment of society. Current test-based
measures of school success encourage competition, individualism and exclusion; their narrow
focus pays little heed to communal goals or the “common good”. As such, social and moral
outcomes tend to lack priority in many public schools (see Darling-Hammond and
Montgomery 2008; Sizer and Wood 2008; Dingerson et al. 2008). The current environment
does not encourage schools to focus, for example, on producing active and responsible
citizens through critical curricula and pedagogy (see Dingerson et al. 2008). While fostering
moral or social learning is far from an uncomplicated and unproblematic endeavour (it can,
for example, generate restrictive and exclusionary understandings of difference and diversity
that reinscribe the inequities of the status quo; see Gay 2000), such learning is, nevertheless, a
mandated purpose of schooling in the US, reflected in the value of public purpose.
The increasing involvement of the for-profit sector in charter school management is seen as
further compromising these values. Of course, the notion of profit making appears antithetical
to educative goals (see Darling-Hammond and Montgomery 2008; Ravitch 2010; Fabricant
and Fine 2012). However, there are other concerns with for-profit charters. For example, as
private corporations, they are not subject to the same levels of public accountability as other
charters; thus, there is a lack of transparency in relation to their pursuit of educative and
student-centred goals (Hanauer 2008; see also Fabricant and Fine 2012). Moreover, as large
endeavours encompassing the management of many schools, they necessarily operate at a
distance from their schools which (as indicated earlier) can be problematic in terms of public
ownership and the monitoring of schooling processes and outcomes. These elements of for-
profit chartering have led to their poor performance in many states (see Hanauer 2008)."
The issues and concerns explored in this section illustrate the ways in which school autonomy
can intersect with market ideologies to constrain the “hallmark” values of public schooling.
These values offer a useful scaffold for critically analysing some of the key debates and
policy trends currently shaping autonomous schooling in Australia.
Autonomous schooling in Australia
12"
"
There has been renewed emphasis on the notion of autonomous schooling in Australia at
federal and state levels. There are distinct parallels between the education and political
discourses associated with autonomous schooling in Australia and the US. Certainly, it is
justified on a similar basis, most predominantly that it grants greater freedom to schools in
governance and decision-making around issues of finance, staffing and resourcing. As with
the US, political arguments for introducing school autonomy are focused on creating greater
choice for parents and students; creating the conditions for principals and school leaders to
better respond to the needs of their schools; removing the supposed inefficiencies associated
with bureaucratic governance; and promoting innovation and resource efficiency towards
improving the public education system overall (see Lubienski and Lubienski 2013; Smyth
2011; Cobbold 2014; Gobby 2013a). Also, similar to the US, school autonomy is presented
as a viable, indeed necessary, alternative to a public schooling system in crisis that is failing
in its task of adequately educating Australian students (see Lubienski and Lubienski 2013;
Smyth 2011).
Like the US, devolution in Australian education has a long history. School autonomy and,
more particularly, the idea that responsibility for schools should be devolved to the people
involved in the task of schooling was promoted over forty years ago in the Karmel Report
(Australian Schools Commission, 1973). While the Australian Capital Territory instated
school autonomy reform in the 1970s, policies to support schools to self-manage were most
pronounced and transformative in the state of Victoria in the 1990s, today the most devolved
public education system in Australia. The Independent Public Schools (IPS) initiative in the
states of Western Australia (WA) and Queensland (introduced in 2010 and 2013,
respectively) is the most recent attempt to generate greater school autonomy, although in both
of these states, policies and processes of school devolution are far from new.
Consistent with the US, governance of school autonomy differs widely from state to state but
is similarly framed by broader educational governance that prioritises market ideologies. Also
consistent with the US, these ideologies have gradually taken hold of autonomous school
governance, with the initial idea of school autonomy (as, for example, in the Karmel Report)
informed by a progressive agenda in relation to community responsiveness and equity goals
(see Australian Schools Comission, 1973; Fabricant and Fine 2012). In Australia, the
13"
"
alignment of market ideologies with education governance has become evermore embedded
with the increasing use of, and legitimacy associated with, international and national
measures of school success to evaluate and rank schools publicly, concerted efforts to
devolve and re-regulate schools around these measures, and commitment to the supposition
that competition between schools will work in tandem with choice and accountability
imperatives to drive up school performance. Like the US, it seems also the case in Australia
that whatever cannot be measured (through standardised tests) doesn’t count, despite strong
opposition even from more conservative quarters that challenges the narrowness and
inadequacies of these measures in capturing school success (see Ravitch 2010; Jensen et al.
