Tony Townsend is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and, from 1988 to 1997, the Director of the South Pacific Centre for School and Community Development at Monash University in Melbourne. He has brought the research interests of community education and school effectiveness together in his work for the International Community Education Association (where he was the elected Director of the Pacific Region between 1987 and 1996) and the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) (where he serves on the editorial board of the journal School Effectiveness and School Improvement and was conference manager for ICSEI’s 1994 conference in Melbourne).