Lessons from Chile’s Education System

Chile’s Education System is one based upon school choice implemented through vouchers. Behind school choice is the guiding philosophy of equity WITH growth. The result of this system is that approximately 10% of the population pays for private school and 90% attends one of two options within the public options. Of the 90% who attend schools with governmental dollars, 52% attend a school in which the parents are charged an additional fee to pay for their child’s education and 48% attend a school in which a financial contribution is not required. The schools in which a financial contribution is not required are generally operated by the municipality. This system has created some interesting results of which the government is considering new policies to correct for the inequities.

School choice in Chile has created three systems of education. The professional community is in agreement that as a general rule the quality of education is worse in the public schools that don’t receive any parental financial contribution. To correct for the inequity, the government is considering policies in which a student that is from a family with little resources draws a higher payment for his/her education with the assumption that it costs more to educate a child from a poor environment. Currently, the government also requires that all schools have a certain percentage of students that come from poor communities.

In addition, private and non profit groups have instituted initiatives that are also correcting for the inequities. For example, many of the schools operated by the Catholic Church of which 75% come from poor communities invests heavily in teacher training as the poor communities generally receive less qualified teachers. The Catholic Church also contributes their success, measured by the results of the National Student Achievement tests created to measure student and school success, because of their dedication to discipline, being mission driven, and parents who select the school because of their religious focus. A private initiative, driven and operated by the largest paper company in Chile, has dedicated their foundation to improve the lives of the families that work in their factories has shown great improvements in the public schools due to their large investments in teacher trainings.

Beyond the dollars invested in private (10 times more than public and 5 times more than public/private), private/public, and public schools most of the professional community indicated that key to improving the quality of the education system is good management which includes the authority to hire/fire employees who do not perform. The public and public/private schools indicated that one very large advantage that private schools have beyond additional dollars is the ability to contract their own staff and regulate staff measurements of success. Although there was not consensus on the dollar amount needed to bring equity to the education system, there was general consensus that good administration/leadership and authority to hire/fire was critical to equity within the system.


“Y Que”

The philosophy behind school choice is extremely important if we are going to build schools with quality education. Specifically, it mandates that parents be in charge of their child’s education. Secondly, it eliminates schools that are not performing measured by parental choice because they don’t have a sufficient student population. Of course there are some large challenges to this system such as poor communities often don’t have choice because there are few schools in their communities and they can not afford the transportation costs. It also assumes that all parents are the same in terms of knowledge and capacity to seek school choice. The question for our education systems in the United States is how do we maintain the key ingredients within School Choice within our current system?

First, we need to assume that although resources are important they are not the only key to quality education. The Charter School movement has created school choice, although still very limited. However, many argue that the Charter Schools are drawing the most qualified students creating the same inequities that exist in Chile’s system. The Charter School movement also is not driven within a market driven by parental choice as new schools can only be opened with approval of the School Reform Commission and are regulated by student test scores. In addition, poor performing charter schools, at least in Philadelphia, have yet to be closed. Finally, the charter schools in Philadelphia only represent 15% of the population and therefore don’t really represent parental school choice. Finally, although the law that prevents charter schools from charging a fee is excellent because it prevents the creation of inequity between poor and wealthy, it also prevents schools from ensuring parental “buy-in”. A school needs to have the flexibility to demand parental contributions either through financial contributions, donated hours, or exceptions similar to the concepts behind cooperatives. It creates an environment of active versus passive participation in a student’s education. Finally, many professionals who work within the public education system prefer a charter school because of its flexibility, teacher ownership, and the ability to hold teachers accountable and dismiss those who are not performing on behalf of the students. Charter School regulation should be based upon a general rule that they must draw a balanced socio-economic student population and that low performing schools eventually should be forced to close. In addition, we need to create an environment in which schools can openly compete in the market. Meaning both public and private schools with public money should have the same flexibility. For example, principals should have the same powers within both the public and charter schools to ensure an equal playing field. This requires new negotiations with the unions as one critical authority that charter schools have that public schools don’t is teacher accountability. Finally, students from poor communities should draw a higher rate because of the additional social and environmental challenges they face.

Coalition Building, Public Advocacy, and Communications

This insert (The photo translated means: We are all in this together) is the result of four meetings I had regarding the public’s voice within the system. I first met with the magazine called Tercer Sector (the Non Profit Sector) (www.tercersersector.org.ar) which is the only magazine in Argentina dedicated to communications regarding the work of the social non profits in the country. In addition, I met with CIPPEC (www.cippec.org), The Center for the Implementation of Public Policy Promoting Equity and Growth, which would be considered a national think tank regarding implications of public policy on the nation. The third meeting was with Felipe Noguera, an advocacy consultant who works with one of the four primary groups that are organized and opposed to the taxes imposed on country exports. Translated into the equivalent in the United States he would be considered a strategist consultant that sometimes plays the role of advocate or lobbyist. Finally, I went to Andresito and visited with Cooperativa Yerbatera which is a cooperative of 93 associates that organized in 1982 to combine their resources and products to be able to compete and negotiate on the same level with big business.

