Chile, Latin America, and Inequality in Education

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Chile is often cited in education policy circles for its embrace about 30 years ago of a choice and market system in education, instituted by the military government and very much based on libertarian economic ideas. For example, each Chilean student received the same amount of funding regardless of background or need. As a result, in Chile today, public schools enroll only about half of all students, with the rest mainly in private schools that receive public subsidies, and about 8% in unsubsidized private schools. Chile now has some 11,000 schools for fewer than 4 million students, which means that the average school has only about 375 students; in the United States, the average elementary school has more than 470 students and the average high school more than 700 students.

Chile's market system did nothing to decrease inequalities in education. Indeed, by 1990, it was clear that almost all very poor children were attending public schools, which also had much lower student outcomes (Raczynski & Munoz, 2007). Public schools are also less well-funded since they can't charge tuition, which subsidized private schools can.

Also in the early 1980s, Chile moved much of the control over …