This is the second is a series of three articles written by Professor Mario Waissbluth of Chile for this blog. In this series, he describes the school system in Chile, which is based on testing and choice.
Chile´s Education (II): The results of the most neoliberal system in the world
Yesterday I described the Chilean economic and educational system. Now I shall explore its good and ugly results.
Unleashing market forces generated steady growth in per capita income since 1985 until now. As compared with Latin America, this index was the same in 1990, but today Chile’s is 50% higher. Similarly, the UNDP’s Human Development Index is far above that of the region, although well below the average OECD value.
Under Pinochet, the number of people below the line of poverty skyrocketed, beyond 40% of the population. However, since 1990 it has come down to 13%, thanks to more redistributive policies. So, why complain? Maybe Milton Friedman was right after all.
Nicanor Parra is our most prestigious living poet. He summed up Mr. Friedman´s error: “There are two loaves of bread. You eat two, I eat none. Average consumption: one loaf per capita”. Our income inequality Gini index is awful (0.52), and the tax structure does not help much in correcting it (0.50). The line dividing the poorest from the richest 50% of the population is a daily income of US$ 8 dollars a day… and from there down to US$ 2 dollars a day for the poorest 10%.
The children in the lower half are, on the average, getting out of high school without understanding what they read. They are admitted with no selection to for-profit low-quality universities or institutes, dropping out without a college degree in about 50% of the cases, and heavily indebted after this. This is the powder keg that exploded in 2011 and the firestorm has not stopped until today.
It should be said that, as in the economy, in education there have been some promising results. Attendance to basic school, high school and tertiary education is similar to the OECD average. PISA results have shown one of the best improvements in the world from 2000 to 2009, although, strangely, the internal testing system does not show any significant improvement in the average or in the inequality of results. Public spending in education is 4% of GDP, as compared with 6% in the OECD countries.
Things look ugly in the teacher´s staffroom. Their average salary is 40% that of engineering, law, business or medical careers. 40% of them drop out from schools before 5 years. Morale is generally low, confrontation with authorities is high, especially in the public sector which has been under attack for 30 years, by action and/or neglect. Teaching to the test, taken to the extreme, is making robots out of children and teachers. The best proof is that the very expensive Chilean private schools show international results well below the OECD average.
As a professor in one of the best and most selective public universities in the country, I can attest that 50% of my students are not capable of drafting an understandable two page essay on anything. They spent 12 years in school, training to answer multiple choice sheets, speedily forgotten to open brain space for next year´s new payload of material… which meant little to them.
The worst part, by far, is the social and academic segregation of Chilean schools, the worst in the world after Macao, according to PISA statistics. Thanks to market competition and generalized skimming practices, 21% of our children attend socio-culturally integrated schools, compared with 35% in Latin America, 46% in OECD countries, and above 50% in Finland or Canada. Educational apartheid.
In the low income academic ghettos it will be almost impossible to improve results, no matter how much money is poured into them. Even worse, Chilean education has enhanced segregationist and individualistic attitudes in all levels of society. This is steadily undermining social cohesion, to the point that it will be difficult to regain social peace, no matter which the next coalition in power is.
Mario Waissbluth (www.mariowaissbluth.com) has a PhD in engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1974). Currently he is a professor at Universidad de Chile and President of Fundación Educación 2020, an advocacy movement for equity and desegregation of the chilean school system (www.educacion2020.cl). His soon to be published book, with Random House (in spanish) is “Change of Course: A new way for Chilean education”.
when they say they have “baseline” data we know that is a lie because the
political winds will bring in new “baselines”….. I thank Jeffrey Henig for this analogy.quote:” Imagine if………the Washington Wizards showed up every game night and were handed a new rulebook that altered the height of the basket, the diameter of the three-point arc, the number of points earned for a free throw.
————–
We know that the politics shift and to claim that the scores are “Baseline” ????? Even that is
a lie because the next group of politicians will come in and move the goal posts and the baskets…. ADVERTENTLY and PURPOSEFULLY
Washington Wizards wouldn’t take one minute of the nonsense, would they?
These pieces on Chile are terrific as they show us exactly where we are headed with the teach-to-the-test madness we’ve descended into.
And now “service” this test or this one, or here is yet another test and another and another. You keep paying me and I’ll keep producing an endless series of tests.
Unfortunately we’re probably not so far off of Chile.
All of what Chile has is in place in this country and the politicians believe that many people want this.
What I want to try to figure out is how do we the people try to elect people who will start making (and enforcing) the laws so that we can begin to restore equality in the school system.
It seems like no matter which of the 2 parties you vote for now, you will get what we have. Politicians are susceptible to being bought with money (now milked from our own taxpaying coffers) and their subsequent votes.
