El primer artículo analiza el mercado sobre el periodismo sobre la
economía. Se podría reemplazar "economía" por "educación". El segundo
artículo es una entrevista con John Cassidy, el periodista del New
Yorker que ha escrito algunos artículos fascinantes sobre las ideas y
los académicos del Chicago School of Economics post-crisis. Son
excelentes, pero lamentablemente todavía no disponibles en forma digital.

Gregory
-------------
NYTimes
January 29, 2010, 10:00 am
Disequilibrium in the Market for Economics Reporting?
By JUSTIN WOLFERS

An interesting finding from a recent Gallup poll, reporting on, well,
reporting. There appears to be substantial excess demand for insightful
reporting on economic issues:
Obama Policy Area Most in Need of Better ReportingGALLUP

Why haven't savvy journalists (or their editors) arbitraged away the
different returns across topics?

I've got five possible stories:

1. The Business Cycle: This is only a temporary phenomenon, reflecting
the fact that the economy is particularly interesting right now. If this
were true, one might expect circulation numbers for the Financial Times,
the Wall Street Journal or The Economist to be particularly high right
now. Are they?
2. Barriers to entry: Writing about economics requires specific, and
difficult-to-acquire, knowledge. Those barriers definitely exist. But
economics reporting just doesn't seem that hard, relative to writing
about health, war or terrorism.
3. Quality versus Quantity: These data speak to the quality of economic
journalism, not the quantity. It's easy to increase quantity; it is
quality that is inelastically-supplied, by the few handful of
journalists who actually understand what is going on.
4. Insider-Outsider dynamics: It's actually easy to supply more high
quality economics reporting--hire some of those unemployed PhD.
economists. But the insiders--the employed journalists in other
departments--object, and instead, the usual norm is to move workers. When
one beat needs more reporting, you typically move journalists from
another area. Again, quantity can rise, but not quality.
5. Revealed versus stated preferences: Reading about the economy is like
eating vegetables. We all say we should do more of both. But we don't
actually do much of either. And so farmers don't grow extra vegetables,
and newspapers don't produce more economics reporting.

I think number five rings true. I would be interested in data on number
one (are circulation numbers for the Financial Times, the Wall Street
Journal or The Economist currently particularly high?). Numbers two or
three might be part of the story, but each of these only works if the
dynamics of number four are part of the story.

Or perhaps you have a better explanation. Comments are open.

---------
American Public Media
Thursday, January 7, 2010

Listen to the show
Chicago School of economics post-crisis
John Cassidy

Writer John Cassidy talks with Kai Ryssdal about the article he wrote
for The New Yorker, which discusses the decline and fall of the Chicago
School of economics after the financial crisis.

John Cassidy (newyorker.com)

More on The Economy, America's Financial Crisis



Kai Ryssdal: The recession that we are just now beginning to work our
way out of has been miserable for a huge chunk of the economy. For
economists, though, it's literally been a once-in-a-lifetime chance to
see how some of the dominant theories in the dismal science hold up in
reality.

There are, in essence, two of those theories. One based on the ideas of
John Maynard Keynes. The other popularized by Nobel prize winner Milton
Friedman and named after the university where he taught: the University
of Chicago. The Great Recession of '08-'09 has exposed some weaknesses
in Friedman's ideas. And in the most recent issue of The New Yorker
magazine staff writer John Cassidy explores the decline and fall of the
Chicago School of economics. When we talked I asked him if he would
start with a little primer.

JOHN CASSIDY: The basic idea of Chicago School economics is the free
market left to its own devices works well, so it doesn't need much
government intervention, and indeed, government interventions if they
are put into effect will tend to go wrong.

Ryssdal: And in the magazine this week you profile a guy named Richard
Posner. He's a federal judge in New York, and he is, as you say, a
convert now. He says it doesn't work anymore, basically.

CASSIDY: Richard Posner is one of the most famous members of the Chicago
school. He was largely responsible for growing the law and economics
movement, which has helped populate a lot of American courtrooms with
conservative judges and with judges who take free market economics very
seriously. Last year, in the wake of the financial crisis, Judge Posner
had a conversion, and went from being a sort of standard Chicago school
economist to being a Keynesian.

Ryssdal: When you say Keynes, it's John Maynard Keynes. Explain briefly
what it was that he said.

CASSIDY: In the free market view of things, economies are naturally
self-correcting. If a recession starts, it will quickly bounce back, and
unemployment won't go up very high, won't stay very high. Keynes said
no, that's not true. Because of a variety of reasons, economies can get
stuck in a recession, and you can have high unemployment for years on
end and things can feed on themselves. So in order to avoid that
outcome, he said government needs to step in and spend money.

Ryssdal: Well, make the connection for me, though, between the efficient
markets theory and regulation and the attitude toward the markets in
Washington.

CASSIDY: Well, the efficient markets hypothesis, although it's sort of
obscure economic theory in one sense, also had a very practical impact
in that it underpinned a lot of the deregulation in the 1990s and 1980s.
The basic idea behind that deregulation was that financial markets, if
you left them to their own devices, wouldn't depart from economic
fundamentals. Prices in the market would reflect what companies are
really worth, or in the housing market, what houses are really worth.
There wouldn't be any speculative bubbles for example. That's what Alan
Greenspan said, that's what Bob Rubin, and Larry Summers said when they
were Treasury secretaries, and it justified a whole range of
deregulatory measures taken to allow banks and investment banks to get
together and invest in all sorts of securities, such as credit default
swaps, subprime mortgage securities, all these things we've heard a lot
about in the last few years. Turns out, however, markets aren't always
efficient. Twice in the last 10 years we've had enormous speculative
bubbles.

