Silvina and Abregú 2005

Gvirtz, Silvina, and Victoria Abregú. 2005. De la tragedia a la esperanza: hacia un sistema educativo justo, democrático y de calidad. Academia Nacional de Educación.

• Introduction
• education should have two goals: teach people how to learn, and teach them how to live together (6-7)
• the school forms citiznes (7)
• education system has high coverage but not high retention rates (9)
• Chapter 1
• a bit of hsitory
• teh state was heavily involved in creating and administering the education system in the 1800s, it allowed everyone in to primary, but saved upper levels for a minority of students (16-17)
• in teh 1960s and 1970s society changed, new technology grew, and public schoolsdidn't keep up with the times.  this was the start of the middle class c=slowly migrating to private schools (18-20)
• this also meant the state was less able to meet its responsibility of educating studenets (20)
• private schools were more disciminatory, if only in that their fees limited enrolment (21)
• the dictatorships didn't do much to combat this, while democratic governments tried to recentralize schooling and fix the problem (21)
• 1990s reform (23-32)
• supposed to give some autonomy back to the schools, let them decide how to teach at the school level (28-29) MAYBE THIS MEANS GIVING BACK TO INDIVIDUAL TEACHERS SOME POWER AND CONTROL OVER THEIR WORK?
• hope was to put provinces in charge of curriculum design, just have some big goals at the federal level (29-30)
• but the fedeeral "guide" just became what everyone used as the curriculum itself (30)
• the implementation of these reforms seemed to fall short of the goals, and in some ways just increased bureaucratization (32)
• data on inequality of income between private and public schools, (35)
• richer people in private schools, significantly so
• schools don't really have much autnomy, they have been very centalzied under the provinces, even private schools! (40)
• they also argue that there is a political problem, because the government isn't taking it's responsibility to educate everyone equally (40)
• introduction to the second part of the book
• this section brings up three paths that should be done in order to provide basic pilars for improving education system:
• redefine government running or education to de-bureaucratize the system (44)
• redefine the school as a space of socio-educative and community center, 
• equalize conditions in all schools to allow quality education in every school
• chapter 2
• government needs to find a careful balance between equality of access and results of education (48)
• government should set clear goals
• schools should be given some flexibility to address their own peculiar needs
• entire system should have responsibility for results of education
• government should work to either equalize education across schools, or at leat compensate worse schools to try and make them better (48-49)
• create incentives to allow good policies in schools to be rewarded (49)
• community should become a collaborative partner for schools (49)
• what the national education ministry should be donig (52-55), mostly helping, coordinating, measuring, being a resource, but not being heavy handed, but also paying for things
• this model favors de-bureaucratization (55)
• really important to increase teachers' capacity to teach, in schools, out of schools, and in universities (58)
• provincial level ministiries should
• work to coordinate the macro and the micro levels (61-2)
• generate strategies of cooperation among schools (62)
• create broad strategies to improve schools in their province
• work to fund their schools
• chapter 3
• ideas to change the schools (and ministries) from pyrmaidal and bureaucratic to open and democratic (63)
• need:
• more decentralized decisionmaking, allow schools to vary their work a bit (64)
•  start having community groups that have a voice in the schools (66-67)
• and others
• mostly about creating new work positions, like director of pedagogoy
• Consejos escolares (70-73)
• these arent' always good, might just back uup authoritarian principal (70)
• should include parents, students, graduates, administrators, teachers, and members of the community (71)
• not just for fundraising, but to make sure the decisions the school is tyaking are good
• EVERYONE muist be involved, every sector, as education is something that is shared among all secotrs (72)
• decision-making still mostly in the hands of the director(s) of the school (73)
• change school culture (74)
• clear goals with measurements
• get participation of the families (75)
• chapter 4
• consider the school as a center of communtiy and social education 975)
• get students, school projects involved in their community, too (79)
• give exta aid, food, etc to schools that are in especially poor areas (80)
• make the buildings, supplies better and equal across schools (82)
• improve the formation and careers of teachers (84-86)
• improve salarty (85)
• create better career paths for them (85-86)
•