Abstract
The mid-1970s marked a high point of hopes for the public comprehensive high school. In Britain, a Labour Government returned to power in 1974 with a commitment to continuing comprehensive school reform. It seemed that the comprehensive secondary school was still the ‘wave of the future’ even though much remained to be achieved if the comprehensive school reform agenda was to be more than ‘half way there.’1 So it was in Australia. Writing in 1974, one commentator described the nature of the Australian comprehensive school in the following terms:
A school which admits all children of appropriate age in a given area and provides a range of courses to suit their whole range of interests and abilities. In this sense, all States have a fully comprehensive system of primary schools, and all except Victoria and South Australia have a comprehensive secondary school system. South Australia and Victoria have a binary system, with separate technical and academic secondary schools, although only in Victoria are the systems also administratively distinct and South Australia is moving towards a fully comprehensive system.
The true comprehensive school does not group or stream its students according to interests or abilities, but organizes them in heterogeneous groups which pursue a common core of studies together. More commonly, secondary schools stream their students cither according to test performance or occupational interest, and provide separate courses for each stream. Such schools are properly called multi-lateral schools.
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Notes
Caroline Benn and Brian Simon, Half Way There: Report on the British Comprehensive School Reform (London: McGraw-Hill, 1970).
John McLaren, A Dictionary of Australian Education (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1974), p. 66.
Terry Irving, David Maunders, and Geoff Sherington, Youth in Australia: Policy Administration and Politics: A History since World War II (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 223–35.
Simon Marginson, Educating Australia: Government, Economy and Citizen since 1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
C. B. Cox and A. E. Dyson, eds, Fight for Education: A Black Paper (London: The Critical Quarterly Society, 1969).
Peter Gordon, Richard Aldrich, and Dennis Dean, Education and Policy in England in the Twentieth Century (London: Woburn Press, 1991), pp. 196–99;
Brian Simon, Education and the Social Order, 1940–1990 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1991), pp. 472–525.
David T. Gordon, A Nation Reformed? American Education 20 Years after ‘a Nation at Risk’ (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard Education Press, 2003).
See also David L. Angus and Jeffrey Mirel, The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890–1995 (New York: Teachers College Press, 1999).
See Gough Whitlam, The Whitlam Government1972–1975 (Melbourne: Penguin, 1985).
On the process of persuasion, see Graham Freudenberg, A Certain Grandeur: Gough Whitlam in Politics (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1977), pp. 24–32.
Peter Karmel (Chair), “Schools in Australia: Report of the Interim Committee of the Australian Schools Commission” (Canberra: AGPS, 1973).
Ibid. See also Ronald T. Fitzgerald (Commissioner), “Poverty and Education in Australia: Australian Government Commission of Inquiry into Poverty,” (Canberra: Australian Government Printing Service, 1976).
R. W. Connell, Schools and Social Justice (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993).
Committee on Social Change and the Education of Women, “Girls, School and Society: Report by a Study Group to the Schools Commission” (Canberra: Schools Commission, 1975),
Jane Kenway and Sue Willis, Answering Back: Girls, Boys and Feminism in Schools (London: Routledge, 1998).
Irving, Maunders, and Sherington, Youth in Australia, pp. 226–27. See also R. W. Connell et al., Making the Difference: Schools, Families and Social Division (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1982),
Peter Dwyer, Bruce Wilson, and Roger Woock, Confronting School and Work: Youth and Class Cultures in Australia (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1984),
Peter Gilmour and Russell Lansbury, Ticket to Nowhere: Education, Training and Work in Australia (Melbourne: Penguin, 1978),
Ian Watson, Double Depression: Schooling, Unemployment and Family Life in the Eighties (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1985).
Schools Commission, “Schooling for 15 and 16 Year-Olds” (Canberra: Schools Commission, 1980).
Commonwealth Schools Commission, “In the National Interest: Secondary Education and Youth Policy in Australia” (Canberra: The Commission, 1987), p. 29.
Peter Karmel (Chair), “Quality of Education in Australia: Report of the Review Committee” (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia (AGPS), 1985).
Jean Martin, The Migrant Presence, Australian Responses, 1947–1977: Research Report for the National Population Inquiry (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1978), pp. 113–45.
See James Jupp, ed., The Australian People: An Encyclopedia of the Nation, Its People and Their Origins, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 812–15.
Paul Kringas and Frank Lewins, Why Ethnic Schools? Selected Case Studies (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1981).
DOGS mounted a High Court challenge to state aid for nongovernment schools; see M. J. Ely, Erosion of the Judicial Process: An Aspect of Church-State Entanglement in Australia, the Struggle of Citizens to Be Heard in the Australian Full High Court on the State Aid Issue, 1956–1980 (Melbourne: Defense of Government Schools, 1981).
Peter Tannock (Chair), “Funding Policies for Australian Schools” (Canberra: Commonwealth Schools Commission, 1984), p. 10. (Calculated from Table 1.2.)
Chris Ryan and Louise Watson, “The Drift to Private Schools in Australia: Understanding Its Features” (Canberra: Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 2004). For the debate in the 1980s see Michael Hogan, Public Versus Private Schools: Funding and Directions in Australia (Melbourne: Penguin, 1984).
