Professor Bob Lingard, The University of Queensland

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• Professor Bob Lingard, The University of
  Queensland
• QSA Senior Schooling Conference, 19/20 March
  2009, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre

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• Policy sharper challenge to the neo-liberal.
• Philosophy need senior schooling philosophy,
  young adults.
• Practice schools, particularly teachers central
  to successful prosecution of senior schooling
  agenda.
• Assumption Architecture of Senior Schooling in
  Queensland, post Education and Training Reforms
  for the Future (2002), appropriate to achieve
  national and state agendas.
• Indeed, senior phase of schooling in Queensland
  the architecture most likely to achieve the
  Federal governments transformational school
  reform agenda, and VET and University reforms.

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• 90 retention to end of Year 12 by 2020 from
  plateau of about 75 from early 1990s.
• By 2025, 40 of all 25-34 year olds will have a
  Bachelors degree or above.
• Increase participation of low socio-economic
  students in university to 20 by 2025.

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• Technological change is narrowing the gap
  between the realms of pure knowledge
  traditionally the preserve of universities and
  vocational skills traditionally the preserve of
  VET (5 March, 2009, p.2).
• We must offer students a broad band of learning
  that engages them intellectually and technically
  that stretches their imagination, ingenuity and
  problem-solving skills (5 March, 2009, p. 2).
• Australias vocational and academic systems must
  be able to speak a common language. They must
  work together to address Australias knowledge
  economy needs and they must develop easier
  pathways between each system for Australian
  students (5 March, 2009, p.3).

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• In the qualifications sense, it involves
  creating better links between competency-based
  qualifications and merit-based qualifications (5
  March, 2009, p.3).
• VET beyond competency, inclusion of more
  cognitive skills, literacy, numeracy etc.
  (Australian Qualifications Framework).
• VET/universities pathways.

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• Julia Gillard two factors major determinants
  of school success , namely, SES of students, and
  quality of teacher pedagogies how frame policy
  and funding in those terms across school sectors.
• National Curriculum - senior years.
• Julia Gillard speech, 24 November, 2008 three
  goals for national agenda Improving the Quality
  of Teaching Raising Standards in Disadvantaged
  Schools Greater Transparency and Accountability.
• COAG National Partnerships on teacher quality,
  improving performance in disadvantage schools,
  improving literacy and numeracy.

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• Education and Training Reforms for the Future
  (2002)
• Senior Phase of Schooling Yrs 10, 11 12.
• Queensland Certificate of Education
• SET P (Yr 10)
• Broader senior schooling curriculum provision
• Year 10 Guidelines beginning the Senior Phase of
  Learning (QSA, 2009)
• Background Paper Developing, maintaining and
  revising senior syllabuses criteria for decision
  making (QSA, 2009)
• A.Luke, K.Weir and A.Woods (2008) Development of
  a Set of Principles to guide a P-12 Syllabus
  Framework.
• Learning P-12 (QSA, in preparation)
• Curriculum Authority subjects
  Authority-registered subjects VET Recognised
  studies Learning Projects.
• Balance informed prescription/informed
  professionalism.

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• Kevin Rudd (2009) The Global Financial Crisis,
  The Monthly, February, pp.20-29.
• Critique The great neo-liberal experiment of
  the past 30 years has failedthe emperor has no
  clothes. Neo-liberalism, and the free-market
  fundamentalism it has produced, has been revealed
  as little more than personal greed dressed up as
  an economic philosophy. (p.23).
• With the demise of neo-liberalism, the role of
  the state has once more been recognised as
  fundamental. The state has been the primary actor
  in responding to three clear areas of the current
  crisis in rescuing the private financial systems
  from collapse in providing direct stimulus to
  the real economy because of the collapse in
  private demand and in the design of a national
  and global regulatory regime. (p.25)

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• Individual, self interest
• Market
• Deregulation
• Global/national
• Public policy equity, efficiency, security,
  liberty, community (neo-liberal definitions and
  configuration)

• Collective, common good
• State
• Regulation
• National/global
• Public policy equity, efficiency, security,
  liberty, community (social democratic definitions
  and configurations)

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• social democrats maintain robust support for
  the market economy but posit that markets can
  only work in a mixed economy, with a role for the
  state as regulator and as funder and provider of
  public goods (Rudd, 2009, p.25).
• Social justice is also viewed as an essential
  component of the social democratic project. The
  social-democratic pursuit of social justice is
  founded on a belief in the self-evident value of
  equality, rather than, for example, an
  exclusively utilitarian argument that a
  particular investment in education is justified
  because it yields increases in productivity
  growth (although, happily, from the point of view
  of modern social democrats, both things happen to
  be true) (Rudd, 2009, p.25).

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• Expressed more broadly, the pursuit of social
  justice is founded on the argument that all human
  beings have an intrinsic right to human dignity,
  equality of opportunity and the ability to lead a
  fulfilling life. In a similar vein, Amartya Sen
  writes of freedom as the means to achieve
  economic stability and growth, but also as an end
  in itself (Rudd, 2009, p.25).
• A.Sen (1999) Development as Freedom, Oxford,
  Oxford University Press.

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• Neo-liberal human capital theory.
• Tight and narrow accountabilities high stakes
  testing and league tables.
• School markets competition between schools for
  students drive up standards.
• Targeting of performance will drive up standards.
• England S.Ball (2008) The Education Debate,
  Bristol, Policy Press.
• USA D. Hursh (2008) High Stakes Testing and the
  Decline of Teaching and Learning, Lanham, Rowman
  and Littlefield.

