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In a globally austere policy context, state financing of public services has been positioned as perennially 'in crisis' with private intervention a positive solution. There is a general assumption – in education policy and practice – that philanthropic donations can be a solution to reduced public funding of schooling. While much research investigates the role of new philanthropy and venture capital in funding and influencing public schooling, this paper focuses on the reconstitution of 'old' philanthropy in new ways. We focus on the role of parents, through Parent and Citizen (P&C) associations, to show how they are being responsibilised to fundraise for their child's public school, shifting from their traditional fundraising of small amounts of money through 'community building' activities (e.g. fetes, stalls and trivia nights) to engaging in 'commercial fundraising' (e.g. running the canteen, uniform shop and Outside House School Care for profit) that can raise hundreds and thousands of dollars each year. Through this analysis we argue we are seeing a further stratification of the public school system coupled with a concerning lack of transparency around the extent to which some public schools are being nourished by the deep coffers of successful P&Cs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing numbers of Australian parents, like me, are choosing to home educate. US estimates suggest, within home educated populations, 5 per cent of home education cohorts (Riley, 2018) follow an unschooling, or self-directed education (SDE), approach. In the past, these parents registered with the government department; however, policy changes made in Queensland in May 2018 make registration almost impossible for unschoolers and discriminate against families whose registration was based on a philosophy such as SDE. In this paper, I use Fairclough's (2003) Critical Discourse Analysis as a tool to interrogate how changes to the Queensland Education Act (2006) in May 2018 privilege a curriculum centric approach to education by requiring families to report on their child's 'progress' in relation to schooled children's levels. I argue these changes privilege the needs of bureaucrats who are invested in presenting a 'school' view of education. Fairclough (2003) would describe this policy change as a change to the social order that privileges the discourse of education over the real education occurring in families that choose to follow an SDE philosophy. By undertaking a Faircloughian Discourse Analysis, the paper analyses the policy shifts in Queensland's Education Act in regard to home educators. The concluding section of the paper suggests these changes may affect registration rates among SDE families or unschoolers which has both practical and philosophical effects. Practically, the changes affect family support and benefits payments because registration is required to access government support payments. Philosophically, there are wider cultural and social impacts by legitimating government overreach and further entrenching school models of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how policy pressure for increased performance on standardised measures of student achievement influenced the teacher learning practices that arose in a school setting in Queensland, Australia. Drawing upon research and theorising of governing by numbers, and applications to the governance of education, and particularly teachers’ learning, the research analyses how a group of Year 3 teachers collaborated to better inform themselves about the nature of their students’ learning. The research reveals that the governance of teachers’ learning under current policy conditions was manifest through both teachers’ compliance with and critique of a strong focus upon school, regional, state and national data – specifically, students’ attainment in ‘leveled’ readers and other school-based standardised measures of reading and mathematics, and school, state and regional results on national literacy and numeracy tests. There is little research that highlights the tensions around these numbers as governing technologies in relation to specific formal, ongoing instances of teacher professional development practices. The research cautions against the influence of such governing processes for how they potentially narrow teachers’ attention to more standardized measures of students’ learning, even as teachers may critique these more reductive effects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Positive behaviour for learning (PBL) was introduced to the state education sector in Queensland in the early 2000s in an effort to move schools away from use of punitive disciplinary practices towards a positive and supportive approach to student behaviour. Although around half of state schools in Queensland have received training to implement PBL, as yet no studies into the outcomes of PBL implementation in that state have been conducted. In the October, 2019 edition of Interchange an article by Paul and Cindy-lou Bleakley claimed to demonstrate a link between the widespread adoption of PBL and increasing rates of suspensions in Queensland state schools. In our article, we refute this claim and respond to several errors and misconceptions in the paper by Bleakley and Bleakley. First, we counter the claim that PBL takes a punitive approach to student behaviour and point out the ways in which PBL has been misconstrued. Next, we discuss flaws in the methodology used to assert a causal relationship between increasing rates of suspension and the introduction of PBL. To conclude, we reject the assertion that PBL replaced restorative justice as the preferred model of behaviour support in Queensland and argue that a restorative justice approach is not incompatible with implementation of PBL [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive education is central to achieving high-quality education for all students and is a recognised commitment of the Australian government under international human rights law. However, Australia's lack of commitment to move away from segregation is reflected in its persistence in maintaining and funding segregated (special) settings. Queensland led the way with the introduction of an inclusive education policy in 2018; nonetheless, this does not go far enough, as there is no commitment to diminish segregated schooling for students with disability. This lack of action works against the effective implementation of the policy. Using the Framework of Drivers for and Barriers to the Closure of Special Schools, we conducted a thematic analysis focussing on societal, systemic, school and family drivers for and barriers to educational desegregation. Our findings indicate where and why discrimination, segregation and exclusion remain strongly embedded in our society and education system. We provide recommendations for future reforms to the Disability Standards for Education in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary definitions of inclusion in Australian early education go beyond support for children with disability to encompass equitable educational provision for children with varying abilities and from diverse backgrounds. However, a tension exists between policies and practices emphasising remediation for target groups and those focused on system-wide educational change. Middle leading has been identified as an effective driver of educational change that works at the site level to address problems of practice. The Enhancing Continuity and Alignment K-2 strategy in Queensland (Australia) positioned coaches as middle leaders to address site-based inclusion concerns by building professional capability and coordinating transition to school practices. The effectiveness of the project relied on the participants' ability to establish shared equity goals and on the purposeful enactment of middle leading to address inclusion. Enabling and constraining arrangements were identified, as was the potential of middle leading to tackle the variance between system-wide and targeted approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses exclusion, enrolment cancellation, and suspension rates in government schools in the Australian state of Queensland to investigate the impact of legislation to extend principals' disciplinary powers. Results suggest that the provision of alternative disciplinary options, including Saturday detentions and community service, failed to curb increases in the use of enrolment cancellations and exclusions as originally intended. Moreover, suspension rates increased at more than double the rate of enrolment growth during the same period. Year on year analysis of suspension rates reveals two specific calendar years and two particular grade levels in which there were very large increases. These calendar years coincide with two key education reforms in Queensland in addition to the extension of principals' power, indicating that the move to extend principals' disciplinary powers interacted with other major education reforms occurring within that same period. Grade level patterns indicate that education policy and school environments may play a role in rising school suspension rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the fourth stage of an evolving study to develop a systems model for embedding education for sustainability (EfS) into preservice teacher education. It describes the first three stages of developing and trialling the model before presenting the case study and action research methods employed, four key lessons learned from the project, and the implications of the major outcomes for teacher education policies and practices.