A reader saw the earlier post about the ruin caused by privatization in Chile and wrote this post about Colombia:
I live and work in Colombia. The same was tried here. Perhaps Colombia drank the “Chilean miracle” koolaid, or perhaps it’s simply that Colombians tend to think anything that comes from abroad (particularly if its roots are in the US) must be golden. The private system insisted it could and would provide better education than the public schools, so the government provided funding for what we would call charters, but here are really just private schools. Among the results: lots of fraud, lots of tiny primary schools opening and closing in garages, often leaving kids with no chance to get into other schools until the next term…if they were lucky, since private schools don’t have to let them in, and there aren’t enough seats in the public schools any more. Inequality is very high, even though the government includes some aspects of social democracy, like nearly universal health care and a progressive tax policy. (The pension system was privatized too, and that’s been a disaster for most people, but I digress.) I can’t speak to whether inequality is actually greater than before the education reforms, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. Certainly the public schools lost funds, as anyone who had enough money to pay tuition (yes, not only did these schools get government funds, but they were allowed to charge tuition), enrolled and still enroll their kids in “private” schools on the assumption that public schools are the worst possible option, even though public school kids regularly win scholarships to attend public universities of excellent quality.
Since I moved here in 2006, scores on international tests like the PISA, have dropped. The sorely underfunded public schools have continued to produce most of the top scorers on the ICFES, a national exam required for university entrance, similar to the SAT or ACT. That wasn’t enough to open the government’s eyes. It was the drop in scores on international tests that finally did it. As a result (YAY!), recently, the government stopped funding the private/charter schools. I don’t know if this means the public system will get more funding – I hope it does, because they need a big infusion. Since I’ve been here, there aren’t enough public schools to provide an education for all the children whose families can’t afford a private one. Now, finally, the push is on to build enough to solve that problem. It’s not like our education policy leaders would have to go far to see what NOT to do: Colombia’s a mere four hour flight from Miami. There are none so blind as those who will not look, much less see.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just checked index mundi and saw that the poverty rate in Columbia was 37.2% in 2010, and on Nation Master, I learned that average years of schooling for adults in Columbia is 5.3 years. When I saw the high school enrollment rate of 98.49%, I wondered how that can be justified with the average 5.3 years of education for adults.
LikeLike
More on Columbia—a window to what the United States will look like if the corporate education reformers funded by the Gates Cabal are successful:
Over 500 000 children under 6 years old (about 13%) in Colombia suffer from acute malnutrition and up to 15% suffer from chronic malnutrition, the most affected areas being Boyacá and Nariño Department.
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Colombia has the largest internally displaced population in the world, estimated in 2005 at 1.7 million people according to official figures and at more than 3 million according to non-official sources. Seventy-five per cent of the displaced population are women and children. In 2004 alone, more than a quarter million people were forced from their homes. Displaced populations have little access to safe water and to basic health and educational services.
One third of all children are anaemic. Malnutrition continues to affect vulnerable groups such as displaced people and the Afro-Colombian and indigenous populations. Stunting affects 14 per cent of children under age five; 7 per cent of newborns have low birth weight; 40 per cent of the population remains uninsured in the public health system, amongst them many young children. At the same time, the rate of teenage pregnancies is increasing which, aside from putting girls’ health at risk, also has a detrimental effect on young women’s ability to sustain themselves financially, creating a poverty trap with overall negative effects for society.
http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.se/start/countries/colombia
LikeLike
Free market theory is a fraud, especially when public dollars serve as a giant subsidy for profit-seekers. The corporate welfare-industry is a global behemoth sustained by a mythology created by many, notably Milton and Rosa Friedman, in their simplistic equating of political freedom with economic freedom.
Free-marking thinking makes for curious political alliances. For example, neo-liberals and post-modern intellectuals have made much of: a) elitism in the control of knowledge by experts, and b) the power of the “democratic” state to limit the voice and agency of the very people it is supposed to empower. These views match, in part, those of religious conservatives who oppose what they regard as liberal values promoted in public schools. They also comport with views of fiscal conservatives who want less government, lower taxes, and think schools are mismanaged. For different, but sometimes overlapping reasons, both ends of the political spectrum may endorse consumer choice and deregulation, a tendency known as “market populism,” and favoring private enterprise.
Rhetoric about free market education is noteworthy for some contradictions. Among many, I will here note only a few.
First, in a true free-market environment, compulsory education laws would have to be repealed. By its own logic, free-market education is a myth if laws guarantee a flow of customers and if subsidies are provided to any of the parties. Proponents of free-market education actually want compulsory education and school taxes to continue, the latter to flow to the private sector.
Second, many more people pay taxes for schools than are direct customers of them as parents. The model assumes that schools serve no public interest beyond that represented in the choices of parents as individuals. Adults who are not parents of school-age children are assumed to be indifferent to education and in how others invest their taxes for schooling.
Third, the model treats democratic governance as no different from a market, where people vote with their pocketbooks and the deepest pockets get more perks. While there are many reasons to be cynical about the role of money in political life, it is another to imply that free-markets have anything to do with a just, equitable and civil society. The pure free-market model assumes that vital public services should be financed on a user-pays-the-cost basis, with little regard for how those choices affect others. Free markets have nothing to do with equality of opportunity, or an ethic of caring for others, or justice.