The center theme within each of these initiatives is public voice, public knowledge and influence within national politics. In the case of the Tercer Sector, they don’t engage in any of the political debates, but they are the only measure to inform the public of the work and challenges that are happening across the nation. They focus on the positive work of the non profit sector that also talks about the real challenges that communities are facing and thereby educate the public and government officials. CIPPEC’s strategy is a little different in that they do more through analysis of existing and potential public policies and will venture to directly influence policy makers toward a specific direction. In the case of felipeNOGUERA consultants and their clients, they organize to directly advocate against certain policies and sometimes push specific agendas. In speaking with Felipe Noguera and Nicolas Ducote, General Director of CIPPEC, I realized that each of the above mentioned strategies is important and should be utilized by non profits depending upon the circumstances.

As all non profits in the United States are being encouraged to participate in the political process most do not for two primary reasons. The first being that most of their resources are allocated to serve the public and build the agency infrastructure. However, the second and probably most important is that most organizations don’t know how to participate in the political process because most were created to serve and not to advocate. I propose a model that starts with an analysis of the policy and public officials.

Based upon my interviews and observations as working as Congreso’s President I learned that for most of the cases the public official is not well versed on an issue and as a result has not given it much importance. As such, the first step in any advocacy model should be an education strategy that informs the public official about the issue. In the case, that the public official is aware of the issue but has not taken any action, it is often because he/she does not have the staff capacity to provide a thorough analysis of the issue that will lead to a position. In this case, we must engage the strategy of CIPPEC in which we provide the staff capacity to produce a report that frames and summarizes the issue to empower the public official to take action. Finally, in the case that a public official is aware and thoroughly understands an issue, but is unwilling or opposed to the issue then we must utilized the strategy of coalition building, organizing, and public support to provide enough public pressure.

Regardless of the strategy, we must always start with researching and understanding our public officials. The strategy that results should be in response to information and we shouldn’t use precious resources on a strategy that is not aligned with the correct research.

If one implements the hardest of the three strategies which is coalition building and organizing then there are some key lessons from the Cooperative Yerbatera. This cooperative has been around for 26 years and they contribute their success to two key factors: First, it was built around the philosophy of equal voice that despite the influence of an individual everyone has one vote. Second, associates need to have skin in the game and cannot view it as simply a business transaction. In other words, one has to be committed to the process and be willing to engage in the process. Over the years, the cooperative has had to deal with big business and politics trying to divide them and having to deal with internal struggles for power. They claim that their success is that they realize that they are part of a community that has relationships outside of the cooperative and that they are all working toward a better future for their entire community. They realize that they can not progress unless they all progress together. Below are two of the employees of Cooperative Yerbatera. The older gentleman is the longest standing employee and the young man moved from Buenos Aires to work here given their success and committment to principles.

Distribution of Wealth: Investing in our most vulnerable communities

When looking at economic development for communities we must struggle with one important question of how we distribute wealth so that impoverished communities are able to gain access to resources that can be invested for future generations. In the United States, Argentina, those who have formal education and therefore access to well paying jobs and those who have access to capital are able to participate in economic development via investments. Those who don’t have formal education and/or don’t have access to good paying jobs or don’t have access to capital simply cannot access well paying jobs and cannot invest in business development. As such, it leads us to the question of what changes need to happen so that our most vulnerable populations can receive a formal education that leads to well paying jobs and how we ensure access to capital for worthy investments.

Regarding access to education, three key things would need to change: First and most obvious is that, in the United States, we are operating under the model that those who live in affluent neighborhoods receive 50 – 100% more per pupil investments then those in poor communities due to education being primarily funded by property taxes. Second, in urban settings, communities have lost the ownership of their neighborhood schools because most decisions are being made centrally and principals are first accountable to the central office and secondly to the community. In addition, communities are not organized and generally are not speaking as a group, but as individuals. These two factors contribute to the culture of little public accountability and an environment where innovation and adaptation is difficult. The final thing that would need to change is the role that unions play within education. In the past, unions were created to protect the workers and ensure fair pay and benefits. However, in the present unions need to balance worker protection and fair pay with accountability measures. In other words, we need to invite unions to the table to discuss accountability measures so that they become part of the solution and not be viewed as the opposition to change. At the center of our education system there needs to be the measured success of our students and as such equity and fair pay needs to be balanced with school personnel accountability. In the 21st Century we need to protect our workers, but we also have to award success and ensure only the best professionals are teaching our children.

