JOURNAL OF EDUCATION POLICY, 2016http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2016.1202452

Who’s steering the ship? National curriculum reform and the re-shaping of Australian federalism

Glenn C. Savage 

Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the repositioning of state curriculum agencies in response to the establishment of the Australian Curriculum and the key national policy organisation responsible for its development: the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). I begin with an analysis of the federal Labor government’s role in the early years of the Australian Curriculum reform, arguing that Labor was afforded a rare window of political opportunity that enabled the fundamental restructuring of curriculum policy at the national level, and which has significantly altered intergovernmental and inter-agency relationships. Following this, I engage with research literature that has sought to theorise the changing nature of Australian federalism in relation to schooling reform. I then present an empirical analysis based on interviews with policy-makers in ACARA and curriculum agencies in four Australian states (Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria). My analysis draws attention to three dominant trends: powerful new roles for ACARA in driving national reform and inter-agency collaboration; increased policy overlap and blurred lines of responsibility; and an uneven playing field of intergovernmental and inter-agency relationships and powers. I conclude by considering the implications of emerging reform trends for conceptualising the shifting dynamics of federalism in Australia and beyond.

Introduction

Education systems in Australia are undergoing rapid change as a result of multiple national schooling reforms. The past decade has seen historically unprecedented attempts to produce greater national consistency in schools, including the development of a national curriculum, standardised national assessments in literacy and numeracy, national standards for teachers and principals, and a revised national model of school funding. These reforms have largely been driven by concerns about the changing role of education in a globalising world and economy, prompting Australian governments to reconsider how schooling can be more efficiently harnessed as part of national social and economic policies (Rizvi and Lingard 2010). Policy reforms designed to exert greater national control over schooling are a global trend, with multiple countries nationalising or centralising aspects of schooling policy over the past three decades (OECD 2004).

© 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

KEYWORDSEducation policy; curriculum; Australia; federalism; intergovernmental relations

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 11 February 2016 Accepted 9 June 2016

CONTACT Glenn C. Savage gcsavage@unimelb.edu.au

OPEN ACCESS

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National reforms pose difficult problems for federal systems like Australia in which power is split between federal (national) and state (sub-national) governments. In Australia, whilst there are strong arguments for national consistency on the grounds of equity, effectiveness and efficiency (Keating 2009), reform is complicated because state governments retain constitutional responsibility for school-ing. Historically unique state policy formations and cultures have evolved since schools were first established in the Australian colonies, resulting in a diverse system of Australian schooling (Yates, Collins, and O’Connor 2011). Since the 1960s, however, federal government influence in schooling has progressively increased, multiple national reform initiatives have been developed, and intergov-ernmental agreements and processes have intensified. The past decade has also seen powerful roles emerge for new policy organisations such as the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), which developed the Australian Curriculum, National Assessment Program and My School website; and the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), which developed the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. These organisations have assumed unprecedented policy development roles, mediating state and federal relations through novel processes of negotiation. Australia’s federal system of governance is, therefore, ‘in a state of flux’ (Brown and Bellamy 2006, 3), as the traditional roles of federal and state governments undergo transformation.

Whilst the governance of Australian schooling has been a topic of heated debate for some time (Lingard 2000), the depth and extent of national reform in recent years has generated heightened uncertainty and contestation about how schools are governed, how policies are developed and about which level of government is ‘best placed’ to govern education into the future. In this context, questions about who steers or controls schooling are not only more frequent, but are also increasingly difficult to answer. Uncertainties of this nature were exemplified in recent review processes associated with the Reform of the Federation White Paper (Australian Government 2014a, 2014b, 2015b), which sought to clarify the roles of federal and state governments in multiple areas, including education. The review cited schooling policy as a key area of concern and signalled the need to disentangle the threads of an increasingly complex system of reform. The review described contemporary arrangements as marked by problematic levels of overlap and duplication, which is ‘contributing to a system’ that is ‘less efficient, effective and equitable than it could be in terms of delivering outcomes for all Australians’ (Australian Government 2014b, 2). The review painted a portrait of Australian federalism as unnecessarily complex, hazy and unaccountable, and as undermining the capacities of states to govern autonomously and formulate effective policies. These arguments mirrored key aspects of the 2011 Senate Select Committee on Reform of the Australian Federation (Australian Government 2011a), which also argued that core elements of the federation were dysfunctional and issues were stemming from growing levels of shared responsibility between governments.

Policy shifts over the past decade have prompted researchers to analyse both the changing nature of Australian federalism and the implications of these changes for the delivery of core public services, including schooling. In many cases, research has mirrored the tenor of government reviews and reports, arguing the Australian federation is functioning in less than ideal ways, and that a new kind of federalism is required, involving structural reforms and a greater clarity of roles and responsibilities for governments (e.g. Twomey and Withers 2007; Wanna et al. 2009; Kildea and Lynch 2011). With regard to schooling policy specifically, Keating (2009) has argued that current governance arrangements in the Australian federation are marked by a ‘lack of policy coherence and consistency’ (24) and are failing to deliver a quality and equitable schooling system. Other education policy researchers have focused on new forms of contestation and tension emerging between Australian state and federal governments, and have critiqued political processes relating to major national reforms such as the Australian Curriculum (Brennan 2011; Harris-Hart 2010). Concerns of this nature are not limited to Australia. In the USA, for example, similar tensions and debates have emerged in response to decades of increased federal involvement, changing intergovernmental relations and large-scale reform attempts in areas including curriculum, teaching standards and testing (Ravitch 2010; Savage and O’Connor 2015). Much like Australia, these changes have driven increased interest amongst researchers in

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seeking to understand the consequences such trends for the future of federalism and schooling policies (e.g. Hess and Kelly 2013; Manna 2011; Mehta 2013).

This paper contributes to this emerging body of research by examining how national reforms asso-ciated with the Australian Curriculum are contributing to the reshaping of Australian federalism and the role of Australian governments in education. In particular, I focus on how state curriculum agencies are both responding and contributing to new national policy formations in schooling, both internally and through new intergovernmental and inter-agency policy formations. This focus is important, as there is a distinct void in contemporary research in terms of examining the repositioning of state-level agencies and actors as a result of national schooling reforms. As Smullen (2014) argues, Australian federalism research is dominated by a focus on the federal government, processes of centralisation and ‘vertical’ relationships between state and federal governments, at the expense of focusing on the new roles that states are playing in emerging national policy formations.

The paper is organised as follows. First, I explore the development of the Australian Curriculum, focusing specifically on the formation of ACARA and the federal Labor government’s role in the early years of the Australian Curriculum reform. In doing so, I argue that Labor was afforded a rare window of political opportunity that enabled the fundamental restructuring of curriculum policy at the national level, and which has significantly altered intergovernmental and inter-agency relationships. Following this, I engage theoretically with research literature that has sought to theorise the changing nature of Australian federalism in relation to schooling reforms. Having established these foundations, I present an empirical analysis based on interviews with policy-makers in ACARA and curriculum agencies in four Australian states (Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria). My analysis draws attention to three dominant trends: powerful new roles for ACARA in driving national reform and inter-agency collaboration; increased policy overlap and blurred lines of responsibility; and an uneven playing field of intergovernmental and inter-agency relationships and powers. I conclude by considering the implications of emerging reform trends for conceptualising the shifting dynamics of federalism in Australia and beyond.

