Routes to Reform

Abstract

The key to sustained and equitable development in Latin America is high-quality education for all. However, coalitions favoring quality reforms in education are usually weak because parents are dispersed, business is not interested, and much of the middle class has exited public education. Their absence renders the policy space relatively empty, making opponents of meritocratic reforms to teacher careers—clientelist politicians and some teacher unions—consequently more formidable. Nonetheless, several countries made meaningful reforms via different routes. The first bottom-up route to reform was electoral in Ecuador and Chile. The second route taken by Colombia and Peru was more top-down and technocratic.