Regarding access to capital, we can learn from the two entrepreneurship models of Endeavor (www.endearor.org.ar) and Emprear (http://www.emprear.org.ar) and the community example of La Juanita. Communities/countries with few resources are challenged with gaining access to capital to invest or are fearful of borrowing money. In either case the end result is static communities. The entrepreneurship and community models that I visited have demonstrated success have a few standard but important themes. First, they are seeding the “Entrepreneur Spirit” within communities through “charlas” talks, marketing efforts, and conferences. The “Entrepreneur Spirit” is critical to their success because it inspires individuals and groups to dream of the possibilities instead of accepting what is offered to them in their immediate surroundings. The second theme is the exposure of interested entrepreneurs to past successful models that provide them with the knowledge about business development. Once an idea is fully developed and complimented with a business plan an entrepreneur with potential is put in contact with potential social investors to attract the initial capital necessary. Finally, once a business has achieved some initial success the agencies work with the companies regarding scale and sufficient access to capital. The story of La Juanita in Las Matanzas demonstrates how this can be achieved within impoverished communities.

La Juanita began out of the reality that communities need to create their own opportunities rather than wait for government or other groups to create them. La Juanita realized that as a result of public assistance in Argentina due to the economic crisis in 2001 there was an unanticipated shift in culture from one of “work” to one of “dependence”. They realized that they were in real danger as this culture of dependence was being passed to the second generation who played witness to their parents not working but receiving a monthly subsidy from the government. At the same time there weren’t many other options for the adults as jobs simply did not exist and to survive they needed to depend upon the government subsidies. Upon this realization, La Juanita started rejecting the idea of government dependence as it created a culture that was self destructing and which was passing from generation to generation. La Juanita decided to change the culture and the potential to dream through building the “entrepreneurship spirit”. In other words, they went about the creation of jobs through the creation of small businesses and through this process rebuild the culture of work values and self dignity. Their success has led them to new ventures such as micro lending of which they have a 60% success rate in businesses staying afloat and building schools so that their young people can be educated on new competencies for new ventures. One of their keys to success is that loans are not given to individuals but to cooperatives because they believe that in the process of building businesses and jobs one also has to build community and you do this through ensuring people work together. In addition, loans are initially given in small amount ($200) and can grow as their business grows and trust/credit is established. As they train people through their businesses they are also providing them with the capital to start and grow their own businesses. Also, they are starting to finance their own day care and adult classes from the money they earn through the businesses. Their growth is slow, but growing and steady. The primary driving force is that everything they do is self financed and it is about rebuilding the culture of work rather than dependence that existed when communities and countries were first being formed.

In conclusion, economic development for communities with few resources depends upon access to wealth and investments in education and skills training. Also key to economic development is the importance of rebuilding a culture of work and working toward a better future. This can be accomplished either through education and skills training that leads to a career or it can be accomplished through the “entrepreneurship spirit” as shown through many examples in Argentina. If we have the right mix between education/training, access to capital, and seeding the entrepreneurship spirit then we can create the environment for community economic development.

Innovative Approaches to Economic Development

During my first weeks in Argentina, I have had the opportunity to travel throughout Buenos Aires to interview a diverse group of individuals from various sectors regarding economic development including:

• Government - Monica Sladogna, Director of Institutional Capacity Building fromt he Department of Labor
• Higher Education - Abraham Gak, University of Buenos Aires and Silvina Gvirtz, University of San Andres
• Foundations - Help Argentina (http://www.helpargentina.org/)
• Community Organizations - (http://www.comunidadesrurales.org/)

Throughout each of these conversations an interesting core theme has emerged as fundamental to moving people out of poverty - empowering individuals within communities by facilitating access to financial capital and educational or employment opportunities. Through connections to these opportunities, individuals and families can move toward self-sufficiency; they no longer need to rely on government systems to provide them with basic resources such as food and shelter. Previous government support systems and regulations have provided a critical and important safety net for individuals who cannot access necessary resources, but rather than break the cycle of poverty, often these government systems and regulations have had the unintended consequence of perpetuating the very cycle of poverty they are seeking to disrupt.