A rare window of political opportunity: national curriculum reform and the federal Labor government

The history of national curriculum reform in Australia has been protracted and complex, with a range of attempts made over the past four decades to move towards a more nationally consistent approach. Processes leading to the formal development of the Australian Curriculum in 2008 can be understood in terms of three historical phases: the development of national goals in the late 1980s, failed attempts at a national curriculum in the 1990s and rejuvenated attempts towards national consistency in the 2000s (Savage and O’Connor 2015). Aspects of this history have been documented by a range of Australian researchers and from diverse perspectives, each providing unique insights into the cultural, political and educational contexts surrounding these periods of reform (e.g. Brennan 2011; Ditchburn 2012; Gerrard and Farrell 2013; Harris-Hart 2010; Marsh 1994; Reid 2005; Yates, Collins, and O’Connor 2011).

The most recent era of reform gained momentum around a decade after dust had settled on failed attempts to implement National Statements and Profiles in curriculum during the 1990s. In the mid-2000s, the federal Liberal government, headed by Prime Minister John Howard, led calls for national curriculum standards and standardised testing, and commissioned a report into the radical possibility of establishing a national senior secondary certificate of education to replace all existing state and territory awards (see below). This push towards nationalisation and centralisation was in line with the broader trajectory of Australian schooling reform since the 1980s. For example, during the successive federal Labor governments led by Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating (1983–1996), two major national agreements were signed – the Hobart Declaration (1989) and the Adelaide Declaration (1999) – which included bipartisan commitments by federal and state governments to develop national frameworks for curriculum and other areas of schooling. The 1990s also saw major increases in federal

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funding to schools (Connors and McMorrow 2015), the development of a national system of Vocational Education and Training, and moves towards establishing national year 12 attainment targets (Keating, Savage, and Polesel 2013).

Whilst a range of social, political and economic imperatives and ideological positions informed these developments, one of the strongest drivers of nationalisation in curriculum (and other areas of schooling) was a strong pragmatic interest by governments to improve the efficiency and effective-ness of governance and public service delivery in Australia’s federal system by reducing duplication and overlap between federal and state governments. This reflects a broader tradition of ‘pragmatic federalism’ (Smullen 2014) in the Australian federation, motivated less by the kinds of principled or philosophical commitments to federalism seen in the USA, but instead by more of an ad hoc prob-lem-solving orientation (see also, Hollander and Patapan 2007). Of course, pragmatism of this kind is clearly not apolitical or devoid of ideology. Indeed, pragmatic arguments for making the federation more efficient and effective are no doubt infused with different political and ideological positions at different historical junctures. However, to focus on political and ideological factors alone is to miss the strong pragmatic thread informing national reform over the past few decades. For example, a key priority since the formation of the Council of Australian Governments1 (COAG) in 1992 has been the pursuit of forms of nationalisation, rationalised on the basis that such reforms will help ‘clean up’ Australian federalism. As Jones (2008) notes, the formation of COAG was an important moment in Australian federalism, representing a strong commitment to ‘improve efficiencies in the delivery of services between Commonwealth and state governments’ and to tackle ‘friction, confusion and waste caused by duplication and overlap’ (162). In 1993, the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) was also established, through an amalgamation of the Australian Education Council, the Council of Ministers of Vocational Education, Employment and Training, and the Youth Ministers Council. MCEETYA emerged as central to the ‘new federal-ism’ reforms pursued by Bob Hawke (Lingard 2000, 28–29) and ‘was viewed by central agencies as a pragmatic response to reduce the expensive duplication of effort in the delivery of education and training by each jurisdiction’ (Jones 2008, 164). MCEETYA quickly became a driving force behind national reforms, involving governments ‘in the discussion of education policy at the national level through a schedule of annual meetings with state and territory ministers from the education, training and youth portfolios’ (Jones 2008, 164).

MCEETYA also played a central role in the early 2000s, establishing a taskforce to review the failed National Statements and Profiles of the 1990s and to advise ministers on how the states and territories could collaborate further on achieving national consistency in curriculum (Reid 2005, 19). Despite failure to achieve political consensus in the 1990s, therefore, the broader notion of national consistency in curriculum was far from defeated and attempts to formulate new reform options soon emerged. For example, the desire to improve the efficiency of Australian federalism through national education reform became central to initiatives led by the Howard government in the 2000s and was a key factor behind its aforementioned commissioned report into establishing a new senior certificate, titled ‘Australian Certificate of Education: Exploring a Way Forward’ (ACER 2006). The report repeat-edly cited the wastefulness of curriculum and certification arrangements across Australia, arguing strongly for a national approach as the preferred solution. In promoting the report, lead author Geoff Masters reflected upon the ‘considerable divergence across Australia’ (Masters 2006, 796) regarding state and territory requirements for the award of senior certificates, the level of detail provided in various syllabuses and curriculum frameworks, and approaches to assessing and reporting student achievement, adding that there were ‘bewildering variations’ in terminology and requirements across the nation (798).

The Liberal government’s certification reforms were quickly derailed when the Australian Labor Party (ALP), led by Kevin Rudd, defeated Howard in late 2007. Plans for a national curriculum and standardised testing, however, were greatly amplified under Prime Minster Rudd and federal Education Minister Julia Gillard, who came to power promising Australia an ‘Education Revolution’, which, they argued, would include greater national cooperation, consistency and accountability. Rudd and Gillard

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were gifted an extremely rare window of political opportunity for advancing national reform through intergovernmental cooperation, because at the time of their election every Australian state and territory government was Labor. In addition, Labor had inherited a very strong (pre-global financial crisis) budgetary position. This allowed Rudd and Gillard to pursue a rapid and unprecedented national schooling reform agenda through COAG and MCEETYA. Early in 2008, for example, COAG endorsed an ambitious set of schooling reforms, agreeing that states would work together to achieve a wide range of shared objectives. The COAG agenda led to the National Education Agreement and a range of National Partnerships specifically relating to schooling policy (COAG 2008). In December 2008, state and territory education ministers formally endorsed the development of a national curriculum via the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA 2008), which was signed by eight Labor Ministers (Julia Gillard, Federal; Andrew Barr, ACT; Verity Firth, NSW; Marion Scrymgour, NT; Rod Welford; QLD; Jane Lomax-Smith, SA; David Bartlett, TAS; Bronwyn Pike VIC), and only one Independent Minister (Elizabeth Constable, WA) who represented WA’s newly elected Liberal government.2

Rudd and Gillard moved swiftly to pass the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority Act 2008, which led to the establishment of ACARA. As a new national policy organisation, ACARA was given the task of developing three new national policy initiatives: a national curriculum; a national assessment program and a national data collection and reporting program. These three ini-tiatives subsequently became the Australian Curriculum, the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), and the My School website. From the outset, ACARA was strategically designed to represent a new cooperative and intergovernmental approach to curriculum, assessment and reporting policy in Australia. For example, ACARA was established via an Act of Parliament under agreement between both the state governments and the federal government, with ACARA jointly owned and funded by all nine governments (that is, the federal government plus six state and two territory governments). ACARA’s unique governance structure means that it receives directions from (and is accountable to) the federal Australian Government and all state and territory education ministers via the Education Council.3 ACARA’s design, therefore, can be seen not only as an attempt to portray a new form of cooperative federalism (see section to follow), but can also be read as a clever move to avoid a repeat of earlier failings at national curriculum reform, responding in particular to criticism that the 1990s attempts represented unwarranted centralisation and federal intrusion (see Jones 2008).

