La desigualdad educativa, ¿son los programas de refuerzo la solución? Evidencia empírica del impacto a nivel intracentros

Abstract

El diferente ritmo de aprendizaje entre el alumnado es, y ha sido, un problema tanto para el profesor como para la comunidad educativa y académica en su conjunto. Entre las políticas públicas dirigidas a corregir esta problemática destacan dos: el agrupamiento del alumnado con base en sus capacidades-tracking- y, más recientemente, los programas de refuerzo extraescolares. En este trabajo se evalúa el impacto que, sobre la desigualdad educativa, tuvo un programa de refuerzo implantado de manera voluntaria en los institutos españoles entre 2005 y 2012: el plan PROA. Como medida de aproximación a la desigualdad educativa se ha empleado la brecha en términos de resultados existente entre los alumnos de un mismo centro, así como el índice de desigualdad de Gini. Los resultados obtenidos, a partir de la técnica de Propensity Score Matching, señalan que la aplicación del programa no redujo las diferencias en términos de puntuación entre el alumnado, de igual modo que no aumentaron las calificaciones medias en lectura en aquellos centros que decidieron participar en el programa. The need to cater to the different learning pace of students still remains a frequent problem for both teachers and the academic community. Among the public policies aimed to solve this problem, two stand out: the grouping of students based on their abilities -tracking- and, more recently, the extracurricular reinforcement programs. This paper evaluates the impact that the PROA, a reinforcement program implemented on a voluntary basis by different High Schools in Spain between 2005 and 2012, had on educational inequality. To measure educational inequality, the gap in terms of results between the students of the same school has been used, as well as the Gini inequality index. The results obtained, which are based on the Propensity Score Matching technique, indicate that the implementation of this program did not bridge the gap in terms of marks between students. They also suggest that average reading scores did not increase in those schools that decided to participate in the program.

To what extent a modern teaching style benefits students? Why do teachers act the way they do?

“…3 3 Among the public policies aimed to solve this problem, two stand out: the grouping of students based on their abilities—tracking—(see Hanushek & Wößmann, 2006; Slavin, 1990) and, more recently, the extracurricular reinforcement programs, as PROA in Spain (García‐Pérez & Hidalgo‐Hidalgo, 2017; Villar‐Aldonza & Gambau‐Suelves, 2020, for the Spanish case). …”