2013). There are also grave concerns, as in the US, about the decimation of the public system
under autonomous schooling, with many challenging the instating of this reform as an
abrogation of state responsibility (and the risk and blame associated with this responsibility)
to schools, families and local communities (see Lamb 2007; Smyth 2011).
Support for school autonomy in Australia remains strong despite evidence that highlights, as
with the US, the inconclusive relationship between increased school independence and
improved educational attainment (Lubienski 2009; Jensen et al. 2013; Dempster 2000;
Kimber and Ehrich 2011; Cobbold 2014). Comparative research between schooling in NSW
(a very centralised system) and Victoria (a highly autonomised system), for example, finds no
significant difference in student performance on standardised international and national
measures such as PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) and NAPLAN
(National Assessment Plan Literacy and Numeracy) (see Jensen et al. 2013).
Notwithstanding, the federal government has recently committed 70 million dollars to
convert 1500 public schools to independent public status by 2017 on the pretext that it will
improve schooling and its outcomes in Australia.
These similarities provide a useful backdrop from which to consider some of the nation-
specific factors that mediate how autonomy is taken up in the US and Australia. As
mentioned earlier, the diversity and complexity of the US education system contrasts
markedly with the Australian system in relation to the influence of state and federal
governance and the involvement of non-government players (Savage and O’Connor 2014).
Market imperatives are much stronger in the governance of schools in the US, especially with
the involvement of the for-profit sector. This system is more polycentric and its chartering
14"
"
more diverse and complex in terms of type and governance. School autonomy in Australia is,
by contrast, much more closely tied to the state; it remains the responsibility of state
education departments to decide which schools are given independent status and, once they
are granted this status, state departments tend to retain control over areas such as policy and
strategic direction, performance monitoring and measurement, and curriculum (see Cobbold
2014; Gobby 2013a).
In Australia, like the US, there has been strong research interest on matters of school
autonomy in relation to the values of public ownership, equity and access, and public
purpose. The following section explores these values in relation to key policy discourse
currently shaping school autonomy in Australia.
Public ownership
As explained earlier, supporting schools to be governed closest to the people they serve is key
to the value of public ownership. Such public ownership can facilitate the conditions of
inclusive and participatory governance where students, parents and the community are
involved in managing and monitoring their local public school (Darling-Hammond and
Montgomery 2008). Focus in policy discourse at both federal and state levels in Australia is
very much on this value. Policy associated with school autonomy at a federal level, for
example, strongly encourages community and parental input (see Department of Education
2014a); however, as with the US, state policy varies as to what such input might look like
within the context of initiatives like the IPS. In Queensland, for instance, public ownership
and participatory governance are touted as the major selling points for IPS, as the following
statement on Education Queensland’s website (The State of Queensland 2014) explains:
The Independent Public Schools initiative recognises the best decision-making often occurs at a local
level through direct response to local community needs and aspirations.
By becoming an Independent Public School, Queensland principals, teachers, parents and local
communities have greater control and ownership of their schools.
Enhanced local governance, a locally tailored workforce, and public accountability,
transparency and performance are amongst the key opportunities this initiative is said to
15"
"
foster (The State of Queensland 2014). In further reference to maintaining public ownership,
Education Queensland is explicit that IP schools in this state remain part of the public system
with access to the same support as other state schools. This emphasis on remaining part of the
public system is also a strong feature of IPS policy in WA (from which the Queensland
policy heavily borrows). Indeed, Gobby (2014) describes this feature as a key rationality that
was crucial to teachers and their unions accepting this reform given their fears that they may
lose the resources, entitlements and protections of the public system under the IPS initiative. .
Presently in Queensland there are eighty IPS. All 1230 state schools can apply to become
independent through an expression of interest process to Education Queensland. In this
application, the values of public ownership are evident in the requirement that schools
provide evidence that consultation in favour of the conversion has occurred across school
stake-holder groups, including teachers, parents and local community bodies (The State of
Queensland 2014). Further ensuring the maintenance of public ownership and setting up the
conditions for participatory governance, there are key requirements stipulated by the
Department concerning how IP schools are managed and monitored; for example, there are
clear guidelines about the composition of, and duties associated with, the school council.