Ryssdal: You spent a lot of time out in Chicago, it's clear in that
article, and you talk to a bunch of people. Relate for us what they said
when you went out to these Chicago school people and said, hey, what
sense do you make of the last two years in this market, if you believe
that the market knows everything?

CASSIDY: The reactions really were across the board. Some of the people
I spoke to said look, this is just a one off, it doesn't invalidate the
general idea that markets work well and that financial markets work
well. Other people, such as Gary Becker, who is one of the Nobel
laureates of Chicago, said no, it's more serious than that, markets
aren't always efficient. And we have to rethink that side of things. If
we go back to the two notions of Chicago economics, one that the market
always works well, and one that the government always works badly. The
first one has sort of gone out the window, but they do tend to fall back
on the second idea that that doesn't mean that governments will do any
better.

Ryssdal: You point out in your piece that really a lot of the heat of
the moment of the financial crisis is what drove people to reexamine
their ideas of models of economics. And now a lot of that heat, frankly,
has kind of dissipated.

CASSIDY: Right, well, actually one of the things which Gary Becker said
to me was that about a year ago he thought there would be a complete
revolution in economics, but twelve months later the economy looks more
healthy than it did a year ago and the sort of urgency of the debate has
gone out of it a bit, and he thinks there will be some moderate changes
to economics but there won't be a whole new paradigm.

Ryssdal: Safe to say though it will be more nuanced, it won't be all
black and white.

CASSIDY: You would hope so. One would hope that things would be more
nuanced. But you never really know in economics. There could be some new
genius out there somewhere who comes up with a theory, which everyone
buys into. I tend to think that that's unlikely, but you never know.

Ryssdal: John Cassidy. He's a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine.
His new book is called "How Markets Fail." Mr. Cassidy, thanks so much
for your time.

CASSIDY: Thank you.

--
Gregory Elacqua
--
Sub-director
Centro de Políticas Comparadas de Educación
Universidad Diego Portales
56-2-676-8535
www.cpce.cl

Un debate entre dos expertos sobre la brecha de genero.

Gregory
---------------
www.educationnext.org
Gender Gap
Are boys being shortchanged in K-12 schooling?

By Richard Whitmire and Susan McGee Bailey

Spring 2010 / Vol. 10, No. 2

Video: Richard Whitmire talks with Education Next
Podcast: Audio excerpt from Richard Whitmire's "Why Boys Fail"

20102_52_openerDebates about gender and schooling have taken a
surprising turn in the past decade. After years of concern that girls
were being shortchanged in male-dominated schools, especially in math
and science, there has grown a rising chorus of voices worrying about
whether boys are the ones in peril. With young women making up close to
60 percent of college students, critics like Richard Whitmire, former
USA Today editorial writer and author of Why Boys Fail, worry that
today's schools--with their emphasis on order, sitting still, and passive
learning--are much better suited to girls than to boys. Other
authorities, such as Susan McGee Bailey, executive director of the
Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College and principal author of
the 1992 AAUW report How Schools Shortchange Girls, reject such concerns
and instead contend that ingrained sexism and gender roles continue to
hamper K-12 schooling for both boys and girls. What does the evidence
say? And what does all of this mean for policy proposals like single-sex
schooling or teacher hiring? In this forum, Whitmire and Bailey sort
through these questions.

Education Next: What's the evidence that boys are doing less well in
school than girls?

Richard Whitmire: Dropout and graduation rates, grades, and many test
scores show boys faring poorly compared to girls (see Figure 1). But I
prefer a simpler measure. Students need at least one year of post-high
school study to survive in today's marketplace, the goal wisely set this
year by President Obama. In truth, they should complete two years of
college. When that level of achievement is broken out by gender, men are
faring badly. They go to college at lower rates and then graduate at
lower rates. Let's take Minnesota as an example. The (St. Paul) Pioneer
Press just published an article on the gender gaps in that state. As of
fall 2007, degrees earned by gender were bachelor's: 58 percent female;
master's: 69 percent female; PhD: 53 percent female. Nationally, 58
percent of those earning bachelor's degrees and 62 percent of those
earning associate's degrees are female.

For the most part this is happening because K-12 schools are
shortchanging boys. Far too many boys drop out before earning a high
school diploma. Worse, too many boys who do make it through high school
are either unprepared for or unmotivated to do college-level work.

The conventional wisdom that women need a college degree more than men
was true at one time, but is no longer. Economists at both the College
Board and the U.S. Department of Education agree: men and women may earn
different average salaries, but they get almost exactly the same
percentage bump-up in earnings for each degree earned.

Those manufacturing jobs that men could secure with only a high school
degree have been slipping away for years. In the current recession, that
trend picked up speed, with more than 80 percent of the layoffs
involving men. Now more than ever, men and women have equal needs to
earn degrees past high school, but far more women than men are getting
that message.

Susan McGee Bailey: Clearly, all our students need strong preparation
for the demands of a high-tech, global world, but international data
such as those provided by TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and
Science Study) and PISA (Program for International Student Assessment)
show U.S. students of both sexes performing in a mediocre fashion in
comparison to their counterparts in other industrialized nations.

Focusing on the lower college completion rates for boys and blaming K-12
educators is too easy. First, the much smaller college-enrollment gap
compared to the larger degree gap raises questions about college.
College enrollments have been increasing for both young women and young
men since the 1970s, but the increase for young women has been larger
(see Figure 2a). In 1972, 53 percent of males and 46 percent of females
enrolled in two- or four-year colleges immediately after graduating from
high school; in 2007 the comparable figures were 66 percent of males and
68 percent of females. Women now outpace men in BA, MA, and PhD
completion, but are significantly behind men in MBAs and earn law and
medical degrees at slightly lower rates than men. Studies suggesting
that men and women get the same benefit from a degree obscure the
critical reality that women still earn less than men at every level (see
Figure 2b).

During the past 20 years, discussions of educational equity have often
fallen into an either/or paradigm in which one group of students has
been singled out as the only group needing attention. Dropout rates
illustrate the dangers of focusing too narrowly. Dropout rates have been
declining for both girls and boys, with the rate of decrease greater for
girls as a group. But simply looking at gender differences is not
enough. Rates vary considerably by race, ethnicity, and social class,
and large numbers of girls as well as boys leave school before earning a
high school diploma (see Figure 3). Educators are rightly focused on
ensuring high-quality instruction, developing new and improved
curricular materials, and creating more engaging school environments.
But educators alone cannot address the multiple factors that influence
students who drop out, nor can they conduct the kinds of community
outreach that can help young people find alternative routes to
completing their education.

20102_52_authorsEN: Is it all boys who are struggling or particular
subsets of boys (like poor minority boys)?

RW: That's the challenge raised by those who question whether boys are
in trouble: this is all about income and race, not gender, they argue.
It's true that the gender gaps are especially sharp in urban areas. In
July 2009, the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern
University released a study that tracked the students who graduated from
Boston Public Schools in 2007. The conclusion: for every 167 women in
four-year colleges there were only 100 men. Is poverty the cause? The
male and female students came from similar streets and neighborhoods. Is
race the only issue? That's not what the study uncovered. In fact, black
females were five percentage points more likely to pursue further study
after high school, including community colleges, four-year colleges, and
technical or vocational schools, than white males.

Gender gaps are especially profound for poor and minority males. It's
what Chicago researcher Melissa Roderick calls the "genderization of
race." Roughly translated: you won't solve racial learning gaps unless
you tackle the gender gaps. Unfortunately, school accountability regimes
such as No Child Left Behind keep educators fixated solely on learning
gaps associated with race and income.

Now let's shift to the comfortable suburban districts, where both boys
and girls go on to college at a high rate. Educators there see few
problems, so they rarely break out the numbers by gender. There are a
few exceptions. When school officials in two districts serving wealthy
families--Edina outside Minneapolis and Wilmette outside Chicago--took a
hard look at their gender numbers, they found wide and growing gaps. The
Wilmette data were very specific, showing girls ahead in both grades and
test scores.

If nearly all the students there go to college anyway, does this matter?
I argue that it does. A considerable number of those boys get into
selective private colleges due to gender preferences granted males by
admissions officers, a practice that is both concealed and widespread.
Uncovering the preferences is relatively easy. Take the U.S. News &
World Report data and sort admission rates by gender. Still skeptical?
Look at the most recent freshman class and break out high school
grade-point averages by gender. To win admission at many private
colleges (and some publics willing to risk lawsuits), females had to be
more academically adept than males.

Colleges are about to be "called out" for these admissions preferences
that discriminate against women and mask the problem of boys falling
behind in school. In November, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
announced an investigation into the practice. Although the commission
lacks the legal authority to act on the discrimination, mere
exposure--triggering outrage from high school girls--may force colleges to
curtail the favoritism.

What happens to these less-qualified males once they're in college? Many
continue their slack habits from high school, explaining much of the
gender gap in college persistence rates, which count those who earn
degrees within six years.

SMB: Race, sex, and income issues interact in complicated ways. NAEP
(National Assessment of Educational Progress) data indicate that income
and race gaps are larger than gender gaps in reading and in math scores
at 8th grade, and this pattern holds for other comparisons as well. In
fact, socioeconomic status has long been the single best predictor of
educational success.

Teachers may be encouraging all students to continue their education
beyond high school, but the message may be heard differently by male and
female students, and moderated by race and income. Recent data from a
study we are doing here at Wellesley Centers for Women with a large,
racially diverse sample of low-income students in a large urban school
district found that 95 percent of students, both boys and girls, aspired
to attend college when asked in 9th and 10th grade. But if their actual
college enrollment rates are in line with past district figures, far
fewer will enroll in college and the numbers for young men will be lower
than for young women.

Higher male dropout rates are part of the problem, but the wider range
of better paid jobs open to young men immediately after high school has
also been influential. Enlisting in the military after high school is an
option for both sexes, but more young men than young women sign up for
the armed forces. Many of these recruits are attracted by the higher
education benefits the military offers. They may not be rejecting
postsecondary education, but rather simply choosing a different pathway.

EN: Isn't the problem more complex: boys are learning more math and
science and girls are learning more reading?