The collaborative design of ACARA was intended to be reflected through the ensuing curriculum design process, which followed a staged process, involving national consultation on expert-drafted Framing papers, bureaucrat-drafted Shape papers and curriculum framework drafts before final frame-work documents were published (Savage and O’Connor 2015, 617). It also involved three phases of sub-ject development and implementation, providing for the original four subjects under Phase 1 (English, Mathematics, Science and History), and additional subjects seen to cover the rest of the curriculum under Phases 2 and 3. The final framework for the first four subjects was published in December 2010, and the development and approval process for the additional subjects is currently underway at varying stages. State curriculum agencies, education ministers (federal, state and territory) and a wide range of other education stakeholders were involved in these development and consultation processes.

In the years since its formation, ACARA has arguably fulfilled the national policy objectives it was designed to achieve, through driving the development of the Australian Curriculum, NAPLAN and My School. Together, these policy initiatives have had significant impacts on the shape of curriculum, assessment and reporting policies in Australian schooling – instituting radical changes that were desired (but unable to be achieved) over many decades by political actors on both sides of the major party divide. ACARA has also navigated and negotiated the development of these reforms through turbulent political seas, with the make-up of Australian governments swinging heavily towards the Liberal party at federal and state levels in recent years. However, as I will argue in the analysis sections below, ACARA has also fundamentally altered processes of curriculum development in Australian schooling, disrupting a legacy of state-based curriculum development by shifting key reform processes

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to the national level. In doing so, it has transformed intergovernmental and inter-agency relations, and generated a fresh set of tensions and concerns both within and between Australian states and territories.

Conceptualising Australian federalism and national schooling reform

In the field of education policy studies, a number of researchers have sought to understand evolving relationships between Australian federalism and national schooling reform (e.g. Brennan 2011; Harris-Hart 2010; Keating 2009; Keating and Klatt 2013; Lingard 1991, 2000). This stands in contrast to the field of political science, where a vast number of theoretical perspectives and ‘ideal type’ models exist for understanding Australian federalism, but in which schooling policy is largely ignored.4 This has resulted in a dearth of research in political science and public policy studies into how national policy processes in schooling are reshaping the nature of Australian federalism.

Lingard’s (2000) analysis of changing relationships between national schooling reform and Australian federalism from the 1970s to 1990s is arguably the most authoritative and extensive of recent decades in education policy studies. Lingard’s central argument is that the role of the federal government in Australian schooling was relatively ad hoc until the federal Labor government, led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, ‘full systematised the Commonwealth’s role’ (25) by implementing recommendations associated with the Karmel Report of 1973. The Karmel Report examined Australian school funding arrangements and recommended radical changes, central to which was a needs-based funding model to combat inequalities in schooling and a perceived lack of quality in curriculum, pedagogy and school governance. The Karmel Report led to the introduction of Australia’s first system of recurrent grants from the federal government to both government and non-government schools, made possible by section 96 of the constitution, which ‘allows the Commonwealth to make grants to the States for the purposes that the Commonwealth sees fit’ (Lingard 2000, 32–33). According to Lingard, the report set in motion a new era of Australian federalism and schooling, paving the way for the range of national reforms in the decades to follow, including curriculum reforms that led to the National Statements and Profiles (and eventually, to the Australian Curriculum).

Lingard suggests that national reform agendas in schooling were significantly amplified between 1987 and 1991 under federal Labor education Minister John Dawkins and Prime Minister Bob Hawke (28–29). Lingard argues that these years signalled a significant ‘qualitative change beyond that set by the Karmel frame’ (29), suggesting that whilst Whitlam era reforms were marked by an expansion of federal government influence, the Hawke era reforms signalled a ‘move towards national policies which were achieved through consensus and collaborative work at the intergovernmental council in education – the AEC until 1993, MCEETYA subsequently’ (29, italics in original). To illustrate this shift, Lingard cites the first ‘national’ policy on schooling, The National Policy for the Education of Girls in Australian Schools, released in 1987, which clearly distinguished between Commonwealth and national policies: suggesting Commonwealth policies relate ‘specifically to the objectives of the Commonwealth government’ (27), whereas: ‘a national policy in education addresses matters of concern to the nation as a whole in which a comprehensive approach to policy development and implementation is adopted by school and system authorities across the nation’ (Commonwealth Schools Commission 1987, 11; cited in Lingard 2000, 27; italics in original). The report added that a ‘national policy’ was one ‘based on principles of collaboration and partnership’, and which ‘necessarily involves commitment and agreement from the various parties responsible for schooling, including Commonwealth, State and Territory governments and non-government school authorities’ (Ibid.). Lingard argues that ‘there was no such distinction’ between Commonwealth and national in schooling policies during the Whitlam era (27). In summary, Lingard suggests that from the 1970s to the 1990s, federal government influence expanded, and, at the same time, a new kind of collaborative federalism emerged that was strongly mediated at national and ministerial levels through intergovernmental forums. These trends contin-ued into the Howard era, despite Howard rhetorically hinting, during the 1996 election campaign, towards a return to a ‘coordinate’ style of federalism with more clearly defined roles for federal and state governments (Lingard 2000, 29).

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More recently, Keating and Klatt (2013) have examined the post-2000 era of national schooling reform and Australian federalism, focusing on the 2011 ‘Review of Funding for Schooling’ (Australian Government 2011b) – commonly known as ‘the Gonski Review’. Keating and Klatt continue the line of argument developed by Lingard, suggesting a new form of cooperative federalism is indeed emerging in Australia, which is superseding previous forms. In historical terms, Keating and Klatt argue that Australian federalism (in relation to schooling) represents a curious mix of both concurrent and coor-dinate tendencies: concurrent insofar as schooling has emerged over time as a shared responsibility between federal and state governments; but also coordinate as state governments ‘want Commonwealth monies but then want to be left alone’ (417) and retain some key roles. In other words, despite broader trends towards concurrent federalism, ongoing tensions have seen states consistently reasserting auton-omy. ‘States’ rights’ arguments, therefore, have not dissipated, despite increased power sharing and intergovernmental cooperation. Keating and Klatt map out a theoretical and historical trajectory that suggests, again like Lingard, that since the Karmel Report, states have increasingly accepted the federal government as playing a ‘complementary role in education policy-making’ (414), and major shifts are occurring towards ‘cooperative responsibility sharing’ (421).

Not all researchers, however, agree that Australian federalism is evolving in more collaborative ways, focusing instead on contestations between levels of government and coercive tactics by the fed-eral government. Harris-Hart (2010), for example, explores changes to Australian federalism through an analysis of the Australian Curriculum specifically, arguing that the last three decades have seen concerted efforts by Australian federal governments to wrestle curriculum control from the states and territories, with a distinct form of coercive federalism emerging since the mid-2000s under Howard. Harris-Hart suggests that whilst the Rudd government promoted a new form of cooperative federal-ism as part of its ‘Education Revolution’, in practice it continued the coercive tendencies established under Howard. For example, Harris-Hart suggests that whilst the ACARA Act, ‘appears on the sur-face to represent unprecedented intergovernmental collaboration and a transition to co-operative federalism’, in reality ‘cracks in this co-operative veneer are starting to appear’ (295). Harris-Hart goes further, suggesting the Rudd government’s claims of a new era of intergovernmental cooperation ‘are at best exaggerated and at worst, a determined attempt to mask a continued reliance on a more subtle form of coercive federalism to implement national curriculum in Australia’ (309). Harris-Hart sees the Australian Curriculum, therefore, as a veil for centralisation, and thus views the formation of ACARA as ‘an overt attempt by the Rudd government to control national curriculum under the guise of co-operation’ (310).