Each council must include an equal number of elected parent and staff members (at least one
each), elected student members along with the school principal (who cannot hold the position
of Chair), and the leader of the Parents and Citizens association. The functions, terms of
office, and meeting requirements of the council also support participatory governance of IPS.
For instance, the council has the responsibility to “set the direction, culture and tone of the
school”; it is required to approve and monitor the school’s strategic plans and direction,
including those associated with revenue and expenditure; members of council cannot hold
office for longer than two years; and the council must meet at least twice in each semester
with decisions about the school passed only by majority vote.
These conditions reflect the value of public ownership in their facilitation of inclusive and
participatory governance. To be sure, there are other elements that are crucial in realising this
value within the context of school councils, for example, ensuring that the processes of
decision-making about the school are appropriately informed and collaborative and that the
focus of such decision-making aligns with broader educative goals such as high expectations
for all learners. It is also important to consider the ways in which the broader climate will
16"
"
impact a school’s capacity to foster genuinely participatory governance. Gobby’s research
(2013b; 2014), for example, examines school leadership within the IPS system in WA.
Consistent with research broader afield (see Exley and Ball 2011), this research theorises the
parameters of the IPS as new regulatory mechanisms of neoliberal government that harness
and shape individual school autonomy to achieve political ends rather than local and
particularised community and school-led goals. Notwithstanding, policy support for
inclusive, community-led and participatory governance is important in fostering public
ownership, as is the support in emerging policy in some Australian states for creating new
structures and networks to improve education services within and beyond the IPS system (see
Department of Education, 2014b). As a potential conduit for sharing innovation and
improvement across the system (Dempster 2000), these structures and networks reflect the
ethos of collaboration so important to the value of public ownership in relation to state
education.
Equity and access
Equity and access in areas such as material and human resource distribution to schools and
student participation are hallmark values of public schooling. As noted earlier, Australia has
perhaps been better placed than the US in terms of federal intervention to generate greater
equity within the public schooling sector through a strong policy history of redistributive
funding. Notwithstanding such provision, there are concerns in Australia, as in the US, that
school autonomy is compromising equity and access across the public system through its
promotion of social segregation and stratification. There has, for example, been an
intensifying of the gap between schools serving the privileged and those serving the under-
privileged, reflecting a residualisation within the system with negative consequences for
students living in poverty (see Lamb 2007; Smyth 2011). As Lamb’s work (2007) in the state
of Victoria reveals, such reforms have led to much lower enrolments in schools serving the
poor, who are also left to cope with much higher concentrations of the various groups of
disadvantaged students. In this climate, as with the US, there is evidence of covert enrolment
discrimination to exclude lower attaining students. Another major equity issue relating to this
residualisation that is perhaps especially pronounced in Australia relates to the challenges of
staffing. As noted earlier, the specific geography of the Australian context presents
challenges of resource provision, especially adequately staffing “difficult” schools (whose
17"
"
student population is invariably disadvantaged). In these circumstances, moves within
autonomous schooling initiatives to allow staffing to be determined at the school level may
be detrimental for equity, as they signify the dismantling of an overarching centralised body
responsible for staffing all schools equitably. School-level staff selection may contribute to
residualisation in the system with the best quality teachers selected to teach in the highest
attaining schools.
Like the US, there are also equity concerns in Australia associated with issues of enterprise
and funding. There are clear expectations within the school autonomy movement for schools
to be enterprising—to, for example, work with business, industry and community
organisations in developing innovative partnerships and sponsorships that will provide extra
support for students, schools and the local community (see The State of Queensland 2014). In
Queensland, creating such partnerships and sponsorships would seem critical for IP schools
to survive economically, given the nominal amount of financial support ($50,000 on
converting and a potential $50,000 each year on application) these schools are granted to
manage their autonomy. Business partnerships and sponsorships would also seem crucial in
Victoria, Australia’s most autonomous state education system, where according to recent
accounts (see Preiss 2014), many schools are unable to pay their staff. In this climate, schools
have engaged in cost-cutting measures that clearly undermine student equity, such as
reducing specialised support, employing fewer teachers and increasing class sizes (see Lamb
2007). These are matters that, as mentioned earlier, are crucial to consider in working
towards an equitable autonomous schooling system (Dingerson et al. 2008).
