Watt, Michael (October 2009). The Movement for National Academic Standards: A Comparison of the Common Core State Standards Initiative in the USA and the National Curriculum in Australia.

     Watt summarizes the differences in emphasis each "innovation" toward national curriuculum standards takes.  The Common Core project (U.S.) stresses establishing benchmarks against state, national, and international standards, whereas the Australian National Curriculum stresses specificity in planning and "inventing and refining" new standards.  The US project emphasizes research based decision making whereas the Australian project aims to build consensus decision making.  

     The paper is primarily a history of the development of both countries' programs, and therefore doesn't add a whole lot to a content-focused discussion of Standards Based Reform.

     It's worth noting that the author concludes clearly that the U.S.'s benchmarking each state's standards against local and even international ones will lead to far greater standards than those reached in isolation by the Australian education committees.  Similarly, Watt concludes that the States' research-based, decentralized decision-making process is likely to produce smarter, better-written standards than the Australia's centralized attempts as consensus-building between opposing groups.