Glenn C. Savage

New Super Bureaucracy for Schools: Visionary Reform or Risky Gamble?

ACARA, AITSL, Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO), Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, ESA, Jason Clare, , , , , ,

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has unveiled the biggest shake-up in schooling policy in decades, announcing plans to merge four national education agencies—ACARA, AITSL, AERO, and ESA—into a single Teaching and Learning Commission (TLC). The idea is to bring core areas of curriculum, assessment, reporting, teaching standards, research, technology and data under one roof, rather than leaving them fragmented across multiple bodies.

Clare’s agenda is ambitious. At a speech delivered this week, he presented the TLC as a bold and targeted solution to Australian education’s most troubling challenges, including declining Year 12 completion rates, underperformance in disadvantaged communities and deeply entrenched inequities.

He shone a bright light on public schools, highlighting that the proportion of students completing Year 12 has fallen “from about 83 percent to as low as 73 percent” over the past decade. By contrast, completion rates in Catholic and Independent schools have remained high and stable. Public schools, Clare argued, “play an outsized role in educating some of the most disadvantaged children” and must be at the centre of efforts to lift outcomes and close equity gaps.

The proposed TLC is designed to align with the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement (BFSA), the new 10-year national funding deal (2025–2034) signed between the federal government and all states and territories. Clare described the BFSA as “a $16 billion investment” that commits all governments to lift outcomes and tackle inequity.

The BFSA includes a suite of reforms and targets designed to lift student performance, address student wellbeing and mental health, attract and retain teachers, tackle inequalities and improve access to evidence-based professional learning and curriculum resources.

Not exactly a surprise

As bold as this looks, the TLC idea is not entirely new. As David de Carvalho, former ACARA Chief Executive Officer, pointed out this week, the writing has been on the wall for years.

Debate about the suitability of the “national architecture” of Australian schooling has been long-standing. The potential for agency mergers was raised explicitly in the 2019 Review of the National Architecture for Schooling in Australia, led by Simone Webbe. While that review stopped short of recommending one single body, it did explore merging ACARA and AITSL. Ministers showed little appetite for such structural change at the time, but the idea lived on in policy backrooms.

When I conducted research for my book The Quest for Revolution in Australian Schooling Policy, I interviewed more than 80 senior policymakers. Many were deeply dissatisfied with the existing national machinery, describing it as fragmented, duplicative and incoherent. They spoke of blurred responsibilities, overlapping mandates, and uneven power relations when federal, national and state agencies jostle for influence.

I am now conducting another round of interviews with senior policymakers as part of a new project funded by the Australian Research Council, and the same themes keep repeating. Australia has developed a patchwork of multiple national agencies tasked with different aspects of schooling, but it lacks a coherent forum capable of strategically steering the system as a whole. This absence of a national compass for long-term policy design and coordination is precisely what Clare’s proposal seeks to address.

The landslide victory of the Albanese government has created a rare window for bold reform. The TLC proposal comes at a moment where dissatisfaction with existing arrangements, the promise of new policy solutions and favourable political conditions have converged to make once-unlikely changes possible.

But is it a good idea?

For decades it has become increasingly difficult to see “who is steering the ship” of Australian schooling policy. While federal influence has rapidly expanded, so have national organisations that have varying relationships to Australian jurisdictions and schooling sectors. 

Greater national coherence through a TLC could help provide some clarity. But there is also a dangerous flipside.

Diversity across our federation has long acted as a safeguard against over-centralisation and the domination of short-term political agendas. The fact that states and territories retain the constitutional authority to govern schools is at the very core of what it means to be a federation. It ensures that no single level of government can fully dominate and that local contexts and sectoral priorities have legitimate roles in shaping education.

In his classic text Seeing Like a State, anthropologist James Scott provides a compelling set of historical evidence to show the issues that emerge when humans seek to homogenise systems. Scott shows that while the logic of standardisation seems to make sense—because in theory it allows for greater control over inputs and outputs—reality always bites back.

This is the double-edged nature of the TLC proposal. If it delivers, then equity and performance across our schools may finally improve. But if its policies fail, the whole system will feel the impact. In a federated model, policy missteps can often be contained within jurisdictions. In a more national model, the whole nation is at risk. 

A real danger lies in assuming neat designs from above can steer the realities on the ground. Perhaps, in this moment, the government would do well to remember the advice of another TLC (the 1990s R&B pop group): “don’t go chasing waterfalls” and “stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to”—unless, of course, they’re absolutely sure the system is ready for the plunge.

Oh, and then there’s politics

On paper, the political logic behind the TLC is easy to grasp. Clare will have a compelling argument to make to state and territory ministers when they next meet at the Education Ministers Meeting (EMM). A streamlined agency promises national leadership, coherence, less duplication and greater accountability. It also allows Clare to show his government is prepared to be bold on education reform.

Even if ministers agree to progress the TLC, the politics of implementation will be fraught. While Canberra funds schools generously, it does not run them. Schooling is constitutionally the responsibility of the states and territories, and any reform that muddies this division of roles is bound to be politically difficult. Moreover, states and territories rarely speak with one voice, and even when they do, they approach these debates with different histories and vested interests.

The influence states can exert over national agencies is also a major point of debate. The governance of ACARA and AITSL provides an important precedent. When ACARA was established in 2008, it was set up as a co-owned body, with state and territory ministers given the right to nominate board members. Catholic and Independent schooling sectors were also granted representation. 

AITSL, by contrast, is a Commonwealth-owned company with an independent board of experts rather than jurisdictional nominees. 

These contrasting models highlight the delicate politics of shared authority and the constant negotiation required between federal, state, territory and sectoral interests.

A key question is what the governance structure of the TLC will be. Will states retain nomination rights, as with ACARA, or will expertise be privileged over representation, as with AITSL? And what role will Catholic and Independent representatives have at the decision-making table? 

These are delicate politics to navigate, and if ministers or sector representatives feel their role in steering national education is weakened, resistance will be fierce.

The stakes are high

The Albanese government has the mandate, the means, the resources, and the political capital to drive major change in Australian schooling. And the problems to tackle are real. 

Falling Year 12 completion rates, entrenched disadvantage in public schools, teacher shortages, flat results, and declining student engagement are all urgent and pressing. As Minister, why wouldn’t Clare seek to tackle them head on?

Yet more money, new targets and a super agency will not be enough to turn the tide. Reform must also build cultures of collaboration, trust and professional engagement within schools. History shows that reforms which sideline the professional wisdom of teachers rarely produce lasting improvement. If the TLC is to succeed, the teaching profession cannot be an afterthought: it must be in the driver’s seat.

For decades, the default formula of Australian governments has been to set tighter targets and impose more top-down directives. There is little evidence this approach delivers sustained gains.

Regardless of whether the TLC succeeds or fails, it represents another step in a decades-long shift towards federally driven national reform. Any federalism scholar will tell you this runs counter to the principles of federalism and the benefits of subsidiarity.

The creation of a TLC is being sold as a solution. It may well become the foundation of meaningful reform. But it could just as easily centralise risk in ways that make the system more fragile rather than more resilient.

Jason Clare’s gamble is clear. If the TLC works, it could be the engine of a new era in schooling reform. If it sinks, the whole ship goes down with it.


Glenn Savage is a policy sociologist and professor of education futures in the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne. His research works at the intersection of education policy, strategic design and system change.

Images of Jason Clare from his Facebook page.

Are think tanks having too much influence on Australian schooling policies?

Education policy, educational reform, school reform, , , ,

The past decade has seen think tanks operate in sophisticated ways to influence the development of Australian schooling policies.

Think tanks such as the Grattan Institute, the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and the Whitlam Institute have contributed significantly to policy debates, particularly on ‘bright light’ national reforms such as curriculum, testing and funding. Through generating research papers, opinion pieces, hosting lectures and advising policy makers, thinks tanks have influenced debates, demonstrating an exquisite grasp of political timing and an ability to achieve media impact.

The Grattan Institute has exerted particular skill in this regard, generating widespread media coverage and political impact when its school education program releases new reports. Grattan is also engaged in a wide range of other policy areas, including health, energy, transport and the economy. The Centre for Independent Studies has also developed an influential Education Program, issuing reports in areas including school funding, governance and literacy. It has also gained ‘insider access’ to government processes, with members recently appointed to major government organisations. This includes Steven Schwartz, Senior Fellow at the CIS, who was recently appointed Chair of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which is responsible for developing the Australian Curriculum, the My School website, and national literacy and numeracy tests.

The proliferation of Australian think tanks raises important questions about how these groups impact public policy, and whether their rising influence threatens or strengthens the foundations of democracy in our nation. To conceptualise the rise of think tanks, it is useful to reflect on international trends, particularly in America, where think tanks are more embedded and have gained unprecedented influence over education policy.

The past decade, for example, has seen powerful American think tanks, headed by political elites and backed by significant philanthropic funding, fundamentally re-shape key aspects of schooling. This has raised serious questions about whether elite economic and political actors are ‘working through’ think tanks to undermine democratic processes and the ideals of representative democracy. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for example, has channeled vast sums of money into funding think tanks promoting the Common Core Standards (CCSS) initiative, a national set of numeracy and literacy standards adopted by nearly all US states. With the backing of Gates, think thanks such as the Hunt Institute, the Alliance for Excellent Education, and the Foundation for Excellence in Education, have strategically influenced the reform by producing pro-CCSS materials, building political support, and shaping public debates.

The influence of the Gates Foundation in funding pro-CCSS research and advocacy has been so profound that leading education policy scholars Lorraine McDonnell and Stephen Weatherford suggest the landmark national reform would most likely not have succeeded without money from Gates.

What we have, therefore, is the most significant schooling reform in recent US history being driven not by ‘the American people’, but largely by a powerful philanthropic group that has mobilised a coalition of think tanks and other organisations to influence debates and advocate for the reform. There is a serious risk, therefore, that the CCSS express less the deliberations of a national ‘political public’ and more the vested interests of elites.

The proliferation of Australian think tanks raises important questions about how these groups impact public policy, and whether their rising influence threatens or strengthens the foundations of democracy in our nation.

While the American context might seem like an extreme version of think tank influence, we would be naive to believe Australian think tanks do not have similar vested interests and relationships with donors.

Australian think tanks, for example, are distinctly shady about where donor money comes from, with many outright refusing to publicly disclose information about donors. This includes think tanks on both sides of the political divide, such as the IPA, CIS, Australia Institute, Sydney Institute and McKell Institute.

While there is an argument to be made that donors have the right to remain private, the flipside is that a lack of transparency about where money comes from means potential links between donors and the agendas pursued by think tanks remains murky. This murkiness makes it difficult to distinguish many think tanks from lobby groups, potentially pushing agendas for wealthy donors whose identities are concealed.

As Mike Seccombe argued in a highly critical analysis  of the IPA, the group is tight-lipped about its donors, but we know past donors have included ‘Caltex, Esso, Philip Morris and British American Tobacco’. Rupert Murdoch also served on the IPA Council from 1986 to 2000, and his father, Sir Keith Murdoch, was a founding member of the IPA in 1943. The IPA’s donors and connections have raised questions about its preference for certain agendas and not others, including arguments to privatise the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and arguments against ‘nanny state policies’ such as plain cigarette packaging.

The Grattan Institute, on the other hand, does publicly disclose its donors, with the exception of anonymous donations. Current ‘Friends of Grattan’  include Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull, and Labor MP Tim Watts. This policy of disclosure might partly explain why Grattan reports gain such esteem and traction in the media. Transparency helps keeps a check on the politics of influence. Grattan’s success can also be attributed to its ‘centrist’ positioning at a time when the Australian public is increasingly disillusioned with the adversarial politics of the two major parties. Grattan’s centrist politics also means it is well placed to feed the growing appetite amongst public servants to have policies shaped by actors, expertise and ideas external to the traditional confines of the bureaucracy.

We would also be misguided to think powerful philanthropic groups are not gaining influence in Australian policy in ways that are beginning to resemble the American context. The Gates Foundation, for example, already funds Australian research in a range of institutions (mainly in health), and is steadily extending its influence in Australian education policy, funding various policy actors and recent initiatives linked to schooling reforms. It will be interesting to monitor the extent to which the Gates Foundation expands its work in Australian education over the coming years.

The growing influence of think tanks has the potential to deeply transform the foundations of Australian education, particularly in policy development. In the future, it is likely Australia will see more strategic attempts by think tanks to influence public debates and shape reforms.

There is an argument to be made that growing think tank influence represents a greater plurality of voices and the emergence of a stronger civil society. The problem is, in nations like America, rather than greater plurality, we are witnessing a growing convergence of policy ideas and practices proffered by intertwined networks of think tanks, driven by political and economic elites.

It is clear Australia has the potential to move in a similar direction. There is good reason, therefore, to be wary about the trajectory of think tank influence in Australia and to critically question the complex role these organisations play in the democratic process.

 

SavageDr Glenn C. Savage is a Senior Lecturer in Education Policy in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. 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. Dr Savage has published widely on these areas, including articles in: Journal of Education Policy; British Journal of Sociology of Education; Critical Studies in Education; Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education; Australian Educational Researcher; Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy; and Journal of Pedagogy. Dr Savage is currently working on three research projects. First is a project commissioned by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, titled ‘Evaluation of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers’. Second is an ‘Early Career Researcher Grant’ funded by the University of Melbourne, for a project titled ‘The national agenda: Exploring the re-scaling of curriculum governance’. Third is a seed-grant project funded by the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, titled ‘Imagining Public’ Education: Media, Policy and the Reconstruction of Australian Schooling’.   

This article was first published on the Democracy Renewal  website run by the Melbourne School of Government, and co-published with the Mandarin. 

Glenn’s paper Think Tanks, education and elite policy actors is one of several that will appear in a special issue of the Australian Education Researcher to be published in March 2016. Glenn’s paper and others in the special edition are currently available here.