As I have found through these interviews and through my own experience at Congreso, government plays an integral role in reducing poverty, but government alone cannot create systems that promote self-sufficiency for two reasons. First, if government merely provides the basic needs of food, shelter, etc. for these communities, government policies are not focused on encouraging or facilitating a movement out of the cycle of poverty for the individuals or families receiving aid. Second, government has few remaining resources to invest once it addresses the basic needs of food, shelter, safety, and health care in these communities. For example, 80% of Argentina's economic development budget goes directly to fund food for families so that they can feed their children. Even this large amount of funds, approximately $27 per month for a mother with two children, is not enough to sustain a family. If this government program can barely cover food costs, there are few funds left over to implement initiatives that can move beyond food assistance to support individuals in their move up the economic ladder and out of poverty.


Nevertheless, through carefully investing government dollars, government does play a role and can serve as a support and catalyst for transforming individuals from benefit recipients to empowered community resident who are able to make their own path to self-sufficiency. In Argentina much of this investment revolves around two main strategies - 1) microcredit and 2) private/public partnerships.


At the core of the microcredit movement is the philosophy that we must ensure that our community members have access to financial capital to develop their own businesses and private/public partnerships. Microcredit is extremely important because in many communities finding work is not an option as jobs don't exist and one of the few options for employment is to create his/her own employment through small business development. Also, individuals in these communities are often unable to access credit through traditional banks and therefore it is more difficult for them to put their entrepreneurial ideas into action. Microcredit can change this dynamic. Individuals who normally can't access credit are able to do so through microcredit agencies. While focusing on the individual lender, this strategy of microcredit also requires investments in intermediary organizations as they facilitate the administration of government programs, enabling microcredit to come to communities. In more urban areas, the government is investing in public/private partnerships in which mid to large organizations are partnering to ensure training and access to these most vulnerable populations.


While the concept of microcredit is exciting, the question still remains - just how are transitions made from a system that perpetuates a cycle of poverty to a system that champions and encourages entrepreneurship, innovation, and self-sufficiency? La Juanita cooperative is an interesting exmaple of how organizations within Argentina are working with communities to create entrepreneurs and a vibrant community environment that champions self-sufficiency. Help Argentina strengthens Argentine civil society through the mobilization of donors and volunteers and the promotion of best practices. One of the projects that this organization has undertaken is with La Juanita cooperative in La Matanza, Argentina, where they are working to reconstruct social connections through education, employment, and participation in civil society.


La Juanita has rejected all government financial assistance as they are trying to break out of the cycle of relying on government provisions, building their own capacity to provide for their community. Instead of government assistance, community members in the cooperative are able to access microcredit loans through Help Argentina. Within this model, La Juanita members receive entrepreneurship training through volunteering at one of the community's multiple businesses and then have the opportunity to access microcredit loans if they have a desire to start their own business. However, core to access microcredit is that these individuals can't apply along, but must apply with at least four other individuals due to the importance of developing a strong community. This strategy has resulted in 250 microcredit loans of which 60% of the businesses are still in operation.


This emphasis on community is what makes the microcredit venture in La Juanita such a success - community residents and leaders are at the heart of this initiative. Most of the innovation that has occurred in Argentina around economic development is because individuals have decided that their future is not going to get better unless they take steps to make it better, and they cannot wait for the economy to improve or for government to find a solution. This is an important lesson to note because it indicates that economic development and sustainable change comes from within the community and government's role is to support and invest in community innovations when they are ready and have the capacity. The second lesson is that government's role is to invest in neighborhood capacity building so that the residents of neighborhoods themselves can start developing and organizing among their own neighbors.


Similar factors of success can be seen in the case of Apoyo Familiar (www.esperanza.org.ar). Dra. Ana Mon has created a simple model of training and capacity building that has allowed this organization to expand to communities around the world. Core to the organization's success is that communities must come prepared by self-identifying their leaders and a commitment to fund key positions. Apoyo Familiar provides these communities with the training and capacity-building they need when they are ready and lets the evolution of the centers evolve organically.


As we have seen through these two examples, the key components of the models in Argentina refer back to the principle that we are all connected and that the strength of individuals is intricately tied to community. We must simultaneously provide individuals and the community with the resources they need to be able to capitalize upon the strengths and ingenuity that is in every one of our communiteis. While governments play a key role in this, NGOs, community organizations, and community leaders all also play an integral role in ensuring that individuals and communities can move out of poverty.


These examples also demonstrate that it is key to create an infrastructure within our own education and employment initiatives that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship. By connecting our clients to opoprtunities that allow them to tap into their own strengths and ingenuity, we can facilitate independence and economic self-sufficiency in all of our communities.

