Autonomy, Participation, and Learning in Argentine Schools : Findings and Their Implications for Decentralization
According to a theoretical model, school autonomy and parental participation in schools, can increase student learning through separate channels. Greater school autonomy increases the rent that can be distributed among stakeholders in the school, w...
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2002/01/1687159/autonomy-participation-learning-argentine-schools-findings-implications-decentralization http://hdl.handle.net/10986/15727 |
| Summary: | According to a theoretical model, school
autonomy and parental participation in schools, can increase
student learning through separate channels. Greater school
autonomy increases the rent that can be distributed among
stakeholders in the school, while institutions for parental
participation (such as school board) empower parents to
command a larger share of this surplus - for example,
through student learning. Using a rich cross-sectional data
set from Argentine schools (sixth and seventh grades), the
authors find that autonomy, and participation raise student
test scores for a given level of inputs, in a multiplicative
way, consistent with the model. Autonomy has a direct effect
on learning (but not for very low levels of participation),
while participation affects learning only through the
mediation of the effect of autonomy. The results are robust
to a variety of robustness checks, and for sub-samples of
children from poor households, children of uneducated
mothers, schools with low mean family wealth, and public
schools. It is possible that autonomy, and participation are
endogenously determined, and that this biases the results -
the data available do not allow this to be ruled out with
certainty. Plausible predicators of autonomy, and
participation are also plausible predicators of test scores,
and they fail tests for the over-identifying restrictions.
Heuristically argued, however, the potential for correlation
with unobserved variables may be limited: the data set is
rich in observed variables, and autonomy and participation
show very low correlation with observed variables. Subject
to these caveats, the results may be relevant to
decentralization in two ways. First, as decentralization
moves responsibility from the central, toward the provincial
or local government, the results should be directly relevant
if the decentralization increases autonomy, and
participation in schools. Second, if the results are
interpreted as representing a more general effect of moving
decision-making toward users, and the local community, the
results are relevant even if little happens to autonomy, and
participation in schools. More important, perhaps, the
authors illustrate empirically the importance of knowing who
is empowered when higher levels of government loosen control. |
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