RW: When you examine state tests, which are far better than NAEP for
measuring gender gaps because they test every student every year in most
grades, you see that girls have pulled even with boys in math and
science. In some cases, they outscore boys in those subjects. At the
same time, you see wide gaps in reading and very wide gaps in writing.

Haven't boys always lagged behind girls in literacy skills? Yes, but
literacy skills never mattered so much as they do today. In 1989 the
nation's governors met in Charlottesville, Virginia, to launch the
school reforms we see today. Essentially, the goal was to put as many
students as possible on a college preparation track. The key tools
needed to succeed in college courses, arts or sciences, are the
abilities to read quickly and accurately and write with precision and
accuracy. The governors were right to set that goal, and educators were
right to respond by teaching those skills in kindergarten and 1st grade.
The problem arose when nobody realized that boys are ill-equipped to
acquire those skills that early, at least not with the teaching methods
used in the past. As a result, too many boys fall behind, conclude that
school is for girls, and never try to catch up. Once boys shift their
attention to video games or hip-hop music, parents and educators
erroneously conclude those factors trigger the problem. In fact, boys
bury themselves in games after seeing few rewards for them in school.

Educators haven't even started redesigning the early grades to help boys
absorb early literacy skills. Why this is not happening is unclear. Why
has the Department of Education refused to launch a single research
project into boy's academic problems? The most likely answer: at a time
when men rule the White House and Wall Street, helping males, including
young boys, would amount to a political correctness violation.

SMB: I differ with Richard on NAEP. NAEP tests are specifically designed
to produce reliable, comparable data over time. State tests are not. And
the NAEP data are clear, if not as dramatic as some selected state data:
boys, on average, perform less well than girls on tests of reading and
writing skills and low-income boys do less well than higher-income boys.
NAEP data also show that the gaps favor boys in science and math. While
smaller than those favoring girls in reading, the gaps have by no means
disappeared and they grow larger as students age (see Figure 1).

20102_52_fig1Despite widespread concern about boys' literacy skills, we
rarely look seriously at the lingering gender stereotypes that play out
every day in our schools, homes, and communities. As Richard indicates,
gendered assumptions about literacy are at the heart of the problem, in
much the same ways that gendered assumptions about science and math have
inhibited girls' persistence and achievement in these areas. It's a
"girl thing" to read; real boys don't sit around with a book. Parenting
practices contribute to this; from an early age mothers read more to
their children than do fathers. In fact, as Lise Eliot delineates in her
new book, Pink Brain, Blue Brain, the way people interact with babies is
based on assumptions about gender differences that have little basis in
biology, but are part and parcel of our earliest socialization. "Little
boys need more physical activity," "little girls are more social," "boys
are better at math than girls"--the dichotomies are endless, and they are
as dangerous as they are baseless.

Girls who do what boys have traditionally done, who become astronauts,
scientists, firefighters, or soldiers, are doing things that almost
everyone sees as "moving up." The reverse is not true. It is no longer
legal to advertise job openings under "female" or "male" headings, but
our culture still tends to classify many jobs this way. Women make up 83
percent of librarians and 92 percent of nurses; only 15 of the Fortune
500 companies are headed by female CEOs; and women hold only 17 of 100
seats in the U.S. Senate.

Gender expectations limit both boys and girls, and at this point they
may constrain young boys even more than they do girls. One of the most
damaging expectations is that doing well in school is for girls. Until
we confront the reality that many boys fear being viewed as less than
"all boy" when achieving academically, we will only be playing around
the edges of the problem.

EN: Are the problems more apparent in elementary or secondary schooling?
Are there particular subjects or activities where boys are faring
especially well or especially poorly?

RW: In general, girls arrive in kindergarten far more ready than boys to
engage the verbal-rich curriculum that awaits them. By the end of
elementary school, the gaps become significant, and in middle school
they widen, in part because many schools don't teach literacy skills
after 6th grade, only "literature." In 9th grade, where poorly prepared
boys first encounter the full force of the college-readiness curriculum,
you can see a pileup, or bulge, as 9th-grade classes are far larger than
8th-grade classes, the result of students being retained before entering
10th grade.

Nationally, there are 113 boys in 9th grade for every 100 girls,
according to the Southern Regional Education Board. Among African
Americans, there are 123 boys for every 100 girls. States are
discovering that 9th grade has become their biggest dropout year. By
11th grade many boys begin to revive academically, but it's too late to
recover from their poorer grades in 9th and 10th grades.

Gender gaps are not an issue that can be easily sorted out by subject.
High school girls outperform boys in many of the Advanced Placement
subjects, including many of the sciences. The exceptions are physics and
computer science, where boys tend to do better. Skeptics of the "boy
troubles" point to SAT scores, where males outperform females, without
acknowledging the gender imbalances in the test-takers: far more poor
and minority girls than boys take that test.

SMB: The differences between boys and girls as they enter school have
been vastly exaggerated. Yes, girls, on average, are more verbally adept
at age five, but this difference is not particularly large, and many
young boys are as ready to read as the girls sitting next to them. Often
lost in the discussion of girls' advantages is the reality that boys
outperform girls on tests of visual and spatial abilities, and do at
least as well on tests of mathematical skills at this age, and these
differences widen as they advance in school.

