Comments on: The Failings of Chile’s Education System: Institutionalized Inequality and a Preference for the Affluent http://www.coha.org/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/ COHA is an NGO specialized in monitoring Latin American and Canadian Relations for more than 30 years... Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:22:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Brian Ford http://www.coha.org/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/comment-page-1/#comment-45580 Brian Ford Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:42:29 +0000 http://www.coha.org/2008/07/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/#comment-45580 Here is the first part of a news article on Chile's rank in terms of inequity. The whole thing is too long to fit in the comments, but the link is there. Study also based on PISA results. Sorry for all the typos in previous comments. ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` Santiago Times Monday, 31 January 2011 Ignacio Gallegos    Very Low Marks For Chile’s Schools: 
Second-Most Segregated In World 60 percent of students attend economically segregated schools, study finds <a href="http://www.santiagotimes.cl/news/education/20633-very-low-marks-for-chiles-schools-second-most-segregated-in-world" rel="nofollow">http://www.santiagotimes.cl/news/education/20633-...</a>   The likelihood that the average student in Chile will attend school with children from different socioeconomic groups is extremely small, according to an OECD study . . . 

The study is based on the results of the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment test, PISA , which places Chile as the country with the second-most segregated educational system in the world, a ranking it shares with Peru .

The study found that throughout their elementary and high school years, 30 percent of the highest-income students in Chile will study only with peers of their same social and economic status. The same phenomenon is also evident among 30 percent of the lowest-income students.

The only country with a more polarized school system than Chile ’s  is Thailand . 

“Interacting with fellow students from different [economic] sectors contributes to a richer learning process,” said Juan Pablo Valenzuela, from the  Education Research Center of the Universidad de Chile, and a contributor to the PISA study.

For Valenzuela, the main cause of Chile ’s high polarization lies in economics: the fact that families have to choose schools based on tuition causes broad segmentation.

“This hyper-segmentation is preventing Chile from advancing in the quality of education,” said Valenzuela. “The learning process is influenced by fellow students within the classroom. If all students are [economically] vulnerable, it is harder to achieve [social] mobility.”

Harald Beyer, researcher for the Public Studies Center , adds the issue of neighborhood geography to the debate. “The cause is related to Chile ’s inequity. Also, one of the main reasons to choose a school is its closeness to home, especially for lower-income families.”

 Challenging Valenzuela’s assertions, Beyer also noted that international experience does not demonstrate a relationship between lower segmentation and better education. “It’s an exaggeration to defend [social inclusion] as a base to better the learning process,” he said. 

Karen Vergara, an English teacher who has worked in Chilean public schools, told The Santiago Times that it is not easy teaching classes with students of varied abilities and backgrounds. “It is an ever-going debate. It’s complicated to integrate different kinds of students in the same classroom without having adequate specialists, such as educational psychologists.”

Vergara was also a student in Ecuador , where she attended a public school. Although she notes that the country has a wide range of public schools, the quality of public education was regarded as acceptable. 

Chile’s current education system allows for full-fledged private and public schools, together with subsidized schools where costs are shared between parents and the state. Despite a few notable exceptions, the quality of education is extremely biased in favor of private institutions: public schools account for only 12 of the 100 top-performing schools in the 2010 university selection test.

 Here is the first part of a news article on Chile's rank in terms of inequity.
The whole thing is too long to fit in the comments, but the link is there.
Study also based on PISA results.
Sorry for all the typos in previous comments.

““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
Santiago Times Monday, 31 January 2011

Ignacio Gallegos   

Very Low Marks For Chile’s Schools: 
Second-Most Segregated In World
60 percent of students attend economically segregated schools, study finds
http://www.santiagotimes.cl/news/education/20633-…
 
The likelihood that the average student in Chile will attend school with children from different socioeconomic groups is extremely small, according to an OECD study . . . 

The study is based on the results of the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment test, PISA , which places Chile as the country with the second-most segregated educational system in the world, a ranking it shares with Peru .

The study found that throughout their elementary and high school years, 30 percent of the highest-income students in Chile will study only with peers of their same social and economic status. The same phenomenon is also evident among 30 percent of the lowest-income students.

The only country with a more polarized school system than Chile ’s  is Thailand .



