School funding policy in Australia not only promotes educational equity in some ways but also creates substantial between-school resource inequalities due to its embrace of market ideologies. School funding policies are designed to promote school choice and competition, based on the assumption that they are both a right and an effective lever for…

According to international studies of achievement in mathematics amongst Australian secondary school students, results have declined over time when compared with other countries. The National Assessment Program -- Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is an Australian government initiative to measure whether students have the knowledge, understanding,…

Neoliberal approaches to education policy have led to increases in teacher and student accountability, a preference for evidence-informed measurable outcomes and the standardisation of teaching and learning. Judgements of quality teaching and teacher practice are increasingly focused narrowly on students' testable knowledge and skills. This is…

This paper examines changes in demographic and socioeconomic inequalities in student achievement over the school career, and the extent that these inequalities are accounted for by other influences such as, region and socioeconomic background (where appropriate), school differences and prior achievement. The data analysed are from a longitudinal…