Brennan (2011) is also critical of the political processes leading to the development of ACARA and the Australian Curriculum. Brennan argues that whilst federal and state ministers agreed to the Australian Curriculum as a ‘self evident good’ (264), very little justification has been provided as to why such a move is necessary for the Australian federation. Brennan argues that the development of the Australian Curriculum was both rushed and highly politicised, and casts doubt over the stability and effectiveness of ACARA into the future. Citing a large number of discontinued national bodies that have ‘fallen by the wayside’ (271) over the past few decades, Brennan argues that the ‘existence of ACARA is no guarantee that national curriculum will continue as an educational or political project’ (270). Brennan argues that because ACARA is essentially ‘owned by education ministers’ (271), it does not have the resources or capacity to build the kind of rich policy dialogue, professional knowledge and networks, and other capital necessity ‘to make national curriculum a reality’ (271). Brennan adds that, ‘State-level education systems have demonstrated many of the benefits of federalism, particularly through allowing diversity and innovation’ (272), and laments the progressive hollowing out of state education bureaucracies since the 1980s, as state governments have responded to looming national agendas. In making this argument, Brennan suggests that new forms of ‘corporate federalism’ (see also, Bartlett 1992; Lingard 1991) and ‘contractual federalism’ (273) are emerging in Australia, which are strongly underpinned by economic rationalism and which manifest in growing forms of national ‘standardisation, regulation and accountability’ (273). As a result, a new form of audit culture is emerg-ing in education, which has the capacity to vastly reshape government relations and cultures (273).

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The arguments of Harris-Hart (2010) and Brennan (2011) are supported by the fact that in 2009, the federal Labor government restructured its funding for schools to align with the National Education Agreement and the set of National Partnerships developed in 2008. As part of this, the federal govern-ment placed new conditions on its recurrent funding. The main condition for receiving this money was that states and territories would sign onto the National Education Agreement, and a range of national goals, including the development of the Australian Curriculum. More recently, the Australian Education Act 2013, also passed under Labor, increased federal funding for schools, but again these increases were conditional upon states and territories agreeing to implement the Australian Curriculum and a range of other national reform initiatives. Strong levels of ‘vertical fiscal imbalance’ in the Australian federation make such conditional funding arrangements possible. For example, as a result of historical shifts in taxation resources from the states to the federal government, the federal government has much greater revenue raising capacity (see Lingard 2000). The states, however, have remained constitutionally responsible for the delivery of expensive social services such as education. This fiscal imbalance has created a dependent relationship between the states and the federal government and opened the way for greater federal involvement and intervention.

Regardless of how we choose to theorise recent developments in Australian federalism (e.g. as col-laborative, pragmatic, coordinate, concurrent, coercive, corporate, or contractual, or many others5), it is clear that the past few years have seen the seas of national schooling reform become increasingly turbulent, with fresh calls emerging to rethink how education is governed in the Australian federation. For example, the research canvassed above was written prior to the 2013 election of the federal Liberal government and the broader evening out of Labor and Coalition control at state and territory levels. These developments have seen some different political messages emerge from those associated with the preceding Rudd-Gillard Labor era of intergovernmental collaboration and national partnerships. Indeed, the federal Liberal government has called into question core aspects of the national schooling reform agenda, including the Australian Curriculum, which it commissioned a review into in 2014 (Australian Government 2014b). In addition to problematising aspects of the Australian Curriculum’s design and content, the review dedicated significant attention to ACARA, describing its structure and governance mechanisms as ‘unsatisfactory’ (4), its decision-making processes as marked by a ‘lack of transpar-ency’ (224) and its processes to date as driving ‘an incredibly complex, opaque, resource- consuming, compromise-dominated, top-down way of designing a national curriculum’ (228). To address these ‘major defects’, the review recommended radical changes to its structure, including the potential option of reconstituting it ‘as a company that is at arm’s length from education ministers and the education departments that serve them’ (253). An updated version of the Australian Curriculum (ACARA 2015) has since been developed (and is to be implemented in schools from 2017), which reflects some key recommendations made by the review. A formal review of ACARA has also been completed (Australian Government 2015a), but only recommended minor changes to its governance processes.

Underpinning this shifting field of policy development have been review processes associated with the aforementioned Reform of the Federation review, commissioned by the federal Liberal government in 2014. The review was driven from the outset by a clear preference for a more coordinate model of federalism, with cleaner lines of responsibility between federal and state governments. This was made very clear in the ‘Objectives’ section of the review’s Terms of Reference, which stated that the aim of the review was to, ‘clarify roles and responsibilities to ensure that, as far as possible, the States and Territories are sovereign in their own sphere’ (Australian Government 2014a; v). This reform spirit was continued in Issues Paper 4, titled ‘Roles and Responsibilities in Education’ (Australian Government 2014b), which started from the position that, ‘the current split of roles and responsibilities, and the overlap and duplication inherent in them, is contributing to pressures on the efficiency and effective-ness of our education system, and governments’ capacity to deliver better services and educational outcomes for their citizens’ (1). The paper also described the governance of schooling as ‘fragmented and disjointed’ (26) and suggested that, ‘legitimate questions need to be asked about whether these arrangements are functional and rational’ (2). In this sense, the review reflected the ‘pragmatic feder-alism’ that Smullen (2014) argues is typical of reform in the Australian federation.

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A Discussion Paper was subsequently released (Australian Government 2015b), which canvassed a varied set of reform options for schooling. One option suggested the possibility of removing federal involvement entirely, with states and territories assuming full responsibility for schools6 (60–61). Mirroring arguments in the preceding Issues Paper 4, the Discussion Paper began with a number of forthright assertions about the dysfunctional nature of the Australian federation and the pressing need for reform – arguing, for example, that the degree of ‘interference’ by the federal government ‘in traditional areas of State and Territory responsibility’, such as education, ‘has now arguably gone too far’, and that the current balance of roles and responsibilities between governments is ‘out of kilter’ (3). Again, reflecting a strong pragmatic orientation, the Discussion Paper suggested that a key reason for rethinking roles and responsibilities within the Federation was, ultimately, ‘to deliver better services for all Australians’ (11).

Despite the Reform of the Federation review flagging strong intentions to rethink (perhaps radically) Australian federalism, the winds of political change remain precarious and unclear. The current reform trajectory will hinge to a large extent on whether the Liberal government retains leadership at the next federal election (scheduled for July 2016). In the meantime, the predominant mood remains one of heightened uncertainty about the evolving roles and responsibilities of federal, state and territory governments in the governance of Australian schooling.

The repositioning of state curriculum agencies: voices from the policy coalface

Whilst the shifting terrain of national reform has implications for all levels of Australian government, concerns are most acute for state education departments and agencies, which face the challenge of aligning with a complex array of new national policy processes. State policy-makers are in particu-larly difficult positions, as whilst states formally control schooling and are held accountable for policy outcomes, major reforms such as the Australian Curriculum are now developed nationally. State pol-icy-makers must also navigate an increasingly precarious broader governance context, in which the future roles and responsibilities of federal, state and territory governments are being hotly contested and remain unclear.

To explore the impact of recent and emerging developments on Australian states, I now turn to an empirical analysis based on interviews with senior policy-makers in four state curriculum agencies, located in four Australian states7 (Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria). To accompany these state perspectives (and to provide a national perspective), I also include data generated from interviews with senior policy-makers in ACARA. The purpose of my analysis is to explore the repositioning of state curriculum agencies as a result of national reforms associated with the Australian Curriculum. In particular, I focus on how policy-makers are both responding and contributing to new national policy formations in schooling, both internally and through new inter-governmental and inter-agency policy formations. I also examine how policy actors perceive broader uncertainties about the governance of schooling in the Australian federation.

My analysis draws attention to three dominant trends that emerged from the interviews: powerful new roles for ACARA in driving national reform and inter-agency collaboration; increased policy overlap and blurred lines of responsibility; and an uneven playing field of intergovernmental and inter-agency relationships and powers.

1. Powerful new roles for ACARA in driving national reform and inter-agency collaboration

Policy-makers in state curriculum agencies spoke in detail about powerful new roles ACARA had assumed in reshaping curriculum policy processes in Australia. Policy-makers suggested that in a very short space of time, since its establishment in 2008, ACARA had taken on an unprecedented role in mediating state and federal relations in relation to curriculum policy. Policy-makers also described ACARA as a central force in the broader reshaping of education policy and politics, and as a leading force in standardising previously disparate state and territory systems. Policy-makers tended to frame

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ACARA’s ascendency as a ‘mixed blessing’, drawing attention to simultaneously positive and negative implications stemming from its growing power. In this section, I explore the main positive trend identified by state policy-makers, which was the extent to which ACARA had enabled new national policy networks and forms of inter-agency collaboration. The two sections to follow shift focus to more problematic implications of ACARA’s rise in power, which state policy-makers described in more negative terms.

Across the four states, policy-makers suggested ACARA was generally playing a proactive and positive role in driving new forms of collaboration and policy sharing between states, despite operating in a complex and sometimes fractious national reform context. This included the formal establishment of new national policy processes through ACARA’s governance structures, but also new informal net-works between states that policy-makers suggested were forming as ‘off-shoots’ around ACARA. One of the most frequent comments made by policy-makers was that ACARA was bringing consistency to national curriculum reform after decades of uncertainty and failed attempts at national reform. A policy-maker from Queensland, for example, spoke positively about ACARA’s success in creating ‘a new language about curriculum’ and ‘bringing states closer together’. This sentiment was mirrored by a policy-maker in Western Australia, who said, ‘the national curriculum has brought us together, a lot closer’, with state and territory curriculum agencies ‘now communicating and collaborating in ways that would have seemed unusual just a decade ago’. She added that since ACARA’s establishment, Western Australia had developed ‘quite a good rapport with the other similar agencies to us’, suggesting her agency had developed particularly close links with state curriculum agencies in Victoria and New South Wales. She spoke, for example, about how recently she had found herself ‘picking up the phone and calling inter-state colleagues’ to chat informally about reforms and ideas in ways she had never done before. This was creating, she argued, ‘positives in terms of ensuring consistency of standards across Australia’. A policy-maker from New South Wales supported her view, describing ACARA as driving the formation of ‘a network with all the other states’. This policy-maker said ‘we now work a lot with others, with Victoria, with Western Australia’, also observing that such inter-state and inter-agency relations were previously rare.

Whilst state policy-makers reflected in generally positive terms on these new networks of collabo-ration, some felt that ACARA could further improve its approach in terms of how it dealt with states and mediated inter-agency relationships across the nation. A policy-maker from NSW, for example, said that whilst their agency was ‘quite keen to collaborate’ with ACARA, and that ACARA had an important and ongoing role to play, he felt that the organisation had ‘not always been a good model’ in terms of ‘public administration and leadership’. He added that ACARA can do more to improve in order to be even ‘more collaborative’. In making these comments, he suggested that sometimes ACARA acted in ways that appeared to ‘forget’ that states maintain constitutional responsibility for education in the Australian federation (see next section also), arguing that ACARA ‘works best’ when it operates as ‘a broker of collaboration’, in ways that are attentive to ‘the roles of state agencies and state legislation’. A policy-maker from WA, however, acknowledged how difficult it is for ACARA to mediate relations between agencies and governments, and to cater to the wishes of all stakeholders, saying: ‘I think everyone realises they have got a really hard job. I mean no one would want the job they have got in trying to please every state’. She went onto describe ACARA as ‘not perfect’, but countered by reiterating that the benefits of national reform outweighed the downsides and that ACARA processes are ‘very rigorous and thorough’.

State-level reflections on the generally positive impacts of ACARA in driving new networks of collaboration were, perhaps unsurprisingly, mirrored by a senior policy-maker at ACARA, who spoke about the strong relationships ACARA had formed with policy-makers across the nation, despite dif-ficulties stemming from states not always wanting to compromise to enable national agreements. This policy-maker suggested, for example, that ‘we always endeavour to work very closely with states and territories’, adding that ACARA would be ‘highly unsuccessful if these relationships didn’t work’. He added that ACARA had been able to successfully ‘change the nature of conversations’ about curriculum because of its emphasis on ‘relationship building’ and because the organisation had consistently sought

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to ‘present it [the Australian Curriculum] in a nationally consistent way’. In addition to forming collab-orative networks and relationships with states, he also said ACARA had developed strong relationships with the federal Department of Education and Training, and with other organisations such as AITSL and Educational Services Australia (ESA). These organisations, he said, served a ‘complimentary role’ to ACARA at the national level, and together, were driving ‘productive dialogue and sharing of ideas’ across the nation. ACARA was seen, in this sense, as just one (albeit central) cog in the formation of new national policy networks and forms of collaboration that were made possible through multiple organisations and levels of government.

These findings support recent arguments in the Reform of the Federation Discussion Paper, which cited the Australian Curriculum as one of several ‘positive examples’ across the nation of ‘shared col-laboration on policy’ (Australian Government 2015b, 58). The paper also suggested that the three core functions that ACARA is responsible for (i.e. the Australian Curriculum, NAPLAN and My School), ‘are all considered by stakeholders to now be essential parts of Australia’s schooling system’ (58), and are viewed by stakeholders as ‘particularly valuable’ (60). These findings also suggest that rather than being a purely top-down process, driven predominately by a coercive federal government, as Harris-Hart (2010) argues, the formation of ACARA and the Australian Curriculum is instead generating new horizontal and intergovernmental policy networks, which are enabling the negotiation and transfer of policy ideas and practices across the nation in ways not possible in decades prior. Moreover, rather than compromising the professional knowledge and expertise of state curriculum departments, as Brennan (2011) suggests, these findings suggest national reform may actually be bringing states together in new ways to share and contribute their experiences and expertise to the broader project of national reform. This point, however, is highly complex, as it is quite possible that policy-makers in state agencies can favourably experience new modes of cooperation and have opportunities to exercise ‘some’ elements of professional knowledge and expertise in new ways, whilst, at the same time, have ‘other’ aspects of their professional knowledge and expertise compromised. For example, data in the third section below suggests asymmetries of power relations are emerging between state governments and agencies, which leads to some agencies getting either more or less of a say over the trajectory of national reform.

