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Introduction
Education is a key institution of modern society, long recognized for its central role in the reproduction of inequities and with the potential to challenge them (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977, 1970; Durkheim, 1956, 1926). Schools, as a major vehicle for education, bring social, civic, economic, technological and environmental benefits to society. Most nation-states have legislated compulsory school attendance for their citizens, establishing a social contract with the State. This has created an issue for explanatory frameworks in educational administration and leadership. Since Simon’s (1945, 1952) articulation of organizational theory as a distinct field of study, and its appropriation into educational administration, there has been an assumed symmetry between “the organization” and its proxy “the school”, as the core theoretical and empirical object. As a result, too much attention has been granted to the school and how to fix schools (or even individuals within them), generating a default individualism as a focus rather than the design of school systems. With enduring inequities in school systems on a global scale, to deliver on the social contract it is arguably time to shift the unit of analysis from the school to the system to create the necessary conditions for different outcomes.
In this paper, the analytical focus is shifted from “the school” to the intentional design of school systems. Schools behave as their systems are designed. Inequities in schooling are the product of systemic design more so than the actions of individual schools. Interventions trying to improve schools are unlikely to succeed without adequate attention to systemic design. Built on underlying theories of justice and social contract (Rawls, 1971), situated judgment (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006, 1991) and justificatory regimes (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2005, 1999), but with an overarching pragmatism, this paper offers an empirical model based on the Australian context for the provision of equitable schooling at scale. Working with the key contemporary school system design policy levers of choice, autonomy and accountability, moderated by the quality of teaching, a model is offered to serve as the basis for decisions relating to systemic design for the equitable provision of schooling at scale. Expressed more formally: