The ‘Latin American way’? The contested trajectory of school autonomy and accountability policies in Colombia

• In Event: Recontextualizing post-bureaucratic reforms in different educational systems: private actors, public administration, and schools

Proposal

Becoming a paradigmatic case of post-bureaucratic reforms, the school autonomy with accountability (SAWA) agenda has been advanced as a global model of good governance in education (Fontdevila & Verger, 2020). SAWA combines higher levels of decision-making devolved to schools over the curriculum, staffing, or their budget, with performance monitoring and standardization via curriculum and assessment instruments (Verger et al., 2019). Arguably, the attractiveness of SAWA is its malleable nature that allows it to circulate, adapt, and be ingrained in multiple contexts. For instance, in countries with profound neoliberal reforms to the state as the UK, US or Chile, SAWA tenets were tightly coupled with market-based principles of competition and deregulation, while high-stakes are linked to assessments as control mechanisms (Greany and Higham, 2019; Parcerisa et al., 2022). In contrast, in Spain or France, high stakes conflict with the countries’ administrative traditions, while school autonomy is limited to pedagogical practices (Maroy & Pons, 2019; Verger et al., 2020). More recently, some Latin American countries have also adopted some elements of the SAWA agenda, (Rivas, 2021), yet Colombia stands out for its peculiar school autonomy, decentralization, and the expansion of a test-based accountability system that evolved over the last two decades.

The trajectory of SAWA policies in Colombia should be analyzed in light of the country’s historical developments. For instance, the consolidation of school autonomy in the 1990s is linked to the history of the teachers’ pedagogical movement during the 1980s (Suárez, 2002). More recently, Colombia’s economic growth in the last decades was rubricated by becoming an OECD member while achieving a historical peace agreement aiming to end the 50-year-long armed conflict, both in 2018. In this context, Colombia has undergone a process of expanding students’ assessment policy, creating new academic standards, and reforming teachers’ careers, among other post-bureaucratic reforms (Baxter & Cadavid, 2021). Nonetheless, there’s little research on the reasons behind the adoption and policy trajectories of SAWA instruments in Colombia.

Therefore, this paper adopts a historical institutional lens to understand the evolving configuration of SAWA in Colombia, asking: how did the political, institutional, and economic conditions shape the adoption of SAWA instruments? In what ways did the SAWA instruments evolve over time and for what reasons? How did Colombia’s linkages with international organizations influence the adoption of SAWA policies? To answer these questions, I use a qualitative methodology that combines an analysis of policy documents, regulations, and international organizations with more than 40 interviews with stakeholders.

Findings show a singular configuration of high levels of school autonomy on pedagogical and curricular matters combined with an extensive yet low-stakes test-based accountability system. Over the course of two decades, the accountability system fluctuated from a phase of expansion (2002-2010), consolidation (2010-2014), and intensification with new stakes and incentives (2014-2018) which were reverted in the last period (2018-2022). These changes were strongly mediated by domestic political agendas rather than international pressures. In particular, the trajectory of SAWA instruments was influenced by macroeconomic factors and shifts in the relationship with the teachers’ union.

Author

• Tomas Esper, Columbia University Teachers College