Education and Entrepreneurship

I met with Horacio Itzcovich, a professor of Mathematics and member of curricula development and advisor to the secretary of education. During our conversation we explored the similarities and differences of our education systems. Both the United States and Argentina are facing the crisis of losing our young people from the education systems at the ages of 14 – 15. We agreed that both systems continue to instruct our young people in a system that was created for a different time and the system has not been able to evolve and respond to the needs of our young people. Mr. Itzcovich indicated that our young people are living in a culture of “Zappin” and “Lite” meaning that they change channels every few minutes like a remote control with the television and they don’t find the need to stay with a project through completion. We also agreed that unless we train our teachers to teach differently and adapt to the needs of our young people we will continue to lose them to things that can capture their attention.

As far as our proposed solutions, we thought that we first need to bring relevance from a young person’s perspective into our education system. Mr. Itzcovich gave some successful examples with groups of students including small business development or exploring key questions that have relevance to their lives. One young woman would wake up at 4:00 a.m. to bake bread and sell it before school to earn the money she needed. Mr. Itzcovich took her initiative and used it to educate his entire class on math calculations, business planning, project management, and marketing through scientific inquiry methodology. At the end of the project Laura’s business grew and the entire class developed relevant competencies for the real world. In another case, Mr. Itzcovich asked a question about a marketing strategy used by a certain company for yogurt that indicated it had less than 10,000 bacteria. Through scientific inquiry the students were able to relate to the question as they ate yogurt everyday and in the process learn both the process of discovery and specific math and science competencies.

We discussed that the only limitations to bringing relevance through business development and asking key questions is that the competencies learned are at a basic level and it doesn’t teach higher competencies or the exploration of ideas for intellectual growth. In addition, Mr. Itzcovich didn’t believe that we should put our young people in the position of operating a business because although it brings relevance into the education system it doesn’t allow for the exploration of ideas in the most formative times of a young person’s life. We thought that an approach might be to first bring relevance into the education system and then throughout a high school career slowly introduce more abstract thinking and exploration of ideas.

Finally, we agreed that if we were to change the education system we’d have to build a school based upon different principles. For example, instead of teachers teaching in isolation and six hours a day with little planning time a school would need to be built with instruction being limited to 3 hours a day and planning and implementation occupying about 60 percent of the school day.

Why Argentina and Chile

All nations are struggling with issues related to poverty, violence, health care, and human capital. All nations have also realized that we live in a global economy. Despite our particular histories and social contexts individuals, communities, organizations, systems, and governments are each creating innovative solutions to strategically address issues of poverty. As such, I’m heading to Argentina and Chile because they are two countries that have been forced to innovate in the struggle for stabilizing their economy and investing in the education and skill competencies of their residents necessary to compete in a global economy. I am excited to begin my journey and hope that you will check back from time to time to see how things are progressing.

Bob Wise, Alliance for Excellent Education

One key individual is Bob Wise who is the President of Alliance for Excellent Education http://www.all4ed.org/ and former Governor of West Virginia. I was able to have a personal conversation with him about what he meant when he stated that we needed to have higher standards. Bob made the reference that our athletes are competing and winning on a global level in the Olympics because they are preparing to compete under the highest standards and then prepare appropriately. However, in our education system we rank low in how we prepare our young people to compete in science and other industries of the 21st Century. I asked if he would agree that the conversation should shift to be not around standards, but around competencies that are demanded in today's workforce. In addition, I made the reference that our education system today because it hasn't resolved the issue of higher standards, but is trying to measure competencies is forcing our teachers to teach to the test which is more about test taking competencies then about real world competencies needed to compete in a global economy such as critical thinking, information discrimination, communication, teamwork, and abstract thinking.

Senator Obama and Senator McCain

Before heading off to conference I attended the National Council of La Raza conference and was able to hear from some key individuals and their ideas on Education and what needs to happen to ensure our young people graduate.

Senator Obama addressed the National Council of La Raza affiliates and demonstrated a clear understanding of our current struggles within the current civil rights movement. He spoke about how he understands that our Education doesn't work by quoting a young mother who stated that "maybe the system wasn't meant to serve people like us us". Senator Obama emphasized that the system my currently not be made to serve "people like us" but the United States was built on the foundation that with effort we can achieve our dreams and therefore it's our responsibility to ensure that the education system is built to serve all of our young people to ensure they graduate with competencies to compete in the workforce.



Senator McCain also demonostrated a clear understanding that our education system is not serving our community as our young people are not graduating and those who do graduate are not qualified to compete in a global economy. McCain emphasized that part of the solution is about investing in small businesses which would in turn create more jobs and grow the economy. He didn't speak specifically about the education system, but I would challenge his focus on job creation to grow the economy because the other half of the solution is ensuring that our young people and adults are qualified to compete for the jobs in a global enonomy and this requires investments in our education system.