ABSTRACT
A central policy issue which emerges is whether the comprehensive secondary school as interpreted in Australian practice and within public systems has costs which exceed its benefits. Both the inter-relatedness of the issues and the collapse of consensus make the discussion of policy implications difficult. In the present restrictive climate, centrally recommended and serviced curricular change is the policy most likely to be followed, schools having the option to devise alternatives on the basis of a clearly articulated rationale, externally endorsed. The nature of that more active leadership could well by-pass the substantive issues, making attitudes to it difficult to formulate in the abstract. From a policy point of view, this fact may outweigh all others in giving urgency to a reconceptualization of secondary schooling. In their narrow interpretations of comprehensiveness, secondary schools may well come to be seen as part of the problem, as well as potentially an aspect of its solution.
