Narodowski 2008

Mariano Narodowski, 2008, "School Choice and Quasi-state Monopoly Education Systems in Latin America: The Case of Argentina" 131-144  in Forsey, Martin, Scott Davies, and Geoffrey Walford. 2008. The globalisation of school choice? Oxford: Symposium Books.

• INtroduction
• private schooling has been on teh rise in Argentina, but the beginning of this rise precedes neoliberalism (131-132)
• definition of state monoppoly\ (132-3), lack of autonomy of managers and centralized decisionmaking
• quasi monopoly:
• schools are financed and coordinated by the state, but have autonomy and have to compete for students (133)
• but this is an ideal type, that doesn't exist in LA
• "As I discuss below, Argetnina's and othe Latin American systems have rsponded to the 'quasi' state monopoly by reaching a sort of equilibrium, where having wealthier parents opt out of the public system has allowed the punlic system to spend more dollars per pupil that it could otherwise."
• Privatization of the education system
• urban areas like CABA, Rosario, Cordoba, Mendoza, Tucuman have the largest private enrollment rates, over 50% and at times as high as 70% (135, citing Narodowski 2002)
• 92% of wealthiest fifth of population send kids to private school
• 1966 law that allows the state to fund part or all of teachers' salaries, is only used whena  government doesn't want to pay for infrastructure (135-6)
• CABA has about 50% private school enrollment
• 26.8% of private schools receive 100% teachers salaries
• 23.8% get 70-80% of salaries
• 13.3% private get 40-60% salary
• some studies have found that student test scores are better among private school students, but data is mostly inconsistent and hard to come by (137)
• Key factors in the behavior of families
• thsoe who choose private school seem to see it as fraught with difficulties, shoter school days, lots of strikes, worse supplies, fewer computers (138)
• some studies see choice of private school as a social process of self-segregation
• poor seem dissatisfied with public school, and would send them to private schools if they could (139)
• School Choice in a State Quasi-Monopoly
• it is not a monopoly, because there are so many private schools, but at the same time the other choice is unequally distributed (rich can afford it, poor can't) so it's not exactly a quasi market either
• suggests this quasi monopoly is a reaction by the monopoly to new demands of society (140)
• the quasi monopoly allows the middle and upper classes to fund their own edcuation, while the state can pay for education of the poor (141)
• argues that the poorer sectors do benefit from thsi arrangment because it allows the government to spend more per student than they would if they had to teach everyone

 this is OK, but it's a little funny because it doesn't quite take into account that the middle class can still pay for bettern edcuation...the poor get better scraps, but scraps all the same