THE POLITICS OF ACCOUNTABILITY IN AUSTRALIAN EDUCATION

Over the past two decades, Australia's State Education Departments and the public school systems for which they are reponsible have largely succeeded seemingly to a greater degree than their counterparts in US and UK-in insulating themselves from harsher forms of centralised educ ational accountability such as stare testing and school performance co mparisons. A central goal of this paper will be to try to explain the politics of this phenomenon which seem inextricably tied to the peculi arities of Australian federalism and to the remarkable historical domi nance of education bureaucrats (and Ministers) controlling strongly ce ntralised State education departments. The explanations for the inabil ity of the four States analysed in the ensuing case studies to impleme nt or sustain proposed major state-wide school accountability processe s is found in powerful teachers unions; changes of government followin g elections; and, perhaps predominantly, fear by entrenched senior Sta te education bureaucrats (and Ministers) that accountability processes and outcomes might produce unwanted scrutiny (from Federal Government , the public or others), loss of control and embarrassment to themselv es.