However, on measures of fine motor skills and self-control, girls
usually perform better than boys, and these skills clearly contribute to
early school success. Classrooms that use manipulative materials to
practice spatial skills are as necessary as those that give special
attention to literacy skills for students in need of help in that area.
Literacy is critical and boys need encouragement and support, but this
does not mean that all girls are fine readers and it certainly does not
mean that gaps in science and math that show girls at a disadvantage
should be dismissed. When more than 75 percent of undergraduate degrees
in the highly paid fields of computer science and engineering are
awarded to young men, the majority of them white, the idea that we no
longer need focus on these issues for girls and for students of color
does not hold up.

Looking carefully at the gendered assumptions that underlie our
education system gives us a clearer picture not only of the problems
confronting boys in attaining competencies in reading and writing, but
of a range of school problems that include gender violence, the
continuing imbalance favoring boys in school athletics, and the
over-referral of boys--particularly boys of color--and the under-referral
of girls, to special education programs. Each of these issues reflects
assumptions about the "appropriate" roles of men and women. No
discussion of educational equity can ignore the rising rates of dating
violence, sexual harassment, and bullying in our schools. When young men
and boys think that it is acceptable to verbally harass or physically
attack girls under the guise of "manliness," something is decidedly out
of kilter. Educators must do more to help both boys and girls see beyond
this dangerous construction of masculinity.

20102_52_fig2aEN: Do boys learn differently than girls? Are schools
better organized for the ways in which girls learn? Or is the problem
something in American culture writ large?

RW: This is not an American issue. In England and Australia, the gender
gap is a topic of regular newspaper stories. What's interesting in
England is the attention paid to the especially sharp decline in
educational performance among white boys from blue-collar families. You
can see that in this country as well, with steeply growing college-going
gender gaps within that group. The issue in Australia came to a head in
2003 when the government issued a lengthy report on the topic. The
conclusion: literacy skills are the culprit. Researchers in England have
reached roughly the same conclusion.

In the United States the federal government has never investigated the
issue, most likely because it is considered "controversial." When the
issue arises, the basic premise that boys are in trouble gets attacked
by national feminist groups or professors from women's studies
departments. Their attitude is understandable: the first to point out
that boys were in trouble were conservatives, who blamed the feminists
for creating school environments that were hostile to boys. I find no
evidence that feminists are to blame for the problem. Their only "fault"
lies in continuing to deny that the problem exists.

SMB: Different children learn differently, but differences between
individual boys and between individual girls are much larger than those
between girls as a group and boys as a group. Expectations based on
gender remain rampant in American culture, and indeed, in cultures
around the world. As Richard notes, there has been significant attention
paid to the boy half of gender issues in England and Australia.
Researchers in England who have studied a range of sociocultural
approaches to the problem of boys' achievement report that one of the
most successful involves directly addressing the "lad culture." By
helping boys who are seen as leaders in their peer group improve in
school, they create a climate where other boys see academic achievement
as "cool." Exam grades for boys in schools in the study increased
significantly.

Creating an environment where academic achievement is seen as something
all boys, as well as all girls, should aspire to is critical. In those
U.S. school systems where boys do well, this is invariably the case. The
majority of these schools are in more affluent districts, where parents
have college degrees and encourage their sons and their daughters to do
well academically, or in less advantaged communities where the community
itself has rallied behind educational goals. The culture of the school
reflects the culture of the surrounding community. We need more public
discussion of the value of education and its multiple individual and
societal benefits. When we talk only of test scores and economic
rewards, we present too narrow a view.

20102_52_fig2bEN: Is it a problem that so few teachers are men?

RW: Male teachers continue to disappear from classrooms. Their numbers
are at 24 percent, a record low. What's interesting is the rapid
disappearance of male teachers from the middle school classrooms.
Elementary schools never had many male teachers and high schools still
retain a respectable number of males. In some middle schools, however,
you simply won't find a male teacher. Combine that with the fact that
middle school is the time when the gender gaps widen the most and you
have an obvious culprit, right? I don't buy it. It wouldn't hurt to have
more male teachers, especially in the middle school years, but I'm not
convinced that suddenly boosting the number of male teachers would close
any gender gaps.

Some researchers (see "The Why Chromosome," research, Fall 2006) have
documented modest gains made by boys taught by male teachers, but in
researching my book I found that the schools that educate boys as well
as girls pay little or no attention to the gender of the teacher.
Rather, they pour enormous resources into how literacy is taught.

SMB: It is not surprising that there are so few male teachers. K-12
teaching remains a "woman's job," with a limited career path and poor
pay considering the preparation required. Questions laced with
homophobia about why a man would want to teach children are rampant. The
more advanced the education level, the more men in the teaching ranks.
At the university level the balance has shifted entirely, with women
significantly underrepresented among tenured faculty. Excellent teaching
is not a matter of gender, but the absence of men in K-12 classrooms
sends subtle messages about what is "female" and "male," influencing
students in ways that remain largely invisible and understudied.

EN: Is single-sex education a viable strategy for addressing the problem?

SMB: Research that examines the effectiveness of single-sex K-12
education and controls for socioeconomic background and degree of
parental involvement, both crucial factors in educational attainment, is
woefully lacking. We must examine curricular programs and teaching
practices used in successful single-sex and coed programs, the kinds of
students they help most, and how these programs and practices can work
for more students in a wider range of settings. An example of this
approach is research showing that girls benefit from science instruction
that relates the material to real-world problems--and so do boys. When
evaluating single-sex education,

we must not ignore a crucial purpose of public education--developing
effective citizens. We need to consider the tradeoffs we may be making
in sex-segregating students, closing off opportunities for learning from
and with each other.

