Abstract
This chapter traces recent changes in overarching agendas and governance mechanisms related to curriculum and the schooling sector. Schooling is now more tightly coupled to economic perspectives and a skills and standards agenda that is seen as best revealed and managed by test data. Internationally the OECD is a significant driver of such data and perspectives on school, drawing some widespread critical discussion in the education literature about the effects of a ‘testing-led’ or ‘accountability-driven’ curriculum, and the prioritising of global testing data over national concerns. However there is also some renewed attention by many national governments to school’s acculturation role in the face of global developments, with reform of history and citizenship curricula often targeted. In Australia, the past decade has seen a greater attention to schooling and curriculum in national politics, and the establishment of a new national body, ACARA , which has authority for curriculum, reporting and assessment. ACARA oversees the development of a new ‘Australian Curriculum’; the conduct of a new national testing program, NAPLAN ; and the production of a new website, My School , which publicly communicates comparative demographic and performance data, about individual schools. This chapter discusses implications for curriculum substance of these new mechanisms, as well as some political points of contention.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
ACARA. (2015). Improving the Australian curriculum. Retrieved from http://www.acara.edu.au/verve/_resources/20150508_IMPROVING_AUST_CUR_v_2_2-1.pdf
Ball, S. J. (2006). Education policy and social class. London: Routledge.
Ball, S. J. (2008). The education debate. Bristol: Policy Press.
Ball, S. J. (2012). Global education inc.: New policy networks and the neoliberal imaginary. New York: Routledge.
Curriculum Development Centre. (1980). A core curriculum for Australian Schools: What it is and why it is needed. Canberra, ACT: Curriculum Development Centre.
Donnelly, K., & Wiltshire, K. (2014). Review of the Australian curriculum final report. Canberra, ACT: Australian Government Department of Education. Retrieved from https://docs.education.gov.au/documents/review-australian-curriculum-final-report
Errington, W., & Van Onselen, P. (2007). John Winston Howard: The definitive biography. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
Ertl, H. (2006). Educational standards and the changing discourse on education: The reception and consequences of the PISA study in Germany. Oxford Review of Education, 32(5), 619–634.
Fensham, P. J. (2012). The science curriculum; the decline of expertise and the rise of bureaucratise. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(2), 152–168.
Grek, S. (2009). Governing by numbers: The PISA ‘effect’ in Europe. Journal of Education Policy, 24(1), 23–37.
Griffin, P., McGaw, B., & Care, E. (Eds.). (2012). Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills. Dordrecht: Springer.
Gorur, R. (2011). ANT on the PISA Trail: Following the statistical pursuit of certainty. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 43(s1), 76–93.
Hopmann, S. T. (2013). The end of schooling as we know it? Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(1), 1–3.
Hursh, D. (2008). High-stakes testing and the decline of teaching and learning. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
Karseth, B., & Sivesind, K. (2010). Conceptualizing curriculum knowledge—within and beyond the national. European Journal of Education, 45(1), 107–124.
Keating, J., & Klatt, M. (2013). The Australian concurrent federalism and its implications for the Gonski Review. Journal of Education Policy, 28(4), 411–426.
Keating, J., Savage, G. C., & Polesel, J. (2013). Letting schools off the hook? Exploring the role of Australian secondary schools in the COAG Year 12 attainment agenda. Journal of Eduction Policy, 28(2), 268–286.
Lingard, B. (2000). Federalism in schooling since the Karmel Report (1973), Schools in Australia: From modernist hope to postmodernist performativity. Australian Educational Researcher, 27(2), 25–61.
Lingard, B. (2010). Policy borrowing, policy learning: Testing times in Australian schooling. Critical Studies in Education, 51(2), 129–147.
Lingard, B. (2011). Policy as numbers: A/counting for educational research. Australian Education Researcher, 38(4), 355–382.
Lingard, B., & Sellar, S. (2013). ‘Catalyst data’: Perverse systemic effects of audit and accountability in Australian schooling. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 634–656.
Marsh, C. (1994). Producing a national curriculum: Plans and paranoia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Martens, K., & Niemann, D. (2013). When do numbers count? The differential impact of the PISA rating and ranking on education policy in Germany and the US. German Politics, 22(3), 314–332.
Meyer, H.-D., & Zahedi, K. (2014, 5 May). An open letter: To Andreas Schleicher, OECD, Paris. Global Policy Journal. Retrieved from http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/05/05/2014/open-letter-andreas-schleicher-oecd-paris
Muller, J. & Hoadley, U. (2014). Testing times: Investigating the epistemic potential of systemic tests. Paper presented to the European Conference on Educational Research 2014, University of Porto, 1–5 September.
Nichols, S. L., & Berliner, D. C. (Eds.). (2007). How high stakes testing is corrupting America’s schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
OECD. (2004). What makes school systems perform? Seeing school systems through the prism of PISA. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/education/school/programmeforinternationalstudentassessmentpisa/33858946.pdf
OECD. (2005). Definition and selection of competencies executive summary. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/pisa/35070367.pdf
OECD. (2012). Delivering education transparency in Australia: national reporting through My School. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/australia/Strong%20Performers%20and%20Successful%20Reformers%20in%20Education%20-%20Delivering%20School%20Transparency%20in%20Australia.pdf
Polesel, J., Dulfer, N., & Turnbull, M. (2012). The experience of education: the impacts of high stakes testing on school students and their families. Sydney: Whitlam Institute Report, University of Western Sydney. Retrieved from https://www.whitlam.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/409735/High_Stakes_Testing_An_Educators_Perspective.pdf
Priestley, M., & Biesta, G. (Eds.). (2013). Reinventing the curriculum: New trends in curriculum policy and practice. London: Bloomsbury.
Pyne, C. (2015). A new national curriculum from 2016. Media release. 18 September. Retrieved from https://ministers.education.gov.au/pyne/new-national-curriculum-2016
Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing education policy. London: Routledge.
Rubin, C. M. (2011, 15 June). The global search for education: Australia on the move. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/c-m-rubin/the-global-search-for-edu_1_b_875633.html?ir=Australia
Savage, G. C., & O’Connor, K. (2015). National agendas in global times: Curriculum reforms in Australia and the USA since the 1980s. Journal of Education Policy, 30(5), 609–630.
Schools Commission. (1987). A national policy for the education of girls in Australian schools. Canberra, ACT: Schools Commission.
Sellar, S., & Lingard, B. (2013). The OECD and global governance in education. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 710–725.
Snyder, I. (2008). The literacy wars: Why teaching children to read and write is a battleground in Australia. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
Stobart, G. (2008). Testing times: The uses and abuses of assessment. London: Routledge.
Wiseman, A. W. (Ed.). (2010). The impact of international achievement studies on national education policymaking. Emerald: Bingley.
Yates, L. (1993). What happens when feminism is an agenda of the state? Feminist theory and the case of education policy in Australia. Discourse, 14(1), 17–29.
Yates, L. (2013). Revisiting curriculum, the numbers game and the inequality problem. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(1), 39–51.
Yates, L., Collins, C., & O’Connor, K. (Eds.). (2011). Australia’s curriculum dilemmas: state cultures and the big issues. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
Yates, L., & Grumet, M. (Eds.). (2011). Curriculum in today’s world: Configuring knowledge, identities, work and politics. New York: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Yates, L., Woelert, P., Millar, V., O’Connor, K. (2017). Changing Agendas and the Governance of the School Curriculum. In: Knowledge at the Crossroads?. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2081-0_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2081-0_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-2079-7
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-2081-0
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)