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.