RW: Here's my problem with single-sex education: The Bush Department of
Education flipped on the green light for public schools to carry out
single-sex education, but never commissioned a single study that would
instruct schools on how to do it. (I'm choosing my words carefully here:
meta-analyses of single-sex education don't guide classroom
instruction.) Some states--South Carolina comes to mind, which was
determined to do something for their flailing boys--gave that green light
a broad embrace, unleashing several hundred programs. Unfortunately, not
that many of those programs are first-rate. And if academic
breakthroughs don't materialize, those single-sex programs will be
dismantled, perhaps prematurely.

20102_52_fig3EN: Are there programs that are much more effective for
boys? What are the traits or approaches that they have in common?

RW: Most important is a refusal to let students slip behind. I see a lax
attitude toward males, "Don't worry, Mom, boys will be boys. Your son
will catch up," as the single biggest problem. In fact, a lot of boys
never do catch up. Two of the schools I profile in Why Boys Fail weren't
even aware they were closing gender gaps; that wasn't their goal. Their
goal was to focus on literacy skills and refuse to let any child slip
behind. They took great pride in their success and seemed surprised when
it was pointed out they had leveled the gender gaps.

SMB: Research studies on effective schools have shown remarkably similar
findings for 30 years. Schools that set high standards for all, involve
parents, provide firm discipline and an orderly, encouraging
environment, and where teachers are respected and engaged are more
successful. Such schools do not as easily fall into the black hole of
differential expectations for girls and boys, or one racial or ethnic
group over another.

EN: What other options might policymakers or reformers consider?

SMB: We should take a page from the successful, ongoing efforts that
address the lingering lag in girls' and women's participation in STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields and
leadership positions: 1) mentoring and role-modeling programs that
involve more men in schools, particularly men who hold other than
traditionally male jobs so that students see men in a variety of
careers; 2) a national fathers' reading campaign to engage more fathers
in reading to their children; and 3) increased funding for innovative
programs that engage students in literacy activities in and out of
school. When "reading like a girl" is as acceptable for boys as doing
science and math well is becoming for girls, we will begin to make real
progress toward gender-equitable education for all our students.

RW: The U.S. Department of Education needs to launch an Australian-style
investigation into the boys problem. Once the key issues are identified,
follow-on research projects can target specific teaching strategies for
teachers. One critical need: national research into what works and
doesn't work with single-sex education.

Not all the solutions lie within the K-12 world, however. Colleges
should eliminate from high school grade-point averages the results from
9th grade--when many boys struggle to make the transition from middle
school. And colleges need to step in to help make badly needed
adjustments to K-12 accountability systems. State high school graduation
standards don't match college readiness requirements. Given the higher
college dropout rates for men, that mismatch appears to be hurting males
the most.

Gregory Elacqua
--
Sub-director
Centro de Políticas Comparadas de Educación
Universidad Diego Portales
56-2-676-8535
www.cpce.cl

El artículo adjunto comenta un estudio de un grupo de sociólogos que trata de entender la inclinación liberal de la mayoría los académicos.

Gregory

--------------------------
NYTimes
January 18, 2010
Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left
By PATRICIA COHEN

The overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors has been explained by everything from outright bias to higher I.Q. scores. Now new research suggests that critics may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of looking at why most professors are liberal, they should ask why so many liberals -- and so few conservatives -- want to be professors.

A pair of sociologists think they may have an answer: typecasting. Conjure up the classic image of a humanities or social sciences professor, the fields where the imbalance is greatest: tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular -- and liberal. Even though that may be an outdated stereotype, it influences younger people's ideas about what they want to be when they grow up.

Jobs can be typecast in different ways, said Neil Gross and Ethan Fosse, who undertook the study. For instance, less than 6 percent of nurses today are men. Discrimination against male candidates may be a factor, but the primary reason for the disparity is that most people consider nursing to be a woman's career, Mr. Gross said. That means not many men aspire to become nurses in the first place -- a point made in the recent Lee Daniels film "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire." When John (Lenny Kravitz) asks the 16-year-old Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) and her friends whether they've ever seen a male nurse before, all answer no amid giddy laughter.

Nursing is what sociologists call "gender typed." Mr. Gross said that "professors and a number of other fields are politically typed." Journalism, art, fashion, social work and therapy are dominated by liberals; while law enforcement, farming, dentistry, medicine and the military attract more conservatives.

"These types of occupational reputations affect people's career aspirations," he added in a telephone interview from his office at the University of British Columbia. Mr. Fosse, his co-author, is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard.

The academic profession "has acquired such a strong reputation for liberalism and secularism that over the last 35 years few politically or religiously conservative students, but many liberal and secular ones, have formed the aspiration to become professors," they write in the paper, "Why Are Professors Liberal?" That is especially true of their own field, sociology, which has become associated with "the study of race, class and gender inequality -- a set of concerns especially important to liberals."

What distinguishes Mr. Gross and Mr. Fosse's research from so much of the hubbub that surrounds this subject is their methodology. Whereas most arguments have primarily relied on anecdotes, this is one of the only studies to use data from the General Social Survey of opinions and social behaviors and compare professors with the rest of Americans.

