ABSTRACT
Designing school systems for social justice on a global scale remains challenging, particularly in balancing central and local decision-making authority. The debate over school autonomy often polarises opinions, with advocates overly enthusiastic and critics overly critical. However, autonomy itself is neither positive nor negative; its value lies in its capacity to address social justice. This chapter, drawing on systemic design principles and data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, presents an empirical model for delegating decision-making authority to the school level in cases where the system lacks local knowledge and sensitivities. The model is guided by the fundamental question: ‘Does this reform make the system more socially just?'. The model is checked against two counter-examples: (i) systemic hoarding of decisions, and (ii) dissolving the system, to establish — based on currently available evidence — how best to design a system for socially just school autonomy. This analysis demonstrates the enduring struggles to balance system and school benefit, the importance of context yet the need to reduce variance and inefficiencies in the system, and the overarching social contract of a socially just provision of schooling at scale.