Despite the strong commitment to and intended growth of autonomous schooling in
Australia, there is little emphasis or provision in policy discourse at both federal and state
level for addressing such matters. This lack of emphasis has potentially deleterious
consequences for equity. There is a danger, for example, that the newer systems of autonomy
in Queensland and Western Australia will replicate the situation in Victoria where
autonomous schooling has increased the stratification of public schools. There are, however,
some positive aspects embedded in the policy of these newer versions of school autonomy
that may serve to prevent some of this stratification. Firstly, in both contexts, the take up of
this initiative has been relatively slow and staggered over time; secondly, there are
consultative and inclusive processes that are required for schools to convert; and thirdly, there
18"
"
is recognition of the importance of school and community “readiness” for converting to
independent status (see Melbourne University 2013). In WA, for example, there are new
development and selection programmes designed to build on the readiness of school
communities for IPS status that include “structured opportunities for learning guidance and
feedback” (Department of Education 2014b). These factors allow time, scope and support for
matters of equity to be carefully considered (Melbourne University 2013).
As in the US, the stratification encouraged by school autonomy in Australia has highlighted
inherent problems with the notion of choice. Choice within the context of public measures of
accountability is a key underlying principle of autonomous schools in the US (see Fabricant
& Fine 2012) and Australia (see Smyth 2011). Policy in relation to these areas in Australia
and the US reflects assumptions that parents can make an authentic choice about the quality
or otherwise of their local school. Such assumptions in Australia are apparent in relation to
the MySchool website. This website details and compares schools on the basis of standardised
test results and is, in all but name, a league table ranking all schools in Australia. One of the
key justifications for introducing the site given by the former federal government was to
provide parents with quality and accurate information about their children’s school. However,
it is predominantly well-educated and informed (i.e., middle class) parents who are able to
access and make use of this site in relation to school choice and accountability (Lingard
2011; Smyth 2011).
It is clear that the divisive effects of choice and devolution engendered by autonomous
schooling environments need to be better addressed through policy. There are broader
mandates at both state and federal levels in Australia that instate and provide guidance for
pursuing equity in schools. Moreover, the predominant model of school autonomy in
Australia can (in terms of its close ties to the state), to some extent, protect equity outcomes
through provisions in policy described earlier that foster inclusive participatory governance.
Nevertheless, there is insufficient policy attention to the ways in which school autonomy
within a system based on choice and accountability can undermine equity and access and the
democratic goal to serve all students equally (Darling-Hammond and Montgomery 2008).
Public purpose
19"
"
The value of public purpose is about prioritising the moral and social imperatives of
education towards the betterment of society. As with the US, there are long-held concerns in
Australia that such imperatives are sidelined by the managerialism and narrow mandates of
the current standards and testing culture (see Dempster 2000; McInerney 2003; Blackmore
2004; Kimber and Ehrich 2011; Gobby 2013a). Greater school autonomy amid this culture is
seen as further shifting the focus and ethos of schools away from teaching and learning to
management and enterprise. The promotion of a business model of operating is both implicit
and explicit in policy discourse about how autonomous schools are expected to operate in
Australia. In the Queensland context, for example, as noted earlier, there is nominal funding
provided by the state Department to support schools to convert to and maintain their IPS
status, which can be seen as compelling schools to seek out business partnerships and
sponsorship in order to manage and maintain their extra responsibilities as independent public
schools. These responsibilities, as the research on self-managing schools in Australia has long
highlighted, are substantial (see Dempster, 2000). By recent reports, some schools are already
floundering in their efforts at managing these extra responsibilities within the IPS initiative
(see Dreyfus 2012).
A more explicit focus on a business model of operating is evident in the expectation that
independent public schools will seek out sponsorship and industry connections. Indeed, the
IPS initiative in Queensland is presented as an opportunity to work in new ways with local
businesses and industry and to “pursue creative models of sponsorship, industry partnerships
and infrastructure partnerships”. IP schools are also encouraged to include these
“stakeholders” on their councils (The State of Queensland 2014). Such expectations
emphasise concerns of finance and enterprise and detract from a focus on teaching, learning
and the moral and social purposes of schooling.
On a more positive note, the close ties that autonomous schools in Australia have with the
state enable a focus on public purpose. Certainly, there are provisions within the IPS policy
that require schools to operate closer to their local community, as noted earlier in relation to
public ownership, which can facilitate an overseeing of matters of public purpose such as
social and moral learning. Like some state requirements in the US, the IPS system in
Queensland, for example, requires that schools articulate ways in which their conversion will
benefit students and the broader community and how it will lead to innovation and improved
20"
"
student performance. While such parameters may not necessarily encourage social and moral
learning that leads to active and critically informed citizenship, they do, nevertheless, provide
a space for centering the value of public purpose in relation to this learning.
Additionally, there are important “out-of-scope” requirements within this policy that protect a
focus on public purpose in delimiting the scope for business profit and enterprise. For
example, the school council cannot control funds or enter into contracts with the school; they
cannot “acquire, hold, dispose of or deal with property”; and they cannot “establish a
committee or subcommittee” (The State of Queensland 2014).
While market ideologies are clearly evident and seemingly increasing in how school
autonomy is framed in Australia, such policy conditions protect the value of public purpose.
Importantly, the restrictions around business profit and enterprise as well as the requirements
associated with public ownership delimit possibilities for the for-profit sector to run schools.
This is significant. As noted earlier, schools operating under for-profit arrangements are less
likely to prioritise public purpose values in their privileging of market and business
ideologies. They are also less likely to share their innovations with other schools outside their
group, given their competitive focus on obtaining their market share of students.
Conclusion
There is a strong and growing commitment to instating systems of public school autonomy
across the world. This is a global policy discourse that intersects with international and
national imperatives to produce particular effects. The comparative analysis in this paper
provided an account of how such discourses and imperatives are playing out within the US
and Australia. The resonances between these two contexts highlight the homogenising effects
of this global policy while each nation’s differential engagement highlights important points
of departure.
There are distinct similarities associated with the political discourse and education practices
of charter schooling in the US and self-managing or IP schools in Australia. In both contexts,
there is political insistence as to the efficacy of this reform despite evidence to the contrary;
in both contexts, school autonomy is justified along similar lines; and in both contexts,
21"
"
governance of school autonomy varies markedly from state to state. Furthermore, research in
both contexts raises very similar concerns with the ways in which autonomous schooling,
when driven by market imperatives, is undermining the integrity of public education,
associated in this paper with the values of public ownership, equity and access and public
purpose. In relation to public ownership, there are concerns that autonomy in this
environment is being taken up in ways that undermine inclusive, collaborative and locally
responsive school governance; in relation to equity and access, there are concerns that this
environment is promoting segregation and stratification between schools leading to practices
of exclusion; and in relation to public purpose, there are concerns with the sidelining of the
moral and social purposes of schooling.
Where the US system differs markedly from the Australian system is in its far greater
devolution and complexity. The system of school autonomy in Australia is far less
polycentric in governance; i.e., it is more closely tied to, and regulated by, centralised
authorities. The analysis of the Australian system presented in this paper indicates the
significance of these ties in relation to policy provision to support the goals of public
ownership, equity and access and public purpose. In relation to public ownership, for
example, there was a policy focus on inclusive and participatory school governance. In
relation to the values of equity and public purpose, while there was a lack of adequate
recognition of the divisive and stratifying effects of choice, there were particular aspects of
policy in Queensland and WA significant in protecting these values, such as requirements for
schools to be responsive to and accountable for the needs of the school and local community
through mandatory consultation and representation processes and to adhere to specific
restrictions around schools’ relationships with the business sector. Other aspects of policy in
these contexts that were seen to protect these values were associated with the slow and
staggered uptake of the IPS initiative and recognising the importance of school and
community “readiness” for converting to independent status. These factors allow time, scope
and support for matters of public ownership, equity and public purpose to be considered
(Dingerson et al. 2008).
The paper highlighted other conditions of possibility in the Australian context that supported
these values. Unlike in the US, the Australian education system is far less subject to the
unfettered market logic of the private or for-profit sector and thus more amenable to a focus
22"
"
on public ownership, equity and public purpose. The more centralised and regulated system
in Australia, including the greater federal power and involvement in education, may also
support these values. A more equitable partnership in education in terms of state and federal
investment would seem more likely (than a more inequitable partnership) to foster the sense
of policy cohesion necessary to embed these values across state education systems.
