The bigger picture

The political question of how a society educates its young is among the most contested political questions in any modern society. The political conditions of compulsory education, the political relationship between state, church, and family in schooling, the political contest about curriculum, and the political conditions of teachers as workers, have been continuously contested across the modern era. 

The American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois documented in detail how the political conditions of schooling in the United States were inseparable from the political conditions of race. The political question of who was taught, what they were taught, and whose history was recognised, was a continuous political contest. The argument reaches Australian schools through the politics of First Nations education, the politics of multicultural education, and the political conditions under which mainstream schooling has historically taught particular versions of Australian history while excluding others.

The American educational theorist Henry Giroux has documented how schools operate as political institutions, not just educational ones. The political conditions of curriculum, of pedagogy, of teacher autonomy, and of the political relationship between schools and communities, are political achievements and political contests, not natural facts about education. Australian schools sit inside that analysis whether anyone names it.

The colonial transfer

Schools in colonial Australia inherited British political settlements about education. The British political contest about state versus church schooling, about denominational education, about who was responsible for educating the working class, and about the political relationship between schooling and citizenship, was transmitted into Australia through colonial governments and modified through local political contests.

What that political vision excluded is part of the history. First Nations children had their own systems of education, embedded in Country, kinship, ceremony, and the political conditions of being raised in community. The colonial schooling tradition was not built for First Nations children. The active political project of removing First Nations children from families and into mission schools, residential schools, and segregated classrooms, intensifying through the twentieth century into the Stolen Generations, did political work that is still doing political work in Australian schools today.

The political conditions of the colonial Australian school system reflected British class assumptions, religious settlements, and racial hierarchies. The political project of building a state schooling system, secular and free, achieved through nineteenth-century education acts in each colony, was a political contest of significant intensity. The political legacy of that contest continues to shape the relationship between government, Catholic, and independent schools in Australia today.

The post-war settlement

The post-war political settlement extended Australian schooling significantly. School-leaving ages were raised. The political idea that schooling required public investment, public regulation, and public accountability was held by both major political parties for most of the post-war period. State governments invested significantly in school infrastructure, teacher training, and curriculum development.

The post-war settlement was a political achievement, contested in detail and reached through specific political compromises. The political conditions of the teaching profession, the political relationship between teachers' unions and education departments, the political conversation about progressive education and traditional education, were all set during this period.

The political settlement included significant exclusions. Migrant children from non-English-speaking backgrounds entered schools with limited support. First Nations children continued to experience schooling that was not built for them. Disabled children were largely excluded from mainstream schooling for most of the post-war period.

The Whitlam moment and the funding settlements

The political settlement on schools changed significantly in the 1970s. The Whitlam government's establishment of the Schools Commission, the political acceptance of needs-based funding for both government and non-government schools, and the political conversation about equity in education, were political achievements of sustained advocacy.

The political settlement that emerged was contested at the time and contested again through every subsequent political cycle. The political relationship between federal and state funding, between government and non-government schools, and between resourcing and outcomes, has been continuously renegotiated. The Gonski reviews of the 2010s reopened political contests that had been simmering since the 1970s, and the political settlement remains unresolved.

The neoliberal turn

From the 1980s, a different political settlement began to assert itself. The political idea that schools should compete for students, that parents should be increasingly described as consumers, and that school performance should be measured through standardised testing and published in league-table form, was developed in Britain, the United States, and Australia and rolled out through successive reforms.

NAPLAN, established in 2008, was a political artefact of this turn. The MySchool website, the political conversation about school performance, and the political conditions under which schools have come to operate as quasi-competitive entities are all legacies of the neoliberal political settlement.

The political legacy is significant. School choice politics, the political conditions of teaching as a profession, and the political pressure on principals to deliver measurable outcomes within constrained resources, all reflect this political settlement.

The curriculum and culture-war politics

The political contest about Australian school curriculum has intensified across the past decade. The political question of whose history is taught, whose voices are recognised, what counts as Australian, and who decides, has become a politically active site of contest. 

Curriculum politics is not new. It has been continuously contested in Australia, as in every country with a national curriculum framework. What has shifted is the intensity of the contest and the political pressure on schools and teachers from outside the education system.

The present moment

The teacher workforce crisis, the curriculum contest, and the political backlash are reshaping schools now.

The teacher workforce crisis carries the political legacy of decades of pay, conditions, and workload decisions into the present. National conversations about teacher attraction, retention, and the political conditions of teaching are producing pressure that school leaders absorb continuously.

The political contest about curriculum, particularly on First Nations history, climate science, and inclusive sex and relationships education, has intensified through the 2020s. Schools and teachers are increasingly the visible actors in political contests they did not author.

The political backlash against feminist, queer, trans, racial-justice, and First Nations recognition reaches schools through parent communities, political commentary, and the political mood school leaders work inside continuously.