Marginson, Educating Australia, Ross A. Williams, “The Economic Determinants of Private Schooling in Australia” (Canberra: Australian National University Centre for Economic Policy Research, 1984),
Ross A. Williams, “Interaction between Government and Private Outlays: Education in Australia 1949–50 to 1981–82” (Canberra: Australian National University Centre for Economic Policy Research, 1983).
D. Anderson, “Is the Privatisation of Australian Schooling Inevitable,” in Australia Compared, ed. F. Castles (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991), Don Anderson, “The Interaction of Public and Private School Systems,” Australian Journal of Education 36, no. 3 (1992).
Jean Blackburn (Chair), “Discussion Paper: Ministerial Review of Postcompulsory Schooling” (Melbourne: Ministerial Review of Postcompulsory Schooling (Victoria), 1984),
Jean Blackburn (Chair), “Report: Ministerial Review of Postcompulsory Schooling” (Melbourne: Ministerial Review of Postcompulsory Schooling (Victoria), 1985). See also Irving, Maunders, and Sherington, Youth in Australia, pp. 247–56.
Roger Wescombe, Schools Community and Politics in NSW: Ideas and Strategies in the Schools Councils Controversy1973–1976 (Sydney: University of Sydney, 1980).
C. L. MacDonald (Chair), “The Education of the Talented Child: Report of the Committee Appointed by the Minister for Education to Enquire into the Education of the Talented Child” (Sydney: New South Wales Department of Education, 1977), p. 2.
Eddie J. Braggett, “The Education of Gifted and Talented Children: Australian Provision” (Canberra: Commonwealth Schools Commission, 1985), pp. 1–7.
Uldis Ozolins, The Politics of Language in Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 130.
See also Multicultural Education Centre, “Multicultural Perspectives to Curriculum: A Support Document to the Multicultural Education Policy 1983” (Sydney: Directorate of Special Programs, New South Wales Department of Education, 1983), “Multicultural Education Policy Statement 1983” (Sydney: New South Wales Department of Education, 1983).
NSWPD, vol. 149 (October 11, 1979), p. 1752. See also Winifred Mitchell and Geoffrey Sherington, Growing up in the Illawarra: A Social History 1834–1884 (Wollongong: University of Wollongong, 1984), pp. 127–29.
Interview with Eric Bedford 1998 cited in Catherine Brown, “‘Little Bastions of Privilege’: NSW ALP Policy on Selective Schools” (B. Ed. Hons, Sydney University, 1998).
B. McGowan (Chair), “Report from the Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly Upon the School Certificate” (Sydney: New South Wales. Parliament. Legislative Assembly. Select Committee upon the School Certificate, 1981), Appendix 4.
D. Swan and K. McKinnon, “Future Directions of Secondary Education: A Report” (Sydney: NSW Government Printer, 1984).
R. Mulock, “Official Opening Address,” in The Future of Secondary Education: A Symposium Held at the University of Sydney 17th September, 1983, ed. Alan T. Duncan (Sydney: University of Sydney Department of Adult Education, 1983).
Alan Barcan, Two Centuries of Education in New South Wales (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1988), p. 309.
Alison Nation, “Selective Growth: An Examination of the Expansion of Academically-Selective Schooling During the Metherell Era of Education in New South Wales 1988–1990” (M. Teach (Hons), University of Sydney, 2001).
Nick Greiner, Australian Liberalism in a Post-Ideological Age, The Twenty-Fourth Alfred Deakin Lecture (Melbourne: The Alfred Deakin Lecture Trust, 1990).
Martin Laffin and Martin Painter, eds, Reform and Reversal: Lessons from the Coalition Government in New South Wales1988–1995 (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 2–4.
Geoffrey Sherington, “Education Policy,” in Reform and Reversal: Lessons from the Coalition Government in New South Wales 1988–1995, ed. Martin Laffin and Martin Painter (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 173–74. See also Nation, “Selective Growth.”
B. W. Scott (Director of Review), “Schools Renewal: A Strategy to Revitalise Schools within the New South Wales State Education System” (Sydney: NSW Education Portfolio, 1989). See also P. West, “Politics and Education in NSW 1988–91: Management or Human Values?” Australian Educational Researcher 18, no. 3 (1991).
J. Carrick (Chair), “Report of the Committee of Review of New South Wales Schools” (Sydney: New South Wales Government, 1989).
Marian Sawer, The Ethical State? Social Liberalism in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003).
Geoffrey Riordan and Sam Weller, The Reformation of Education in N.S. W.: The 1990 Education Reform Act (AARE, 2000) [http://www.aare.edu.au/00pap/rio00358.htm].
John Patrick Hughes, “There Goes the Neighbourhood School: A Case Study of Restructuring of Secondary Education on Sydney’s Northern Beaches” (2001), p. 22.
See also NSW Department of Education and Training, “New Horizons: A Plan to Improve Education and Training on the Northern Beaches,” (Sydney: Author, 2000).
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© 2006 Craig Campbell and Geoffrey Sherington
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Campbell, C., Sherington, G. (2006). In Retreat. In: The Comprehensive Public High School. Secondary Education in a Changing World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982919_5
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