The system is now tilted so favorably to hear only those who have money I’m not sure it will right itself through some natural shift. That the Great Recession only sped up handing money over to the powerful in greater amounts truly scares me as those people are now engaging in new and even riskier behaviors knowing they government won’t let them fail so long as they keep growing and can get or stay too big to fail.
And if we try to legislate a way to redistribute wealth, then it will cause that money to flee the country before the tax bill becomes due.
I don’t know a blessed thing about social engineering – but I do know that Chile despite being a dictatorship, is not such a bad example for us when it comes to how the haves will destroy the have-nots and not once relent.
Trickle down economics are a complete fabrication as is the ability of the market to sort out all problems equitably.
“And if we try to legislate a way to redistribute wealth, then it will cause that money to flee the country before the tax bill becomes due.”
Seeing as we legislated our way into the current Gilded Age equivalent inequality, why not out again?
A 2011 CBO study showed these income increases for the period 1979-2007:
Bottom 20% – 18% increase. Middle 60% – 40% increase. Upper middle 19% – 65% increase. Top 1% – 275% increase.
There are many contributing factors, but at least 30% of the differential can be attributed to lower redistribution of wealth via changes to income tax rates. Deregulation of the financial market is responsible for another undefined chunk; once these measures have resulted in concentration of wealth at the top, further concentration is created by ‘rent-seeking’ behavior, i.e., ‘the use of political power generated by wealth by certain groups to shape government policies financially beneficial to them’.
Allowing “money to flee the country before the tax bill becomes due” is a legislative choice.
The only “problem” that so-called free markets have ever solved is how to make the wealthy more so. The poignant Nicanor Parra quote couldn’t be more apropos.
Markets are on way to answer the classic questions of economics: what are we going to produce, how are we going to produce it, and for whome is it going to be produced. For some goods and services markets seem to do a good job, for others, alternatives to markets work better.
You’re right TE.
And some people like chocolate while others like vanilla.
Some are into compact cars and others like Hummers.
Some people prefer to read Shakespeare when others like to peek in on Kim Kardashian and Kayne West.
And some people love real in depth critical thinkers who see a very big societal picture while others prefer ersatz intellects who shred every discussion into molecules beyond recognition, hide in their disconnect, and make self serving, very limited connections to what’s actually being discussed.
I like the idea of “choice”, TE.
Don’t you?
I was thinking more about the famines created by collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union and the Great Leap Forward in China.
Who do you think you’re kidding TE? It doesn’t take the ability to read body language to know that your two examples of collectivist strategies which resulted in famine are tongue in cheek “alternatives to markets” that “work better.”
Robert, Take a look starting at about 17 minutes in here: http://billmoyers.com/episode/encore-taming-capitalism-run-wild-2/ to see what TE is tyring to do. Economist Richard Wolff says that Economics typically taught at US universities in Economics departments, like where TE teaches, promotes the notion that capitalism and “the invisible hand” involved in “letting the markets decide” is something wonderful. However, Economics programs in business schools teach people how to manipulate markets…
I did not mean that they worked better than a market, I just wished to point out that this non market solution generally works very badly in agriculture. If you want an example where markets work badly, you might think about fire protection in urban areas.
Oh PULL-EAZE, Cosmic Tinker,
I worship Bill Moyers, although his former co-anchor Dave Brancaccio has morphed into too centrist a guy on NPR.
Still, I can’t wait to see your link.
And, C’MON!!!!!
As if none of us know who we are dealing with when it comes to TE.
It makes you want to converse with Harlan Underhill all day, who knows how to connect to people even though he’s not very connected to social realms and public education knowledge.
TE is connected to neither.
But then again, most cowards are. It’s not their fault. It’s just the way they are . . .
Robert, Huh? I don’t know why you’re going off on me. Of course I know you are well aware of how TE functions. But I think Richard Wolff provides a lot of insight into the rose colored glasses perspective on capitalism that traditional economists like TE have been pawning off on our society. This is especially pertinent when you consider how much influence such economists have on education today.
Cosmic TInker,
My acerbic tone was used to characterize how I feel about TE’s “positions”. . . and the last line should have read “But then again, most cowards are connected to neither . . . ”
My tone was absolultely NOT directed to you. You are not the coward. Perhaps the tone toward one part got absorbed by another. Not my intention.
I am aligned with you, Cosmic TInker.
I am not sorry about my tone in its intended context, but am sorry if my writing was ambiguous in its delivery. .. i’m still learning how to craft my writing, especially when I’m writing in a rush.
Please accept that I feel badly if you perceive I was “going off on” you. You are part of the solidarity as evidenced by the comments I have read from you thus far.
Your comments are always something I look forward to! Yours is a voice of reason . . .
Keep on tinkering and commenting.
No, TE, no one asked for info about when markets work badly. I think that most of us have experienced that. You mentioned alternatives to markets that work better and then gave examples of how collectivization of agriculture resulted in famine. So what are these alternatives to markets that work better?