Mr. Gross and Mr. Fosse linked those empirical results to the broader question of why some occupations -- just like ethnic groups or religions -- have a clear political hue. Using an econometric technique, they were then able to test which of the theories frequently bandied about were supported by evidence and which were not.

Intentional discrimination, one of the most frequent and volatile charges made by conservatives, turned out not to play a significant role.

To understand how a field gets typecast, one has to look at its history.

From the early 1950s William F. Buckley Jr. and other founders of the

modern conservative movement railed against academia's liberal bias. Buckley even published a regular column, "From the Academy," in the magazine he founded, The National Review.

"Conservatives weren't just expressing outrage," Mr. Gross said, "they were also trying to build a conservative identity." They defined themselves in opposition to the New Deal liberals who occupied the establishment's precincts. Hence Buckley's quip in the early 1960s: "I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."

In the 1960s college campuses, swelled by the large baby-boom generation, became a staging ground for radical leftist social and political movements, further moving the academy away from conservatism.

Typecasting, of course, is not the only cause for the liberal tilt. The characteristics that define one's political orientation are also at the fore of certain jobs, the sociologists reported. Nearly half of the political lopsidedness in academia can be traced to four characteristics that liberals in general, and professors in particular, share: advanced degrees; a nonconservative religious theology (which includes liberal Protestants and Jews, and the nonreligious); an expressed tolerance for controversial ideas; and a disparity between education and income.

The mismatch between schooling and salary complements a theory that the Harvard professor Louis Menand raises in his new book "The Marketplace of Ideas." He argues that the way higher education was structured by progressive reformers in the late 19th century is partly responsible for the political uniformity of today. In the view of the early reformers, the only way to ensure that quality, rather than profit, would be rewarded was to protect the profession from outside competition. The tradeoff for lower salaries was control; professors decide who gets to enter their profession and who doesn't.

The tendency of people in any institution or organization to try to fit in also reinforces the political one-sidedness. In "The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope and Reforms," a collection of essays published by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group, Daniel B. Klein, an economist at George Mason University in Virginia, and Charlotta Stern, a sociologist at Stockholm University, argue that when it comes to hiring, "the majority will tend to support candidates like them in the matter of fundamental beliefs, values and commitments."

Other contributors to the book, Matthew Woessner and April Kelly-Woessner, who are husband and wife, also found that conservatives are less interested in pursuing advanced degrees than liberals.

Mr. Gross and Mr. Fosse have not yet published their results, but experts in the field have vetted their research and methods. Michèle Lamont, a Harvard professor and the author of "How Professors Think," said, "I think their paper is very, very sophisticated and quite original." She added that the theory better fits some disciplines, like literature and sociology, than others, like business or economics.

Mitchell L. Stevens, a professor of education at Stanford University, who also reviewed the research, finds the theory promising. Choosing an occupation is part of fashioning an identity, Mr. Stevens said, noting that people think of themselves as a "corporate type" or a free spirit, which is why you might find highly educated graduates working as bartenders instead of in an office.

He added that the gender-typing of a field like physics might also partly explain the dearth of women in it, another subject that has provoked heated disputes.

To Mr. Gross, accusations by conservatives of bias and student brainwashing are self-defeating. "The irony is that the more conservatives complain about academia's liberalism," he said, "the more likely it's going to remain a bastion of liberalism."

Adjunto una serie de columnas, artículos y entrevistas bastante críticas sobre los programas de educación y, de otras areas, de los candidatos presidenciales en Chile. 

Gregory
http://www.cpce.cl/educar/

-----------------------------------------

La Segunda
Segmentos clave IV: Andrea, la vendedora de isapre
http://blogs.lasegunda.com/thinktank/2010/01/06/segmentos-clave-iv-andrea-la-v.asp

Cristóbal Aninat y Gregory Elacqua
Expansiva-UDP

Hace poco, como parte de un estudio sobre segmentación electoral, entrevistamos a Andrea (40 años). Ella vive sola con su hija de 12 años en el sector poniente de la capital, se dedica a vender planes de una isapre durante el día y estudia ingeniería comercial en un programa vespertino de la Universidad de Las Américas en la noche. Es la primera persona de su familia en llegar a la educación superior.

A pesar del esfuerzo que le significa pagar el dividendo de su departamento, la matrícula universitaria y la cuota de financiamiento compartido del colegio particular subvencionado de su hija, Andrea es optimista sobre su futuro. Dice que no se identifica con ninguna coalición política. Sin embargo, hasta esta elección, siempre ha votado por la Concertación, a la que considera responsable del progreso de Chile en las últimas décadas. No obstante, en diciembre votó por ME-O y, si bien aún no está decidida, cree que votará por Piñera en segunda vuelta.

Las características y el comportamiento electoral de Andrea son bastante representativos del votante promedio de la clase media aspiracional, el 22% del padrón. Según el CEP, el voto de clase media históricamente ha sido disputado entre ambas coaliciones; sin embargo, en esta elección Frei desciende drásticamente en este segmento, perdiendo más del 20% de los votos de clase media obtenidos por Lagos y Bachelet, y estando 25% por debajo de los logrados en diciembre por Piñera y casi 10% por debajo de ME-O.

¿Por qué Andrea no está votando por Frei? Hasta ahora, la campaña de Frei no ha logrado conectar con las aspiraciones ni la identidad de votantes como ella.