International endorsement of school autonomy, as a mechanism for driving up education
standards, is reflective of its status as a globalised policy discourse. It is clear that this
discourse is driving “national systems of education towards a similar policy outlook” (Rizvi
and Lingard 2010, 42). However, as this paper has illustrated, it is also clear that school
autonomy is “grounded in a particular politics at a particular time”, shaped as it is by national
and local histories and cultures (Lingard et al. 2002, 15). Such fluidity and change, especially
in light of the susceptibility of autonomous schooling environments to prioritise market
imperatives over educative goals, provide a strong warrant for focusing on the values
presented in this paper as maintaining the integrity of public education—the hallmark values
of public ownership, equity and public purpose.
23"
"
References:
!
Blackmore, Jill. 2004. “Leading as emotional management work in high risk times: the
counterintuitive impulses of performativity and passion.” School leadership and management
24 (4): 439-459.
Bulkley, Katrina, and Jennifer Fisler. 2003. “A decade of charter schools: From theory to
practice.” Educational Policy 17 (3): 317–342.
Cobbold, Trevor. (2014) “Pyne’s school autonomy myth.” Save our schools
www.saveourschools.com.au
Dale, R. 2005. Globalisation, knowledge economy and comparative education. Comparative
Education 41(2): 117–149.
Darling Hammond, Linda, and Kenneth Montgomery. 2008. “Keeping the promise: the role
of policy in reform.” In Keeping the Promise?: The Debate Over Charter Schools, ed. L.
Dingerson, B. Peterson and B. Miner. Milwaukee: Wisconsin.
Dempster, Neil. 2000. “Guilty or not: the impact and effects of site-based management on
schools.” Journal of Educational Administration 38(1): 47-63.
Department of Education. 2014a. School autonomy http://www.studentsfirst.gov.au
Department of Education (2014b) Independent public schools
http://www.det.wa.edu.au/independentpublicschools/detcms/portal/
Dingerson, Leigh., Bob Peterson, and Barbara Miner. 2008. “Introduction.” In Keeping the
Promise?: The Debate Over Charter Schools, ed. L. Dingerson, B. Peterson and B. Miner.
Milwaukee: Wisconsin.
24"
"
Dingerson, Leigh. 2008. “Unlovely: How the market is failing the children of New Orleans.”
In Keeping the Promise?: The Debate Over Charter Schools, ed. L. Dingerson, B. Peterson
and B. Miner. Milwaukee: Wisconsin.
Dreyfus, Ann. 2012. “All’s NOT quiet on the Western front.” Education Review. (March):
28-29.
Exley, Sonia and Ball, Stephen. 2011. “Something old, something new... understanding
conservative education policy.” In The Conservative Party and social policy, ed. H. Bochel.
Bristol: Policy Press.
Fabricant, Michael, and Michelle Fine. 2012. Charter schools and the corporate makeover of
public education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Gay, Geneva. 2000. Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New
York: Teacher's College Press.
Gobby, Brad. 2013a. “Enacting the Independent Public Schools program in Western
Australia.” Issues in Educational Research 23(1): 19-34.
Gobby, Brad. 2013b. “Principal self-government and subjectification: the exercise of
principal autonomy in the Western Australian Independent Public Schools programme.”
Critical Studies in Education 54(3): 273-285
Gobby, Brad. 2014. “Putting ‘the system’ into a school autonomy reform: the case of the
Independent Public Schools program.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of
Education, DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2014.943158
Gonski, David, Boston, Ken, Greiner, Kathryn, Lawrence, Carmen, Scales, Bill, Tannock,
Peter, 2011. Review of Funding for Schooling, Canberra: DEEWR.
25"
"
Hanauer, Amy. 2008. “Profits and privatisation: the Ohio experience.” In Keeping the
Promise?: The Debate Over Charter Schools, ed. L. Dingerson, B. Peterson and B. Miner.
Milwaukee: Wisconsin.
Henig, Jeffrey. 2012. “Charter Inroads in Affluent Communities: Hype or Turning Point?” In
Hopes, fears & reality: A balanced look at American charter schools in 2012, ed. R. Lake.
Seattle: University of Washington.
Hubbard, Lea, and Rucheeta Kulkarni. 2009. “Charter schools: learning from the past,
planning for the future.” Journal of Educational Change 10 (2): 173–189
Jensen, Ben, Weidmann, Ben and Farmer, Joanna. 2013. The myth of markets in school
education. Melbourne: Grattan Institute.
Kimber, Megan, and Lisa Catherine Ehrich. 2011. “The democratic deficit and school-based
management in Australia.” Journal of Educational Administration 49 (2): 179-199.
Lake, Robin. 2012. “Will the charter movement rest on its laurels of innovate and expand?”
In Hopes, fears & reality: A balanced look at American charter schools in 2012, ed. R. Lake.
Seattle: University of Washington.
Lamb, Stephen. 2007. “School reform and inequality in urban Australia: A case study of
residualising the poor.” In International studies in inequality, theory and policy: Volume 3
education theory and public policy, ed. R. Teese, S. Lamb and M. Duru-Bellat. Netherlands:
Springer.
Lingard, Bob, Hayes, Debra, Mills, Martin. 2002,"Developments in school-based
management", Journal of Educational Administration 40 (1): 6-30
Lingard, Bob. 2010. “Policy borrowing, policy learning: testing times in Australian
schooling.” Critical Studies in Education 51 (2): 129-147.
26"
"
Lingard, Bob. 2011. “Changing teachers’ work in Australia, Rethinking Educational Practice
Through Reflexive Inquiry.” Professional Learning and Development in Schools and Higher
Education 7: 229-245.
Lingard, Bob and Rawolle, Shaun. 2011. “New scalar politics: implications for education
policy.” Comparative Education 47(4): 489-502.
Lopez, Alexandra, Amy Stuart Wells, and Jennifer Jellison Holme. 2002. “Creating charter
school communities: Identity building, diversity, and selectivity.” In Where charter school
policy fails: The problems of accountability and equity, ed. A. S. Wells. New York: Teachers
College Press.
Lubienski, Christopher. 2009. “Do Quasi-markets Foster Innovation in Education?: A
Comparative Perspective.” OECD Education Working Papers. 25. OECD
Lubienski,Christopher. 2013. “Privatising form or function? Equity, outcomes and influence
in American charter schools.” Oxford Review of Education 39(4): 498-513,
Lubienski, Christopher, and Lubienski, Sarah. 2013. Public school advantage: Why public
schools outperform private schools. Chicago, Il, USA: University of Chicago Press.
McInerney, Peter. 2003. “Moving into dangerous territory? Educational leadership in a
devolving education system.” International Journal of Leadership in Education 6 (1):57 –
72.
Melbourne University (2013) Evaluation of the independent public schools initiative,
Department of Education, WA.
OECD 2011. PISA in focus. http://www.oecd.org/pisa/49012097.pdf
Preiss, Benjamin. 2014. “Schools struggle to pay staff.” The Age, April 24.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/schools-struggle-to-pay-staff-20140424-zqyhi.html
27"
"
Ravitch, Diane. 2010. The death and life of the great American school system: how testing
and choice are undermining education. New York: Basic Books.
Rizvi, Fazal. and Lingard, Bob. 2010. Globalizing education policy. London: Routledge.
Savage, Glenn. and O’Connor, Kate. 2014. “National agendas in global times: curriculum
reforms in Australia and the USA since the 1980s” Journal of Education Policy DOI:
10.1080/02680939.2014.969321
Sizer, Ted. and George, Wood. 2008. “Charter schools and the values of public education.”
In Keeping the Promise?: The Debate Over Charter Schools, ed. L. Dingerson, B. Peterson
and B. Miner. Milwaukee: Wisconsin.
Smyth, John. 2011. “The disaster of the ‘self managing school’ – genesis, trajectory,
undisclosed agenda, and effects.” Journal of Educational Administration and History 43 (2):
95-117.
The State of Queensland. 2014. Independent public schools.
http://education.qld.gov.au/schools/independent-public-schools/
Welner, Kevin. G. April 2013. The Dirty Dozen: How Charter Schools Influence Student
Enrollment. Teachers College Record. http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 17104.
World Bank 2014. School autonomy and accountability.
http://saber.worldbank.org/index.cfm?indx=8&tb=4