Economist Richard Wolff has answers to that, cooperatives. For example, the the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in Spain, begun by a Catholic priest and six parishioners in 1956, now has a whole family of co-ops within the larger corporation and over 100,000 employees. Also, Italy’s 1985 Marcora Law, which enables unemployed workers to collect three years of unemployment benefits in advance, in order to start-up a cooperative business with 10 other unemployed workers.
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-what-has-capitalism-done-for-us-lately/
Robert, Thanks for the clarification!
If you think Chile is so great, go move there.
You really have no business trolling over here on an education blog.
Funny how libertarians, right wingers and Ayn Rand types are big fans of Pinochet’s Chile. Pinochet, a fascist murderous thug, their hero because he pushed through so many of their favorite programs.
Look at what Chile did to its pension system. .. . they bifurcated it. . . one public with nominal support, and the other a private market. . .. for those who are muscled into the market and lost, they ended up old, poor, and broke.
GW Bush visited them and hailed their system as a model for our own beloved, non-deficit contributing social security. Bush did not succeed in taking away our system. How fascinating and horrifying at the same time that Obama has put the program on the bargaining table and certainly wants to modify the COLA. Even Ronald Reagan declared the system to be untouchable because it does NOT contribute to the deficit.
The only flaw in the program is that its tax should be levied upon all incomes above $113,500 per year.
Chile, therefore, the the perfect model of what NOT to do with your citizens and how NOT to set up and design your society. . . . Nothing against the Chileam people, but everything against their fascist, police state plutocratic government, one our government has always aided and abetted. . . .
Pinochet didn’t touch the military, however. He wasn’t that stupid.
That’s what’s starting to happen here. Teacher’s salary, job stability, and pensions are being ripped to shreds while the police and firefighters are basically left alone.
While so many game players here in NY CIty wanted teacher rankings posted in the newspapers, many suggested that we do the same for police and fire fighters. . . . Bloomberg, the disease with legs that he is, replied in a press conference that it would be too complicated and infeasible to to report out on those two professions, whereas with teachers, it was not.
Why do we leave the police and fire fighters alone in all of this?
1. They are both predominantly male populated professions, unlike education. Testosterone can be dealt with by policy makers, but not nearly as easily as estrogen. I don’t mean that in any misogynist way.
2. They will be needed by the plutocratized government to push back the rest of us who are increasingly protesting and demonstrating. Taken to a mainstream extreme, we will morph into the police state that Chile has been for quite a while.
Fascists generally don’t touch the military, police or engine companies. . . . they rely on them too much.
BTW, you will find it fascinating that Randi Weingarten, while president of the UFT, also represented the police force in their contracts. . . .
Yep. It’s all about sexism and power.
Robert Rendo, excellent points about Chile’s failed privatized pension system except if you are a libertarian or belong to the Cato Institute and other libertarian “think” tanks that take the think out of think tanks. The same folks who want to privatize our educational system also want to privatize Social Security. They claim that our schools are failing but the NAEP scores over the past 4 decades show that our schools have been improving not failing. They say that SS is in crisis but that is a lie; it has $2.7 trillion in assets that earns interest every day and can pay full benefits through 2033. SS does not need major surgery, just raise or eliminate the SS wage tax cap which is currently set at $113,700. Our schools do not need major reform surgery either; our public schools need support and nurturing not the daily dosage of demeaning and demonizing. Bush failed to privatize SS in 2005. Sadly the privatization of our schools is well under way until the great mass of people get wise to what is really going on.
Joe, it’s all part of the necessary growing pains of a still very young, spoiled, and immature nation . . . society . . . culture, whatever label you choose.
I was laughing when Obama ripped into Kim Kardashian and her gruesome mother defended her by declaring to Obama that she’s the hardest working woman in the entertainment industry and that he was a hypocrite for taking millions of dollars in campaign funds from all sorts of creeps.
Now that’s American culture – the nadir of it – that’s so bad, it’s gotta feel good!
Imagine: Obama and Christine Jenner going off on each other. The very vapid criticizing the very vapid. Polly calling the kettle black.
Your comments are empowering!
The Social Security piece is part of the vast critique of the neoliberal monstrosity that has been building its arguments — until lately, without serious opposition — for more than 30 years. I carry around (“The Things They Carried”) photographs of my family, including my mother and father in Army uniforms they wore during World War II (Dad in the “ETO”; Mom on that infinite horror called “The Battle of Okinawa”) and my Dad’s Social Security card from 1937. At the beginning of the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012, I gave the officers the “Freedom” medal that my parents brought back and saved proudly after their “service.” That was a war medal given to every man and woman who served in the U.S. military between 1940 and 1946. On the obverse it listed Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms.” We may elaborate on such, but we rarely surpass them as statements of what a society should aspire to.