Fourth, the free-market model assumes that parents will make fully informed and rational choices about education. The irony is that not even leading economists believe that rational choice operates in the market. The stock market, for example, responds to such vague measures as consumer confidence. Similarly, if people made rational choices, investments in aesthetically persuasive advertising would be pointless.
Fifth, the model assumes that for every parent and child, the market will provide an affordable and desirable choice, without much reference to the real-world association of cost with quality. Nor does the model allow for the possibility that an excellent education may, in fact, be one that allows students to transcend the horizons that parents set for them. In this respect, the free-market tends to ensure that existing differences in social-economic class are retained.
Sixth, current interest in for-profit education is directly related to the prospect of substantial deregulation of schools and the availability of vouchers or direct tax credits allowing parents to choose among a variety of education service providers. The most commonly cited paradigm is the GI Bill. Funds for post-secondary education were initially available to veterans of WW II who qualified for vocational training or college. Their funding was contingent on being admitted to and completing the requirements of the program.
This paradigm is misapplied to public schools where attendance is compulsory, students are not yet of age, not usually screened for admission, and failing students don’t go away unless and until they are of dropout age. Further, one theoretical aim in for-profit education is to reduce the overall cost of education, whereas the GI Bill provided new and substantial increases in funding.
Finally, a free-market follows the logic of a zero-sum game. There are winners and losers along the way–from schools, to teachers, to parents, to students. In addition, there are powerful incentives to secure as many resources and profits as possible, irrespective of the consequences for others. (References deleted).
LikeLike
Understanding how free markets operate does not make it any less heinous for the majority of people. Basically free marketeers imply that the only good is their own good. There is no greater good. Free markets are a license to be greedy and selfish. In a democracy it should be understood that we have an obligation to educate all our students so they can make informed decisions as future voters. I don’t see how any economy can be healthy and growing when most of the money is in the hands of a few as we are seeing now. If average people cannot afford the goods and services being sold, the economy will shrink. I don’t see the economies of Chile, Colombia or Honduras as enviable.
The presumed savings of most privatization schemes have been phantom savings. Chicago found this out by privatizing the parking meters. All the people got in return were higher costs and less service. The lower wages paid to the workers also serves to shrink the economy while the money that is spent on the service goes to a few at the top. Paying those at the bottom more feeds the economy as they buy homes, goods and services, and pay taxes,
I don’t know that America wants to become a fiefdom with walled cities to protect the super rich. I don’t see America being better off if we treat all our workers like migrant farm laborers. We should work to provide maximum opportunity to all our people. A strong middle class creates a strong economy.
http://ourfuture.org/20140108/horror-stories-show-how-privatization-loots-taxpayers
LikeLike
“. . . in their simplistic equating of political freedom with economic freedom.”
And that my friends sums up the fallacies of the free marketeers and privateers of public education. Again the concept of start with shit end up with shit comes into play. When your base assumptions/concepts are wrong you end up with “wrong” which in the case of economic supposed freedom is the very few take the most and the most receive the least, least enough to barely be able to survive.
LikeLike
As someone who taught decades ago in a plush English-language private school in Colombia, recipient of some US government aid back before there was federal aid to public schools in the US, thank you, Diane, for this piece. — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
LikeLike
Having lived in Colombia myself, I see many flaws directly related to their refusal to fully fund public schools. I see students attending half days while many, like those living in 7 de agosto barrio not attending at all.
It is important to fully fund public schools and not replace them with private. However, if they are going to ignore children in poor areas, something has to be done to fix that.
http://www.funprosefam.com is one of those schools that serve the kids in a pobre barrio. They receive no money from anyone except a few pesos from those students who can afford it. The lead teacher, Luz Estela Narvaez and her daughter work tirelessly for the last 25 years, without pay, to keep that school going.
Last year they received a little support from the International Association of Special Education(www.IASE.org) and I was proud to teach there and support the school in other ways.
No public schools should be replaced by privatization. However, if the public schools do not serve everyone, Some funds should be made available to help the schools who serve the kids who need them the most.
Colombia is a different world when it comes to serving all kids. Special education is in it’s infancy. I only found one college near Barranquilla that had a teacher special education program, Universidad del Norte.. While visiting Universidad del Atlantico in the area when I asked why there was no special ed, said “You must accept that reality”
While the United States at least provides special education throughout the country, moneys to those schools who serve special kids should receive money until the public sector decides our kids are important
LikeLike
I agree the inequity of funding is one of our biggest flaws in public education. I also feel we should have enforced our desegregation laws more because separate is never equal. Schools with diverse students and a range of socioeconomic levels are often great examples of opportunity for all, and they teach us to be better people.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on National Mobilization For Equity and commented:
or the perils of privatizing public education.
LikeLike
Dear Diane, I noticed that Chile was used as a case study to support your view on education in the US. While I can fully agree with the interpretations on the situation in the US you and contributors to this blog share, I think that Chile’s case was put up as a straw-man. I would like to receive the original paper that you make reference to in the post on Chile. The linked web page does not provide more information. I left a comment where I try to point out some apparent shortcomings.
LikeLike