We study whether autonomous schools, which are publicly funded but can operate more independently than government-run schools, affect student achievement and school segregation across 15 countries over 16 years. Our triple-differences regressions exploit between-grade variation in the share of students attending autonomous schools within a given…

The government of Chile mandated a system-wide reform in public school education in 2017. The reform calls for de-municipalization of the public school sector (345 municipal education departments under mayoral control) and the creation of 70 Servicios Locales de Educación Pública (SLEPs) between 2018 and 2025. The reform represents a largescale…

This research aims to explore how school principals determine whether they have low-performing teachers among their staff. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 principals in Chilean public schools. The qualitative research entailed an inductive approach, along with an interview methodology and content analysis to investigate the…

Tackling environmental problems is one of the main policy challenges facing governments. The process of forming attitudes starts at a young age, and is mostly shaped by education. Participation in pro-environmental initiatives at schools is mainly voluntary. Local governments can play an important role as the institution that links communities…

This study analyzes the effect of spatial competition on public schools' efficiency in Chile, an extreme case of market-oriented reforms in the educational sector. To address this issue, we use a measure of competition that captures three major characteristics of market competition in a spatial context: the number of competitors, based on distance…

Despite increasing consensus around strengthening school choice regulations to reduce its segregating effects, policy changes and research in this direction are scarce. In that context, this article tackles the recent equity-oriented reform introduced in the highly marketised Chilean school system. Based on in-depth interviews, we explore the…

The COVID-19 outbreak has created an uncertain scenario for educational systems, leading many countries to deploy unprecedented remote learning programmes. Chilean schools have not been the exception and have thus developed and put in place several actions to uphold effective pedagogical management (PM) and continuity of learning; however, as we…

This paper discusses the background, current situation and challenges of educational integration and inclusive education in Mexico and Chile. These countries obtained similar low results on the academic achievement of their students (Mexico last and Chile second last) among OECD countries; and above average scores, among Latin-American countries.…

Public education in Chile has been steadily losing students as a result of the implementation, for the last 35 years, of a market model. In this paper we exemplify how a structural problem (public schools' declining enrollment) created by neoliberal educational policies is transformed into an individual problem to be managed by the public school…

In this essay, Paul Vallas--education reform expert and key advisor to the government of Haiti in developing its national education plan--discusses his plan for Haiti. The paper explores the successes and challenges of education reform in Haiti, before and after the earthquake that devastated the nation in 2010. The essay describes the…

Explains how architect Mathias Klotz skillfully exploited qualities of Santiago, Chile's, urban landscape, including mountains, low buildings, wide streets, modest houses, and cars to create a simple elementary and high school building that provides occupants with a sophisticated and rich environment. Includes nine photographs, three plans, and a…

In 1981, Chile introduced nationwide school choice by providing vouchers to any student wishing to attend private school. As a result, more than 1,000 private schools entered the market, and the private enrollment rate increased by 20 percentage points, with greater impacts in larger, more urban, and wealthier communities. Using differences across…

Chile's 1981 decentralization reforms kept most educational finance responsibility with the Ministry of Education, but transferred service-delivery responsibility to municipalities and nonprofit private schools. This paper examines this reform's effects. Municipal finance, tied to fiscal capacity, has created inequities in school expenditures.…

Presents articles describing recent developments in three Latin American countries (Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela) to expand public education facilities, along with a report on UNESCO's recent seminar in Latin America on architecture for an inclusive education. (EV)

Analysis of a Chilean voucher system shows that public schools produce higher quality education (measured in achievement test scores), after controlling for school resources and type of student enrolled. Public schools achieve higher performance with disadvantaged children; private schools produce higher scores with advantaged students. Greater…