Whilst there is no denying that ACARA’s initial formation benefitted greatly from the fortuitous window of opportunity afforded to the federal Labor government in 2008, and whilst it is clear federal Labor engaged in tactics to financially incentivise states into pursuing the Australian Curriculum, it nevertheless appears that ACARA has been able to enable new forms of inter-state and inter-agency ‘policy learning’ (see Wallner 2014), which are generally viewed in positive ways by key stakeholders, and which have played out in ways that are more complex than top-down accounts are able to cap-ture. Put differently, the comments above suggest the reshaping of intergovernmental relations made possible by ACARA is marked by strong cooperation, rather than simply coercion. These findings also suggest trends towards schooling becoming a ‘shared responsibility’ (Lingard 2000) are not only enabled by new ‘vertical’ relations between state and federal governments and agencies, but are also made possible also through new ‘horizontal’ relations between states, which are strongly mediated through the architecture of ACARA as a ‘new breed’ national organisation. Of course, as I noted above, collaboration could be considered a ‘double-edged sword’, as when considered alongside data in the sections to follow, new opportunities for policy-makers to contribute to national reform may be accompanied by a giving up of other traditional roles, responsibilities and powers.

2. Increased policy overlap and blurred lines of responsibility

Despite new collaborative benefits stemming from national curriculum reform, ACARA was not described in wholly positive terms by state policy-makers. Nor was the broader climate of national reform that had emerged since the late 2000s. Indeed, policy-makers in each of the four states expressed significant concerns about problematic levels of policy overlap emerging across state, federal and national levels. This overlap, they suggested, was generating confusion over the powers and responsi-bilities of Australian governments in education. New national processes, they suggested, were blurring

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the lines of power and accountability and in some cases undermining the capacities of states to govern autonomously and formulate effective policies.

One of the most common trends in this regard was for state policy-makers to lament the haziness of decision-making processes at the national level. As one policy-maker from Queensland put it when referring to national schooling reform, ‘it’s hard to know who’s in charge these days or even how national policies are getting made’. A policy-maker from New South Wales mirrored this comment, but related his concerns to ACARA specifically, suggesting that over the past few years he had increasingly found himself asking, ‘Who is responsible for what? And what authority does ACARA have? And what are its limits?’. This policy-maker said that even having to ask these questions was a problematic reflection on Australian schooling. When I asked him to elaborate on his concerns, he suggested that whilst ACARA has its benefits, its formation had complicated federalism by creating an agency that ‘blurred the lines’ between federal and state responsibilities. Even though ACARA was owned and governed by federal, state and territory governments, he said it would sometimes act in ways that implied it controlled curriculum across the nation, forgetting that states still maintain formal respon-sibility. He said ACARA needs to remember that ‘states are absolutely responsible for education’, and for this reason, needs ‘to be careful about negotiating a path that fits within legislative requirements’.

Comments like this reflect concerns over ACARA’s political legitimacy and the limits of its reach in the Australian federation. In many ways, these concerns reflect an inherent tension in ACARA’s remit. For example, Section 6 of the ACARA Act 2008 states that one of ACARA’s ‘functions’ is to, ‘develop and administer a national school curriculum, including content of the curriculum and achievement standards for school subjects specified in the Charter’ (5, italics added). However, as noted in the 2014 Review of the Australian Curriculum, this emphasis on administration in the legislation has produced a lack of clarity over ACARA’s functions, as states constitutionally have full responsibility for administering curricula through distinct state and territory schooling systems. In a submission made to the Review, the New South Wales’s Board of Studies argued that ‘the meaning of the word ‘administer’ needs to be clarified’ (Australian Government 2014c, 225). Similar tensions were reflected in the Reform of the Federation Discussion Paper, which focused on a broader blurring of roles and responsibilities in education. The Discussion Paper argued that whilst there are strong demonstrated benefits to intergovernmental collaboration, it is difficult to find any evidence of ‘blurred arrangements’ (7) contributing positively in any area of governance.

When I asked state policy-makers to provide illustrative examples of how ACARA might be driv-ing such policy overlap and blurring, there were two common responses. First, policy-makers saw ACARA as now doing work that was traditionally done by the states, particularly in the area of curric-ulum development. A policy-maker from Western Australia, for example, reflected on how education stakeholders in the state had become increasingly confused over who was in charge of the curriculum as ACARA’s activities had expanded. In the beginning, for example, ACARA drove the development of the Australian Curriculum in the four Phase 1 learning areas (English, Mathematics, Science and History). In this initial development phase, she argued, it was easier to distinguish ‘ACARA subjects’ from ‘state-led subjects’. However, as ACARA expanded into Phase 2 and 3 developments, extending its reach to eight key learning areas, key stakeholders became ‘confused with ACARA and us’ in terms of which curriculum agency is in charge. Policy-makers in Queensland and Victoria made similar comments, suggesting teachers and school leaders were misunderstanding the distinction between state agencies and ACARA.

The second trend linked intrinsically to the first, but related specifically to ACARA’s methods of communication with stakeholders. Several state policy-makers, for example, said ACARA caused confusion by communicating directly to schools and teachers and by releasing online material about Australian Curriculum updates. Because different Australian states are on different timelines for imple-menting the Australian Curriculum and some are adapting it in different ways, ACARA’s national messages and communications are often different from state and territory policy messages. ACARA’s release of national level communications, therefore, inadvertently had the effect of ‘side-stepping’ state agencies, which, in turn, complicated state-level messages. A policy-maker from New South Wales,

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for example, said ACARA’s ‘communication with schools and our systems … is the key problem for us’, adding, ‘they communicate directly with schools about the Australian Curriculum as they have developed it, and it causes massive confusion in New South Wales for teachers’. A policy-maker from Western Australia described the same issue, also suggesting that state-wide confusion arises when ACARA releases a new version of the Australian Curriculum. She said, ‘as soon as the curriculum goes up’, ACARA ‘presses a button’ and online communications and updates ‘go out to every school’. As a result, ‘schools are confused’, because they’ve had communications from the state-agency about the state-specific timeline for implementation, but then, ‘as soon as ACARA sends something out and says, ‘well, this curriculum is available’, teachers go straight to the ACARA website and think that is the curriculum they should now be using’. This was contributing, she added, to confusion amongst teachers. In her view, most teachers still ‘don’t know the difference’ between state agencies and ACARA.

These reflections suggest ACARA’s rising prominence and communication style is generating mixed messages for key stakeholders and is potentially undermining state positions. As such, these findings reflect arguments in the Reform of the Federation Discussion Paper, which suggest the increased sharing of responsibilities in schooling can make ‘it hard for the public to understand which level of government is responsible’ (Australian Government 2015b, 58), or which agencies should be held accountable for schooling policies and outcomes. At the same time, however, it is important to view these findings alongside the positive benefits outlined by policy-makers in the previous section. Increased policy overlap and a blurring of roles, therefore, sits alongside growing collaboration, as well as new forms of policy sharing and learning. This double-edged sword was identified in the Review of the Australian Curriculum, which described these conflicting trends in terms of a ‘paradox’, arguing that ‘although the states and territories have fiercely opposed any move by ACARA beyond its current remit’, many state and territory stakeholders were also very positive about ACARA and would like it to continue and extend its activities (Australian Government 2014c, 225). The Review drew attention to an additional paradox, arguing that, ‘while states and territories oppose the so called ‘intrusion’ of ACARA into what they consider their preserves … the fact is that they are joint owners of ACARA’ (225) and can technically control any such intrusions, adding that, ‘the states and territories still see ACARA as an Australian Government body even though they jointly own it and have equal ownership and control of it’ (225). This is an important point that strongly reflects the position of several state policy-makers I interviewed. In other words, state policy-makers view ACARA as an external ‘other’ and sometimes as a ‘competitor’, even though it is owned by all Australian governments (state, territory and federal) and is technically designed to express their collective preferences.

