Conferencia de Lant Pritchett

1. Peru to First World in a Generation:
A Rebirth of Education
Lant Pritchett
Harvard Kennedy School
November 14, 2014
CADE

2. First the good news: Fantastic Progress in
Universal Schooling—with huge progress for
poorest
Bottom 40th
Richest 20
Of a cohort 15 to
19 in 1992
•Only 43 percent
completed grade
9
• Only 22 percent
of children from
poorest 40
percent of
households
• Only 15 percent
of rural girls

3. Massive progress in expanding retention in
schooling
Cohort in 2012
• 73 percent complete grade 9
• 56 percent of from poorest 40
percent of households
• 55 percent of rural girls

4. But nobody ever really had a schooling goal,
we have education goals—the connection is
the learning profile progress in skill mastery
per year
Schooling: Time Served
Education: Competencies
gained

5. Schooling will unlock the door to opportunity
only if it produces mastery of competencies

6. Bad news: a shallow learning profile leaves
Peruvian students with third world learning
368
423
448
500 511
554
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
Peru Chile Turkey Denmark
(OECD
mean)
Vietnam Korea
Pisa 2012 Math Score

7. The bad news isn’t just at the bottom—there
are too few Peruvians with high performance
0.6 1.6
5.9
8.8 10
30.9
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Percent at level 5 or 6 in
mathematics Absolute number in
global top performance
(roughly):
Peru: 3200
Korea: 210,000
USA: 324,000

8. Unfortunately for Peru it is quality, not quantity
of schooling that drives growth
Source: Woessmann and Hanushek 2013

9. An audacious goal—first world in a generation,
what would it take?
550
530
510
490
470
450
430
410
390
370
350
2010 2020 2030 2040 2050
Business as usual
(one point per year)
Audacious goal of first
world in a generation
(4.4 points a year)
Wishful
thinking
Ambitious: Only about 10
countries had progress over

10. What will it take?
The Pivot from focus on
schooling to focus on
Education

11. Inputs are part of a learning plan—but
they are not a learning plan

12. Eastern Coral
Snake
(venomous)
Scarlet King
Snake
(non-venomous)

13. Current Schooling Goals and Measurements Promote Isomorphic
Mimicry

14. Ecosystems of schools—why systems
have to change
Spiders Starfish
Closed Open
Compliance
Self-interest
Space for novelty
Agenda
Conformity
Isomorphic
Mimicry
Organizational
Perpetuation
Functionality
Demonstrated
Success
Demonstrated
Success
Act for
performance
(E)Valuation of novelty
Organization Goal:
Legitimation
(growth, resources)
Education
Leadership
Teachers
System
Characteristics
Organizations
choose
strategies
Agents
Leaders
Teachers

15. Spider versus Starfish Systems
Top down centralized
systems—all decisions
concentrated—web exists to
service spider
Creature with no brain—
operates as loosely
connected system

16. Properties of a goal driven starfish system
Open
Locally
Operated
Performance
Pressured
Professionally
Networked
Technically
Supported
Flexibly
Financed

17. Starfish Systems
Open Entry and exit is easier to create ecological
learning
Locally
Operated
Control of educational aspects that require “thick”
decision making and responsiveness ceded to
those best placed—principals and teachers more
autonomous to act
Performance
Pressured
Organization with internal norms of a drive to
succeed with performance based on maximally
available information (but limited “top down” high
stakes accountability on thin metrics)
Professionally
Networked
Teachers in contact with others so that effective
practices can diffuse
Technically
Supported
“Higher” levels of education organizations
mobilize support for the front-line actors
Flexibly
Financed
Finance flows as much as possible to the most
local level as untied as possible

18. Starfish Systems Spiders
Open Entry and exit is easier to create ecological
learning
No school ever closes,
management rarely
changes
Locally
Operated
Control of educational aspects that require “thick”
decision making and responsiveness ceded to
those best placed—principals and teachers more
autonomous to act
Key decisions are made
centrally—including the
allocation of teachers to
schools and even
classrooms
Performance
Pressured
Organization with internal norms of a drive to
succeed with performance based on maximally
available information (but limited “top down” high
stakes accountability on thin metrics)
Compliance pressured
with emphasis on inputs
and process.
Professionally
Networked
Teachers in contact with others so that effective
practices can diffuse
Vertically organized, not
professional association
Technically
Supported
“Higher” levels of education organizations
mobilize support for the front-line actors
Education hierarchy is
for “supervision”
Flexibly
Financed
Finance flows as much as possible to the most
local level as untied as possible
Budgets are tied to
specific inputs top to
bottom

19. Starting with “performance orientation”—
measure what you want

20. Starfish—lots of species Spiders
Locality-level
decentralizat
ion
Charter
schools
(only
public-sector
entrants)
Community-controlled
schools
Private
(for and
not for
profit
entrants)
Pure
markets for
instruction
(e.g.,
tutoring)
Open? Entry only by
localities
Entry by
designated
organizations
Entry only by
locally organized
groups
Open entry Completely
open entry
Closed
Locally operated? Mixed Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Performance
pressured?
Mixed Mixed Mixed Yes Depends on
metric
Mixed
Professionally
networked?
Regionally Mixed Mixed Mixed Weak Hierarchy
Technically
supported?
Yes No Yes
Flexibly Financed? Mixed Mixed Yes No financing No flexibility

21. What I am NOT saying
(but you nevertheless may be hearing)
• I am not saying “privatization” is a
panacea—can be part of starfish system,
but without fixes of the system won’t be
transformational
• I am not saying “bottom-up” or
“decentralization” is a panacea—systems
need functions allocated across levels
• I am not saying “high stakes” testing for
students or teachers is a panacea

22. Where to start?
Strategic incrementalism
• Work back from a vision to what
needs to get done today—and can
get done—and do it—in all the
system elements.
• “Big Bang” reform more likely to
produce Bang than reform
• But whole system has to change
over time so “incrementalism” of
panaceas doesn’t add up.
Cannot beat a turtle to move