Abstract

BRENT-EDWARDS JR, Donald  and  TERMES-LOPEZ, Andreu. “Concession Schools” in Bogotá: The Limits of Economic Efficiency of Charter Programs. Rev. colomb. educ. [online]. 2019, n.76, pp.91-116. ISSN 0120-3916.  https://doi.org/10.17227/rce.num76-6891.

In the context of global educational agenda, public-private alliances (particularly charter schools) are reforms with a growing academic prestige and political popularity. Supposedly, and according to their promoters, these reforms are considered to be a cost-efficient solution. There are two aspects of charter schools that have received less academic interest: the management of the teaching staff and the acquisition of resources. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap through the case study of the “Concession School” (CEC) charter program, active in Bogotá since 1999. CECs are particularly relevant, since Colombia is one of the Latin American countries that have experimented most energetically with APP; moreover, CECs have received a great academic, political, and media attention, particularly from international organizations; as such, CECs have become a paradigmatic model of the charter program. The results of this paper allow us to identify the economic strategies of CECs in Bogotá, which include the systematic worsening of the teachers’ working conditions, and new strategies for acquisition of additional resources, both findings problematize the supposed comparative advantage and cost-efficiency, both of the CECs in Bogota as well as the charter program in general.

Keywords : charter schools; private schools; partnerships in education; personnel management; resource allocation; school-based management.

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