3. An ‘uneven playing field’ of intergovernmental relationships and powers

Whilst ‘on paper’ ACARA is an organisation owned by and representative of all Australian govern-ments, state policy-makers described ACARA’s governance processes as far from ‘even’ with regards to the inclusion of the voices and positions of all states and territories. Instead, policy-makers sug-gested the terrain of national reform is emerging in highly uneven ways, with some states dominating reforms and others less able to exert influence. When reflecting on this asymmetry of power relations between governments, state policy-makers made a range of pointed remarks that cut to the heart of contemporary tensions in the Australian federation.

The most evident tension related to a concern over the positioning and power of the two biggest and ostensibly most powerful states (Victoria and New South Wales) relative to smaller states. Policy-makers in Western Australia and Queensland, for example, unanimously argued that Victoria and New South Wales had dominated national reform processes to date, and wielded significant power over shaping the future trajectory of the Australian Curriculum. A policy-maker from Western Australia typified this trend, suggesting, ‘there’s a sense building that powerful states are driving reform and the rest of us aren’t getting a say’. The Australian Curriculum, she said, was essentially the result of negotiations between Victoria and New South Wales, and ‘the rest’ of the states were perennially sub-ject to the whims of these jurisdictions. A policy-maker from Queensland supported this argument,

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also arguing that the Australian Curriculum had resulted primarily from ‘a power struggle between the two big states’.

Policy-makers from Western Australia also reflected a sense of alienation from ACARA processes that were not evident in other states. One Western Australian policy-maker, for example, said ‘after my involvement in some of these [ACARA] meetings, I would walk away and think that the decision has already been made by ACARA and the board already’, adding that ‘some of the outcomes are not conducive to what we [Western Australia] would prefer’. The same policy-maker spoke about how she felt Western Australian teachers were also excluded from some ACARA consultation processes, offering an example of how when ACARA ‘did their review of their web site … West Australian teachers weren’t included in that’. She appeared to see the exclusion of Western Australian teachers from this particular review process as evidence of a wider problem of representation for the state in curriculum policy processes. Western Australia, she said, was ‘really at a disadvantage because when ACARA wants to grab some teachers [for consultation], it’s much easier to grab them from NSW and Victoria’. This was mainly, she argued, due to ‘accessibility’, given that ACARA’s office is located in Sydney and that ‘it’s more expensive to fly [from WA]’. Nevertheless, her view was that teachers from all states and territories should have equal opportunities to participate in all ACARA processes. She also spoke about feeling left out of ACARA meetings, talking about how representatives from eastern states were sometimes guarded and secretive at ACARA meetings, which meant that collaboration and sharing was hindered. She said, for example, ‘we used to love going to the ACARA meetings’, but over time, ‘you would have some people from some jurisdictions who wouldn’t say anything. They would sit and say nothing. They’ve been told not to participate in terms of their jurisdiction’s posi-tion.’ Collaboration, therefore, was tempered by competition, with states sometimes reluctant to put all their cards on the table.

Reflections of this nature strike a sour note in the Australian federation as they suggest the emerg-ing national reform landscape is not one in which all voices and positions are equally heard. The shift towards national reform, therefore, may be revealing long entrenched differences and unequal power relations between states. The concept of all states deserving an ‘equal say’, however, was rejected by a policy-maker from New South Wales, who argued that bigger states should get even more of say given they provide education for the largest number of young Australians. In other words, he argued that the terrain was not unequal enough. In making this argument, he said ACARA’s consultation processes were often ‘very tokenistic’ and talked about how in an attempt to appear democratic and accountable, ACARA sought to equally value the views of all states and territories. This policy-maker said, however, that this attempt to appear ‘truly national’ was actually inequitable, given states such as NSW were much larger. He added, ‘a problem for us, is if you have a small state, you might get a handful of responses. ACARA tends to treat that as equal to New South Wales … we believe it should be more equitable with the number of votes and the number of views’. In other words, not all states actually should get an equal say, as different states represent a different proportion of the nation’s schools and young people. Added to this, he said that a key problem in Australia is that not all states are equally positioned in economic terms to contribute to curriculum development processes at both state and national levels, which invariably meant that larger states would exert more control over national processes. He said, for example, that in contrast to New South Wales, some other states ‘are so small’, are limited by small budgets, and have education departments that are experiencing ‘financial difficulty’. The Australian Curriculum, he said, ‘is a way of helping them out, to have more detailed curriculums, and also the resources that flow’. In return, however, he felt that larger states should be entitled to greater control. A very similar argument was made by a policy-maker in Victoria, who said that whilst the larger states could afford to play leading roles in curriculum development, small states increasingly could not, citing South Australia and Tasmania as examples. Any ‘split’ that was emerging between states at the national level, he argued, ‘isn’t an ideological split but it’s a size split’, which meant pragmatically that larger states would inevitably exert more control. A policy-maker at ACARA also acknowledged these economic challenges, suggesting ‘the small states see huge advantages in the national enterprise because they don’t have the resources’. This was reiterated by another policy-maker at ACARA, who

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said smaller jurisdictions are ‘fundamental winners out of this because they can now access resources’ developed in larger states.

In contrast to Western Australia, policy-makers in Victoria and New South Wales also shrugged off the idea that ACARA might be coming to the negotiating table with a pre-determined position. Instead, both states reflected a far more self-assured position in relation to ACARA, giving the impression that they would not be forced into doing anything that did not accord with their wishes. For example, when I asked a Victorian policy-maker if he was worried about ACARA gaining too much control, he said ‘we are not worried’, adding ‘ACARA has no jurisdiction over Victoria … we are very clear that the states and territories are the only bodies that under the constitution have responsibilities for schooling’. Of course, this confidence of position may indeed reinforce the notion that different states and territories are positioned differently in the national reform context and in relation to ACARA’s governance process. Some feel they may have much to lose, whereas others take on a commanding role.

The shifting ecology of curriculum policy and Australian federalism

The formation of ACARA and the Australian Curriculum has set in motion dramatic shifts in curric-ulum policy and development processes across the Australian federation. In less than a decade, roles and responsibilities that were unambiguously the preserve of states and territories are now negotiated at the national scale. Whilst the axis of power is rapidly shifting, however, the mechanics of policy and governance appear to be increasingly opaque. Decisions about curriculum are now made through complex and intersecting intergovernmental channels, including executive forums such as COAG and the Education Council, through ‘new breed’ national organisations such as ACARA, and via a host of formal and informal networks between state curriculum agencies. Each of these channels is influenced in new ways by the federal government, which has played a major role in enabling national reform agendas in schooling.