One of the most shocking aspects of the neoliberal propaganda machines of the past 30 years (more years, actually, but that’s a good starting point; “A Nation At Risk” and later in Chicago “Chicago’s Schools: Worst in America”) or the praxis of the past 40 years (Chile, etc.) is how they denigrate service and adulate the most obnoxious individualism and greed. Nobody who served in the military (especially in combat, I believe, but probably also in other ways of service) during World War II every used the word “service” (or “public service”) in that snarky treasonous way we hear it today from the apologists for the policies and people we face down.
My Dad told me that when he was drafted (in the 1940 draft, a year before Pearl Harbor) that a majority of white draftees failed the physical. That’s how much the Great Depression (and market economics) had ravaged the average American. (People know that the military was ruthlessly segregated well into World War II, even, as my Mom pointed out, down to the blood in the blood banks…).
Without Social Security and the programs summarized by what we fight for, life quickly degenerates into “mean, nasty brutish and short…” We all once were young, but anyone with wisdom knows that the legs that carried us across our classrooms (labs, gyms, etc.) when we were in our fourth or fifth generations are not available if we are blessed enough to reach our seventh, eighth or ninth. Without programs like Social Security, a larger swatch of the USA would resemble to great poor people scenes in “Les Miserables”.
Thanks for publishing this account of how the Atlas Shrugged versions of policy and reality created these horrors for the people of Chile. It helps us double down on our commitments to the USA. Even those of us who can no longer march on the same springy legs we once thought would last forever.
So many truths. My father was turned down by the army in the 1940s the first time he enlisted–ahead of the draft, he couldn’t wait to go (not for any better reason than to leave the dirty mill town he grew up in and was destined to labor in). He weighed under 110 pounds! He tried again later, and “made it,” following one of his brothers, whose life was cut short–years after the war–by recurrent health issues as a result of contracting malaria. My father was one of the first to avoid a lifetime in a factory because of the G.I. Bill, which allowed him to go to a state school after the war and became a teacher. It was the most promising career option, and a vocation he (and my mother) truly loved.
Nicanor Parra tells it like it is. Statistics and spin are the alchemy of the day. Eduardo Galeano is equally compelling: “The big bankers of the world, who practice the terrorism of money, are more powerful than kings and field marshals, even more than the Pope of Rome himself. They never dirty their hands, they kill no one; they limit themselves to applauding the show.”
We are heading in the direction of increased segregation, apartheid living conditions, increased economic disparities, etc. There are American versions of the completely fraudulent and bogus “universities” and colleges, many online, that take people’s money and spew out faux degrees–if the student ever finishes. Many times the student quits, but must keep paying for the worthless “classes,” being charged increasing interest and fees by predatory companies that are in cahoots with the phony schools. These institutes also have scams that allow them to get students to send in their military educational stipends–a total joke given that these are not accredited institutions. They will probably take people’s food stamps from them, and mother’s milk from their infants.
I think when the history books are written about this debacle, if there are still history books allowed to be written that tell the truth, Milton Friedman will be seen as one of the most evil men in human history.
Yup, and the followers of Friedman as well.
Now I am become Friedman, Destroyer of the Poor
I think some of your readers here are under the impression that Chile is still under military dictatorship. It is, in fact, a constitutional republic.
And it has been since Pinochet stepped aside in 1990. All the more reason for us to be concerned, since it’s been over 20 years since Chile became a democracy and Pinochet’s neo-liberal policies are still in place.
It goes to show how difficult it can be to get public services back once they’ve been privatized. Chicago learned this when the last mayor signed a 75 year contract privatizing public parking. Parking rates immediately skyrocketed, but nothing can be done about it until after most of today’s population is dead.
According to Ford Foundation- supported Global Post’s Jan 2013 report, The Great Divide, “America as a whole has a degree of income inequality that is higher than almost any other developed country, according to the most recent data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. According to the study, only Chile, Mexico and Turkey rank higher in inequality among the 34 members of the OECD.”
It has only taken us 30+yrs of deregulation to get close to the nadir-type economy in Chile which Friedman & his “Chicago Boys” found fertile territory for their Chilean experiment (which has resulted in the educational system described in these articles). Oddly, also funded by the Ford Foundation (change of heart?). We cannot be far behind.
Although I treasure the dialogs in this blog, these financial facts suggest that change will come only from legislation which (first) gets money out of politics, then begins to turn the clock back to pre-neoliberal legislation (i.e. increased regulation of the financial sector & a return to more progressive tax rates). We in education represent the impact on the municipality which has trickled down from decades of bad decisions at the top.
Perhaps we, as educators, can begin the pushback. The buck stops here!
Designed by the Chilean disciples of Milton Friedman, the so called “Chicago Boys”