“Interacting with fellow students from different [economic] sectors contributes to a richer learning process,” said Juan Pablo Valenzuela, from the  Education Research Center of the Universidad de Chile, and a contributor to the PISA study.

For Valenzuela, the main cause of Chile ’s high polarization lies in economics: the fact that families have to choose schools based on tuition causes broad segmentation.

“This hyper-segmentation is preventing Chile from advancing in the quality of education,” said Valenzuela. “The learning process is influenced by fellow students within the classroom. If all students are [economically] vulnerable, it is harder to achieve [social] mobility.”

Harald Beyer, researcher for the Public Studies Center , adds the issue of neighborhood geography to the debate. “The cause is related to Chile ’s inequity. Also, one of the main reasons to choose a school is its closeness to home, especially for lower-income families.”



Challenging Valenzuela’s assertions, Beyer also noted that international experience does not demonstrate a relationship between lower segmentation and better education. “It’s an exaggeration to defend [social inclusion] as a base to better the learning process,” he said. 

Karen Vergara, an English teacher who has worked in Chilean public schools, told The Santiago Times that it is not easy teaching classes with students of varied abilities and backgrounds. “It is an ever-going debate. It’s complicated to integrate different kinds of students in the same classroom without having adequate specialists, such as educational psychologists.”

Vergara was also a student in Ecuador , where she attended a public school. Although she notes that the country has a wide range of public schools, the quality of public education was regarded as acceptable. 

Chile’s current education system allows for full-fledged private and public schools, together with subsidized schools where costs are shared between parents and the state. Despite a few notable exceptions, the quality of education is extremely biased in favor of private institutions: public schools account for only 12 of the 100 top-performing schools in the 2010 university selection test.



]]> By: Brian Ford http://www.coha.org/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/comment-page-1/#comment-45577 Brian Ford Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:28:11 +0000 http://www.coha.org/2008/07/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/#comment-45577 CORRECTION -- Chile did not score well, but was not 2nd to last in the world on the 2009 PISA Reading -- the were second to last among OECD countries. 20 non OECD countries did worse than Chile, including Uruguay, Colombia, Panama, Brazil, Argentina, Qatar, indonesia, Albania, Serbia, etc. Sorry, but I was working from the OECD list. Chile's performance is still low by international standards, but unless I missed something, it did the better than any Latin American country. It did worse than almost all European countries, with the exception of a few countries in the Balkans. The PISA results tend to cluster by region and by per-capita GDP, but there are significant exceptions especially at the top of the rankings, such as Finland and Korea, which do much better than the US, Switzerland, the UK, Germany and France, all of which are nearly indistinguishable from one another. The 2009 rankings by country can be found at <a href="http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf</a> CORRECTION — Chile did not score well, but was not 2nd to last in the world on the 2009 PISA Reading —
the were second to last among OECD countries.
20 non OECD countries did worse than Chile,
including Uruguay, Colombia, Panama, Brazil, Argentina, Qatar, indonesia, Albania, Serbia, etc.
Sorry, but I was working from the OECD list. Chile's performance is still low by international standards,
but unless I missed something, it did the better than any Latin American country.
It did worse than almost all European countries, with the exception of a few countries in the Balkans.
The PISA results tend to cluster by region and by per-capita GDP, but there are significant exceptions
especially at the top of the rankings, such as Finland and Korea, which do much better than the US,
Switzerland, the UK, Germany and France, all of which are nearly indistinguishable from one another.
The 2009 rankings by country can be found at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/12/46643496.pdf

]]> By: Brian Ford http://www.coha.org/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/comment-page-1/#comment-45576 Brian Ford Fri, 30 Sep 2011 16:50:19 +0000 http://www.coha.org/2008/07/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/#comment-45576 COMPARING CHILE ON AN INTERNATIONAL LEVEL: All systems have huge problems and, yes, if is not surprise that the children of the wealthy get better education. Still, Chile is an outlier. The Chilean system is considered one of the two worst in the world in terms of equity by the OECD. It was also one of the two lowest scoring in the world (Mexico was last) in the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings of Reading Literacy; Chile consistently does poorly on these tests. See Sietske Waslander, Cissy Pater and Maartje van der Weide 2010. Markets in Education: An Analytical Review of Empirical Research on Market Mechanisms in Education. Education Working Paper No. 52, OECD, Paris , October. <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/markets-in-education_5km4pskmkr27-en;jsessionid=9q184kavcola.delta" rel="nofollow">http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/markets-in...</a> and 2009 PISA results at <a href="http://www.oecd.org/document/61/0,3746,en_32252351_32235731_46567613_1_1_1_1,00.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.oecd.org/document/61/0,3746,en_3225235...</a> The countries that score highest are generally ones with high levels of state support for education and strong autonomous institutions. Examples included Finland, Korea, Canada and Singapore. The US, which generally scores in the middle, is highly inequitable, but the bottom quarter of our schools in terms of socio-economic status (re: wealth) record average scores (446) that are only slightly lower than Chile's national average (449). This is not because of national intelligence, it is because of an educational system that has embraced market mechanisms. People working in the market must, if they are to survive, think about short term gains. Education is concerned almost wholly with long-term perspectives, or it should be. Whatever value market-based models have --and it terms of productivity and efficiency they have substantial value-- they corrupt education. they have their own pathologies. Inequity is one COMPARING CHILE ON AN INTERNATIONAL LEVEL:
All systems have huge problems and, yes, if is not surprise that the children of the wealthy get better education.
Still, Chile is an outlier.
The Chilean system is considered one of the two worst in the world in terms of equity by the OECD.
It was also one of the two lowest scoring in the world (Mexico was last) in the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings of Reading Literacy; Chile consistently does poorly on these tests.
See Sietske Waslander, Cissy Pater and Maartje van der Weide 2010. Markets in Education: An Analytical Review of Empirical Research on Market Mechanisms in Education. Education Working Paper No. 52, OECD, Paris , October. http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/markets-in…
and 2009 PISA results at http://www.oecd.org/document/61/0,3746,en_3225235…

The countries that score highest are generally ones with high levels of state support for education and
strong autonomous institutions. Examples included Finland, Korea, Canada and Singapore. The US, which generally scores in the middle, is highly inequitable, but the bottom quarter of our schools in terms of socio-economic status (re: wealth) record average scores (446) that are only slightly lower than Chile's national average (449). This is not because of national intelligence, it is because of an educational system that has embraced market mechanisms. People working in the market must, if they are to survive, think about short term gains. Education is concerned almost wholly with long-term perspectives, or it should be. Whatever value market-based models have –and it terms of productivity and efficiency they have substantial value– they corrupt education.
they have their own pathologies. Inequity is one

]]> By: Jaz http://www.coha.org/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/comment-page-1/#comment-43920 Jaz Sun, 07 Aug 2011 16:34:18 +0000 http://www.coha.org/2008/07/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/#comment-43920 The children of wealthy parents will, under any system, go to the best schools. The question is, what is the quality of education the poor receive compared to the wealthy under a state only system? In Britain, poor students go to the worst state schools. So too in America. So the real question is, is the difference between the education the rich and poor receive greater (or smaller) under this system or under a system in which the state is the only provider of education? It seems to me that the Chilean system needs to be compared on an international level. Is it more or less equitable in outcome than other state only systems around the world? I do not know ... The children of wealthy parents will, under any system, go to the best schools. The question is, what is the quality of
education the poor receive compared to the wealthy under a state only system? In Britain, poor students go to the worst state schools. So too in America. So the real question is, is the difference between the education the rich and poor receive greater (or smaller) under this system or under a system in which the state is the only provider of education? It seems to me that the Chilean system needs to be compared on an international level. Is it more or less equitable in outcome than other state only systems around the world? I do not know …

]]> By: Carlos http://www.coha.org/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/comment-page-1/#comment-43581 Carlos Fri, 08 Jul 2011 02:36:52 +0000 http://www.coha.org/2008/07/the-failings-of-chile%e2%80%99s-education-system-institutionalized-inequality-and-a-preference-for-the-affluent/#comment-43581 interesting, after five years from then (2006) we're still demanding the same to a different goverment... and they just can't understand it... (sorry if i wrote something wrong i'm not english's native speaking) interesting, after five years from then (2006) we're still demanding the same to a different goverment… and they just can't understand it… (sorry if i wrote something wrong i'm not english's native speaking)

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