School autonomy in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina: evidence from two school districts

Abstract

This article provides empirical evidence of policy adoption, outcomes and consequences of decentralization and school autonomy initiatives enacted in Argentina during the 1990s. The study examines what school autonomy meant in Argentina and how it was adopted at the provincial and school levels. Using qualitative data on school districts of the Greater Buenos Aires, the study analyzes the role that organizational and political factors play in the implementation of school autonomy reform. Given that previous studies showed that reform praxis varies across environments, this research looks comparatively at the outcomes of the reform process across organizational systems (i.e. provincial and former national) and diverse local sociopolitical environments.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the journal editor, Professor Michael Crossley, and the reviewers for their comments on early drafts of this article. The author also thanks all the interviewees that participated in this study.

Notes

1. Education decentralization reforms vary depending upon the goals that espoused them: fiscal, administrative or a combination of both. School autonomy, also known as school‐based management, school decentralization or school improvement programs, is probably considered one of the most radical education decentralization procedures (Lauglo, 1996; Hanson, 1997, among others).

2. By sociopolitical environment I mean the socioeconomic context and political culture that dominate a certain environment. Following the sociological neoinstitutional approach (e.g. DiMaggio & Powell, 1991) and social movement literature (e.g. Tarrow, 1994), political culture is defined here as the legitimate way of doing politics in a particular context—the rules of the game of a certain polity. Unlike the civic culture tradition (e.g. Almond & Verba, 1963), that defines political culture as individual‐level attitudes, the approach taken here is broader in scope.

3. How Argentina’s education decentralization policy was driven by global trends has been studied by a number of researchers (Dussel et al., 2000; Rhoten, 2000; Astiz, 2002). This analysis goes beyond the scope of this study.

4. See Ley de Transferencia de los Servicios Educativos No. 22.049 (1992) and Ley Federal de Educación No. 24195 (1993).

5. Besides regulating the distribution of responsibilities between the central and subnational governance levels, the 1993 law introduces a new schooling organization which consists of a three‐level system of one‐year compulsory initial education, a nine‐year compulsory basic education (EGB) and a three‐year optional high school education (polimodal). In the province of Buenos Aires, high school education is also compulsory. This organizational system is currently being reviewed in the province of Buenos Aires.

6. Asociación cooperadora escolar or school cooperatives are the parallel to parent–teacher associations in the United States. They are the institutionalized channels for parental participation at the school level. The role of the school cooperative is ‘to assist the school in eliminating all causes that may have a negative affect on students’ (Manual para Cooperadoras Escolares, Art. 1, 1994).

7. In 1994, the national administration launched a program called ‘Nueva Escuela’. This program was intended to provide technical assistance to the schools in the design of their institutional projects.

8. The province produces almost 50% of the country’s agricultural production and 70% of Argentine cattle is raised in its lands. Buenos Aires holds 40% of the total Argentine industrial institutions and 49% of the country’s total jobs, of which 70% are in the Greater Buenos Aires area (Consejo Federal de Inversiones, 1999). Today Buenos Aires holds 33% of the provinces’ accumulated debt—and a poverty rate of 35.3% reported for May 2000 (partial results of Census 2001 published in Clarín, Buenos Aires, 27 August 2001).

9. The Radical Party has governed Vicente López since 1983. Except for the years of authoritarian rule, La Matanza has always been governed by the Justicialista Party (PJ), a party commonly known as Peronista. During the periods of democratic rule, these two competing parties dominated much of Argentina’s political scene.

10. Since 1988 the PJ dominated Buenos Aires’ political scene. It is usually characterized as a populist movement (Murmis & Portantiero, 1971).

11. Students of recent neopopulism in Latin America agreed that although governments faced fiscal constraints in state spending they managed to create material benefits to their constituency by, among other tactics, targeting social programs for the poor (Weyland, 1996). Buenos Aires’ social plan was initially implemented in La Matanza and later on in other poor districts officially declared as bolsones de pobreza (poor areas) in GBA.

12. From 1988 to 1999, voters’ support for García went from 40 to 68% (calculated using data provided by the Junta Electoral de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, 2000).

13. These categories, which describe Vicente López’s administration, were identified throughout the interviews.

14. The Radical Party is highly fragmented. Key party informants identified more than nine competing factions which affect the party governance and future development at the national and provincial levels. Some of these factions have been García’s more fervent opponents.

15. Municipalización is the administrative and fiscal decentralization to the municipal government. At the time of writing, the provincial legislature is discussing the implementation of fiscal municipalización. See Vales (n.d.).

16. It is clear from this comment that the more politically pressured the environment, the more inefficient its administration. Under these conditions, it is more likely that control is concentrated at intermediate units or central administrations (Hannaway, 1993; Weiler, 1993).

17. Manzaneras stands for women block workers. The Argentine Spanish translation for block is manzana. Manzaneras are either community leaders or local party brokers. Unidad básica is the name of the Peronist local offices.