The Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education

International Experience 25
to provide high-quality education to lowincome
and high-risk students (Barrera-
Osorio 2007). Concession schools are public
schools managed by private school operators
with a record of scoring above-average
on the national secondary exit examination
for five consecutive years. Private operators
are granted autonomy over school management
and receive a per pupil payment. In
Bogota, there are 25 public schools run as
concession schools under 15 year contracts
(Villa and Duarte 2005). The program
sought to overcome the limitations of some
demand-side programs, such as the lack of
a requirement to demonstrate improved
outcomes before being allowed to continue
receiving public funds, by requiring concession
schools to score above-average on
the annual national academic test (Villa
and Duarte 2005).
Privately operated schools have more
autonomy than traditional public schools
to introduce innovations and to make their
own decisions about staffing, curricula, and
pedagogical methods as long as they follow
national labor laws and national academic
standards. For instance, Fe y Alegría schools
are considered to be successful in improving
education outcomes because of their decentralized
and autonomous nature, which has
been replicated in other Latin American
countries (Allcott and Ortega 2007). Privately
operated schools provide a free education
but also allow school choice, thus
encouraging competition between schools
and more parental accountability in similar
ways as voucher programs (box 2.3).
School operators are granted contracts
for a fixed term, ranging from three (United
States) to fifteen years (Colombia). These
contracts stipulate clear responsibilities
and objectives, and can allow governments
to collect information on education indicators
that can be used to assess school performance
(World Bank 2003a). Contracts also
include cancellation guidelines if school
operators fail to meet education, performance,
or management benchmarks (Fitz
and Beers 2002). For instance, in Colombia,
contracts stipulate that concession schools
must score above average on national standardized
tests. Moreover, these schools
must adhere to many of the regulations
BOX 2.3 The differences between charter schools
and vouchers: The case of the United States
In the United States, charter schools
give parents a choice among schools
as vouchers do, but there are three
main differences between these two
systems:
• A governmental body must
approve the establishment and
continued operation of a charter
school, while schools educating
voucher students do not need
explicit permission to operate.
that apply to public schools, such as those
related to pupil-teacher ratio and minimum
pass rates, and must subscribe to centrally
determined academic standards.
The fact that private operators can be
for-profit, not-for-profit, or community
organizations sets incentives to attract
highly qualified organizations to run failing
public schools. For instance, in an
attempt to diversify the education market,
the Qatari government sought to attract a
variety of potential operators of independent
schools, including foreign education
management companies, by allowing them
to make a reasonable profit to operate several
schools at once to realize economies of
scale (Brewer et al. 2007).
The World Development Report 2004
(World Bank 2003a) discusses the lack of
systematic learning from innovations and
insufficient replication of successful practices.
Contracting out the operation of
schools to the private sector can reverse
this problem by building incentives into
the contracts that encourage operators to
replicate and scale up good practices. The
good practices to be replicated should be
identified either through local research or
through statistical analysis.
Private sector involvement in building
school infrastructure
unknown
The United IP : 192.86.100.35 Kingdom’s private finance initiative
Mon, allows 30 Mar 2009 partnerships 12:16:23 consisting of
private consortiums and public authorities
to construct and maintain education
Delivered by The World Bank e-library to:
• Charter schools are not allowed
to promote religion, while schools
educating voucher students often
have a sectarian affiliation.
• Charter schools are accountable
for the academic results of their
students on state and federal
tests, whereas schools educating
voucher students are not.
Source: Gill et al. 2007.
(c) The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank