The article responds to a previous one addressing child welfare practice and legislation in Australia. It maintains that child protection services in Victoria are inadequate, lacking in accountability and good working relations between the police and community services, and fail to meet standards of practice. (DB)

Summarizes a case study of dilemmas facing a Western Australian secondary headteacher involved in restructuring his school. Analyzes his methods of coping with intractable situations (like school expansion and performance management) and outcomes. Dilemmas offer both opportunities and challenges for visionary, proactive, and creative school…

Describes how two reforms--portfolio culture and teacher professionalism--converge in a systemwide program for school leaders' professional development. Investigates use of portfolios to help (Australian) principals, deputy principals, and department heads improve their performance and accountability. Participants used portfolios as evidence of…

Renewed calls for greater accountability within schools have led to a rapid expansion of standards-based reforms across the Western world. Establishing and raising standards, and measuring the attainment of those standards, are intended to encourage excellence in our schools. Yet concern is increasing about the fairness of external testing and the…

This article addresses risk and its minimization as a powerful rationality for driving leadership practices in contemporary schools. It explores risk-consciousness as "a moral climate of politics" (Giddens 2002) and as a management imperative that impacts on any contemporary organization, including schools. The impact of…

Australian higher education has undergone radical change aimed transforming universities into commercial enterprises less dependent on public funding. Despite some significant successes, including dramatic increases in the numbers of domestic and international students, decreased Commonwealth subsidies, and more private sector finance, there are…

Improving educational outcomes for all young Australians is central to the nation's social and economic prosperity and will position young people to live fulfilling, productive and responsible lives. Young Australians are therefore placed at the centre of the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals. These goals are: (1) Australian schooling…

The process of school review currently used in Victoria (Australia) involves an internal school evaluation, a School Review Board visit and report, and a followup stage. Six months after the board had visited one high school, a retrospective view of the review process was gathered from 8 students, 9 parents, 24 teachers, and 5 administrators. As a…

Reasons and remedies for breakdown, alienation, and apathy in universities are explored. Suggestions are made for creating the conditions within which they can be reconstituted as purposive, creative, adaptable institutions continuingly satisfying the needs of their participants and the community. (LBH)

Themes of the program were centralization and bureaucracy, planning and systems analysis, accountability and assessment, and teacher negotiations and participation in policymaking. (Author/JF)

Describes a process used to involve community, staff, and students in goal-setting in the Australian Open College of Further Education. (JM)

A challenge facing school staffs is the development of school-based curriculum. Some guidelines and incentives for increasing staff participation in curriculum development are presented. Available from: Australian College of Education, 916 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia, $2.50 single copy. (Author/MLF)

Use of outcomes measures of educational quality (1) promotes measurable values over those that cannot be measured; (2) emphasizes monetary values of outcomes when physical measures may be more appropriate; (3) creates the illusion of precision; (4) uses monolithic modeling; and (5) makes global claims based on narrow measures. (MSE)

A discussion of the use of performance management for faculty and nonacademic staff in colleges and universities first offers the definition of performance management used in business, examines colleges and universities as institutions of learning, and suggests the notion of quality maintenance as a better approach to personnel management. (MSE)