A quest for Selective Decentralization. The case of Municipal Schools in Chile

Under the argument that the existing municipal administration of public schools in Chile is poor and inequitable, a law was passed in 2017 thereby all schools will be handed over to 70 centrally dependent Local Education Services (LES). We hypothesize that a significant number of schools would do better if they remain administered by the municipal level. Based upon a data base between 2014 and 2018, we show that students from schools in fiscally autonomous municipalities exhibit better results in standardized national tests, which supports a quest for a “selective decentralization” model, thereby only bad performed schools are made dependent on LES.