The complex interweaving of governments, agencies and policy actors that defines the emerging national policy ecology makes it increasingly difficult to know who is steering the ship of Australian schooling. As the interviews herein suggest, any attempt to unpack evolving relationships and dynam-ics invariably reveals a quagmire of conflicting views, uneven power relations, overlapping roles and responsibilities, and hazy decision-making processes. The web of national reform, therefore, is polycen-tric in nature, but also appears to be marked by an asymmetry of power relations. Put differently, the rescaling of political space at the national level is bringing an array of diverse organisations and actors into the national policy orbit (and in novel ways), but is also creating a new field of power relations that risks exacerbating existing power differences between states and creating new power imbalances. In many ways, these trends reflect changes in other federal systems as national reforms and new modes policy standardisation intensify and complicate the traditional roles and responsibilities of govern-ments. For example, schooling policy in the USA is becoming highly ‘fragmented’ (Manna 2011, 14) as state and local actors and organisations contend with changing federal government interventions and national reform initiatives. As Henig (2013) puts it, American schooling policy has evolved into ‘a diverse patchwork quilt of approaches and institutions’ (12).

At the same time, power asymmetries stemming from an increasingly complex reform ecology appear to co-exist alongside strong collaborative trends and benefits, which have emerged from the formation of the Australian Curriculum and ACARA. Indeed, the rescaling of curriculum policy to the national level has opened up new policy networks and inter-agency collaborations, which have enabled forms of policy sharing and learning that were unheard of in decades prior. The possibilities for reform that are emerging through these new collaborative networks are generally viewed by state policy-makers in positive terms and are described as central to the creation of a common language and set of practices in curriculum policy that have had bipartisan support from governments since the late 1980s, but were not possible until ACARA generated the means for making it happen. The benefits flowing from new ‘horizontal’ relations emerging between states and agencies do not accord with top-down and ‘vertical’ critiques of the Australian Curriculum that conceptualise the initiative

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as simply a veil for centralisation and as driven by a power-hungry federal government seeking to hijack state control (e.g. Harris-Hart 2010). Instead, it would appear that ACARA and the Australian Curriculum are central forces in generating new ‘policy mobilities’ (Peck and Theodore 2015) between governments and agencies, which, in turn, underpin the rescaling of education policy at the national level. The central role of such horizontal policy networks and flows underlines Smullen’s (2014) argu-ment that to understand the broader reshaping of Australian federalism, it is unproductive to simply concentrate on vertical processes of centralisation and the role of the federal government. As Smullen argues, a different optic is required, which takes account of the increasingly multidimensional and multiscalar forms of pragmatic ‘reciprocal learning and adjustment’ that are emerging ‘incrementally’ across Australia’s multilevel system (680).

It is crucial, of course, not to understate the fractious nature of current arrangements. The new bonds forming between governments and agencies are far from ossified. Rather than representing a new settlement, the ecology of curriculum policy is still rapidly evolving, and debates over the roles and responsibilities of governments in schooling continue to unfold. As the data above suggest, resentment and scepticism is likely to grow if state policy-makers feel that their voices are not being heard, that the playing field is too uneven, or that states are ‘giving up’ too much in the shift towards a national approach. An intensification of such tensions could lead to a retreat from collaboration and a reification of ‘states’ rights’ arguments. Long-standing defensive barriers could reemerge with force. This precariousness underlines the limits of ‘ideal type’ models for understanding federalism, which seek to capture the nature of current arrangements using overarching descriptors such as ‘collabo-rative’, ‘competitive’, ‘coordinate’, ‘concurrent’ and so on. As the interviews herein suggest, Australian federalism demonstrates all of these tendencies and more when it comes to schooling. Rather than understanding federalism through recourse to archetypical traits and norms, therefore, I suspect it is more accurate to understand federalism as a complex assemblage of historically situated, contingent and emergent structures, forces and relationships. As it pertains to schooling policy, the current assem-blage of Australian federalism appears particularly unstable, marked by tension and contradiction, and with core elements of its historical foundations being called into question.

In pragmatic terms, the emerging trajectory of curriculum reform raises big questions about the future of state and territory curriculum agencies as policy development work shifts progressively to ACARA and the national level. Current indications suggest state and territory curriculum agencies could be set for a significant overhaul in terms of remit and scope of activities. As co-owners and co-funders of ACARA, it would make sense for state and territory governments to progressively seek to reduce policy overlap and duplication between state and territory activities and those of ACARA, in order to avoid ‘double-dipping’ in tight fiscal times. Such moves would have significant budgetary consequences for state and territory curriculum agencies. If, alongside this, ACARA continues to emerge as the dominant force in curriculum development across the nation, then state agencies risk being repositioned as mere ‘implementers’, rather than direct producers, of national policy objectives. This might sound radical, yet it is an idea that has historical precedent. In 2006, for example, then Commonwealth Treasurer Peter Costello suggested Australia was beginning to move towards a national system of policy-making that was seeing ‘states increasingly becoming service deliverers, working more as partners to federal and national objectives’ (cited in Humphries and Wade 2006, 1). Costello’s remarks now show some signs of coming to fruition, with an increasing number of major schooling reforms formulated at the national level. Could we, therefore, be seeing the ‘beginning of the end’ for state agencies in curriculum policy development? Such a future would portend a radical re-imagining of Australian federalism and would severely diminish the sovereignty of states. More likely, for the meantime, is that we will continue to see the repositioning and reconstitution of state curriculum agencies in a reform context that has been progressively moving towards national standardisation for many decades. While national reform has great potential to make schooling more equitable, efficient and effective, the findings above suggest it can also muddy the waters of governance and undermine Australian states. The challenge moving forward, therefore, will be devising ways to harness the benefits of national reform, but in ways that ensure intergovernmental cooperation remains fair.

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Notes1. COAG is the peak intergovernmental forum in Australia, comprised of the Prime Minister, State Premiers,

Territory Chief Ministers and the President of the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA).2. WA Liberal Premier Colin Barnett was elected on September 23rd 2008.3. MCEETYA has had two name changes since ACARA was established, first changing to the Standing Council on

School Education and Early Childhood (SCSEEC) and then renamed as the Education Council (current name).4. For example, not a single article focusing on national schooling reform has appeared over the past decade

in Australia’s leading political science journal, the Australian Journal of Political Science, despite historically unprecedented national reforms taking place during this period.

5. These are but a few of the many ‘ideal type’ models used to describe Australian federalism over the past few decades. It is my suspicion that such models in many cases obscure as much as they reveal.

6. This is the first of four options canvassed in the paper. The paper states, however, that the ‘order in which the options appear in each sector does not indicate any preference’ (60).

7. The four states were chosen for two reasons: First, each state reflects historically distinct positions in relation to national schooling reform (and these positions are reflected in the data analysis that follows). Second, four states only were chosen for feasibility (e.g. interviewing policy-makers in all states would have been ideal, but was not possible).

Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

FundingThis work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DE160100197].

Notes on contributorGlenn C. Savage is a senior lecturer in Education Policy in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. His research focuses on education policy, politics and governance at national and global levels, with a specific interest in federalism, intergovernmental relations, and policies relating to curriculum, equity, school funding and standards-based reform. Savage currently holds an Australian Research Council ‘Discovery Early Career Researcher Award’ (DECRA) titled ’National schooling reform and the reshaping of Australian federalism’ (2016–2019).

ORCIDGlenn C. Savage   http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6495-6798

ReferencesAustralian Government. 2011a. Senate Select Committee on Reform of the Australian Federation. Canberra: Australian

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