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• Education is no longer confined to schooling,
  with its specialized institutional sites and
  discrete biographical locus. The disciplinary
  individualization and normalization of the school
  sought to install, once and for all, the
  capacities and competencies for social
  citizenship. But a new set of educational
  obligations are emerging that are not confined in
  space and time in the same ways. The new citizen
  is required to engage in a ceaseless work of
  training and retraining, skilling and reskilling,
  enhancement of credentials and preparation for a
  life of incessant job seeking life is to become
  a continuous capitalization of the self (Rose,
  1999, pp.160-161).
• Richard Sennett (1998) The Corrosion of
  Character, New York, Norton.
• Bernstein (2001) totally pedagogised society.

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• Individual/collective
• Individual opportunity/common good
• Human capital/other capitals
• Economic beings/ social beings/ cultural beings/
• Learning to become/Learning to be
• National/global
• National citizens/global citizens
• National disposition/cosmopolitan disposition
• Narrow Accountabilities/intelligent
  accountabilities

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• Higher education is pivotal to achieving
  environmental sustainability, improving social
  inclusion, engaging with our region and
  strengthening the institutional framework of our
  democracy (Gillard, 2009, p.2).
• It also enriches our lives in ways economists
  and statisticians cant measure but which
  philosophers have understood for two and a half
  millennia by creating knowledge and nurturing
  the flowering of arts and literature (Gillard,
  2009, p.2).

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• Systemic and school levels
• Young adults cf Middle Years of Schooling
• Luke, Weir and Woods (2008, pp.49-50) propose
  three themes for the three phases of schooling
  Early Phase Equity of Access Middle Phase
  Equity of Engagement Senior Years Equity of
  Pathways.
• There is a strong case for a unified senior
  phase of schooling from years 10-12. it would
  have clear articulations in subject syllabi
  across the three years. It would link specific
  subject choices to distinctive pathways. At the
  same time, it would offer flexibility to move
  between pathways, for reentry, and for students
  to progress at different developmental and
  chronological paces through the pathways. While
  the ETRF was based on similar principles, it has
  not led to a fully realised reorganisation of
  subjects out of the single year, single
  autonomous school subject box (Luke et al.,
  2008, p.48).

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• Pathways are only justifiable if they lead to
  real opportunities for meaningful and
  directly-paid employment, or to broadly accepted
  labour market qualifications, or to tertiary
  study, or even better to more than on of these.
  This principle should suggest that movement
  across pathways should be supported, and a strong
  focus in curriculum and outcomes on generic
  skills that apply across pathways (Levin, 2008,
  p.48).
• Ethos young adults.
• The role of Year 10 in the Senior Phase of
  Schooling (QSA (2009) Year 10 Guidelines
  Beginning the Senior Phase of Schooling).

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• World Bank (2005, p.14) secondary schools
  simultaneously terminal and preparatory,
  compulsory and post-compulsory, uniform and
  diverse, meritocratic and compensatory meeting
  individual needs and societal and labour market
  needs Offsetting disadvantages, but
  alsoselecting and screening students.

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• A focus in every school on student success,
  encompassing the creation of an environment which
  is safe, in which every student has a sense of
  belonging and of adult care, and where diverse
  student identities are affirmed (p.115)
• A focus on improvements in daily teaching and
  learning practices across all classrooms and
  teachers, including improvements in student
  assessment policy and active engagement of
  students in their own learning (p.116)
• Appropriate programs and pathways, including
  less specialization in curricula, and varied
  pathways insofar as all of them provide real
  opportunities for meaningful employment and
  further education (p.116).

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• Connection of the school to the worlds of
  citizenship and work, including effective bridges
  and transitions to post-secondary education,
  employment, volunteer work, and the development
  of essential life skills beyond the standard high
  school curriculum (p.116).
• Community engagement that brings parents into
  the educational process and engages the broader
  community in supporting student learning and
  welfare (p.116).

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• Excellent idea consultation involving
  parents/guardians, students, school, teachers.
• Individual choice, but (Gender and SES).
• Two research projects Peter Hay (2009), Student
  Perceptions of Schooling in a Senior Secondary
  Education System, Australian Journal of
  Education, 53 (1), pp.54-68.
• Christina Gowlett (2009) Working within yet
  against Neo-liberalist Conceptions of Curriculum
  Pathway Planning Expanding Transformative
  Schooling Potential, Paper presented to Student
  Equity in Higher Education Conference, University
  of South Australia, 25/26 February.

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• Centrality of teachers and their practices to
  successful implementation of Senior Schooling.
• Teacher practices account for a good amount of
  variance in student performance (Townsend (2001,
  p.119) schools account fort 5-10 and teachers
  35-55).
• Alignment curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.
• Assessment literacy amongst senior teachers.
• Teacher moderation as professional community.

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• Queensland Senior Schooling appropriate
  architecture for achieving national and state
  policy goals.
• Philosophy of Senior Schooling, school role in
  SET P.
• Articulations/collaborations with P-9, VET and
  Universities.
• Policy learning, Policy Borrowing and Policy
  Warning. (PISA what learn in relation to high
  quality/high equity systems, low Gini
  Coefficients of inequality closely linked with
  more equitable schooling systems, also informed
  professionalism).
• Appropriate balance informed prescription and
  informed professionalism.
• Teachers, Teachers, Teachers.
• Long Education Revolution 12 years of schooling
  for 90 of population.
• To every complex problem there is a simple
  solution and it is always wrong.