Frei propone dar un trato preferencial a las Ues estatales, cuando la mayoría estudia en una institución privada. Su programa destaca que va a fortalecer la educación pública, pero los padres de la clase media envían a sus hijos mayoritariamente a colegios particulares subvencionados. Su discurso público enfatiza la dicotomía Estado versus mercado, cuando la clase media vive inmersa en el mercado y recibe poco del Estado. Frei ha puesto las reformas políticas al centro de su programa, mientras las encuestas indican que la clase media no menciona este tema como uno de los problemas a los que debería dedicar su mayor esfuerzo el Gobierno.

Si la campaña de Frei de segunda vuelta que recién comienza no logra revertir esta tendencia y conectar con ciudadanos como Andrea, que representan más de un tercio de los votantes de ME-O, le entregará la presidencia a Piñera a pesar de la satisfacción de estos grupos con la obra de la Concertación.

Ver serie en http://blogs.lasegunda.com/thinktank/expansiva-udp/aninat-cristobal/
---------------------------

http://mt.educarchile.cl/MT/jjbrunner/archives/2009/12/politicas_educa_1.html
Diciembre 04, 2009
Políticas educacionales 2010-2014: Eduardo Frei
José Joaquín Brunner

Más abajo, los párrafos destinados a sus propuestas educacionales en el discurso de Eduardo Frei ante la ENADE (Texto completo del discurso en: http://www.efrei.cl/sites/default/files/enade.pdf).

Se transcriben aquí pues la camapaña del abanderado de la Concertación no ha sido demasiado explícita en cuanto a sus objetivos educacionales, a pesar de ser este sector --se dice-- la pioridad de un próximo gobierno concertacionista.

Llama la atención, al leer la concepción de reforma educativa expuesta por Eduardo Frei a la reunión empresarial, que ella se refiera casi exclusivamente a la educación estatal, en una sociedad donde --entre otras cosas, en virtud de sus políticas en un anterior gobierno-- se ha consolidado un sistema de provisión mixta con predominio de proveedores privados subvencionados e independientes. Asimismo, que el nuevo rol estatal de garante y supervisor de la (calidad de la) educación, objetivo de suyo legítimo, no vaya precedido de un plan de radical reforma y renovación del Ministerio de Educación.


Nuestras políticas hacia la educación

El eje central de nuestro programa de gobierno es la reforma de la educación. Nos hemos puesto la meta de una reforma que tenga dos ejes.

· Primero, el fortalecimiento del rol del Estado como garante de la calidad en la educación privada y pública, a todo nivel, desde el nivel pre-escolar al nivel superior.

· Segundo, el fortalecimiento de la educación pública para recuperarla como un espacio democrático y de excelencia.
Nuestra propuesta ha sido trabajada con mucho detalle y desde un punto de vista presupuestario se propone duplicar el gasto en educación en términos reales en 10 años, adicionando US$ 1,500 millones de dólares anuales
adicionales al presupuesto público en educación durante mi gobierno. En la actualidad el gasto público en educación
como porcentaje del PIB en Chile fluctúa en el rango 3-4%. En 10 años queremos que esté en el rango 5-6% que es
más parecido a lo que tienen los países desarrollados.

La reforma que proponemos tiene muchos elementos pero quisiera, en virtud del tiempo, destacar cuatro.

Primero, queremos establecer una Nueva Carrera Profesional Docente de Excelencia, bajo la cual los profesores lleguen a ganar salarios comparables a las profesiones más prestigiosas de nuestro país. Queremos reestablecer el rol de prestigio y honor de nuestros profesores en la sociedad. Y para ello queremos que esta carrera sea, además, extremadamente desafiante y exigente: con exámenes de acreditación, evaluaciones de desempeño frecuentes, y un sistema de antigüedad que premie con derechos a los profesores que acumulen en el tiempo éxitos académicos y profesionales.

Segundo, queremos establecer un Sistema de Gestión Educativa Descentralizada de Excelencia, que establezca requerimientos y obligaciones a los sostenedores de colegios, sean estos públicos o privados. Queremos cuadros directivos profesionalizados, claro establecimiento de objetivos, seguimiento de logros y planificación estratégica. Y para los casos de sostenedores que no tienen la escala para lograr estos estándares, queremos establecer un sistema de instrumentos de asociatividad, para fomentar que en forma cooperativa se alcance la escala necesaria para ello.

Tercero, queremos establecer una política de fortalecimiento de las universidades del Estado. Queremos reestablecerlas como un instrumento de política de pública. Reconociendo que ellas tienen enormes grados de heterogeneidad, queremos establecer un plan de fortalecimiento académico en que el Estado se compromete a entregarles más recursos a cambio de reformas en su gobierno corporativo y en el desempeño de sus académicos.

Pero, además, queremos exigirles más cosas a las universidades del Estado. Queremos que ellas asuman la responsabilidad de establecer en conjunto con los gremios empresariales de regiones, centros de formación técnica e institutos profesionales de excelencia además de academias de educación para los trabajadores. Queremos que ellas asuman la responsabilidad de ofrecer carreras de pedagogía de calidad, especialmente en regiones. Queremos que ellas asuman la responsabilidad de garantizar la existencia de canales de televisión y radios públicas de contenido cultural en regiones. Queremos entregar más recursos a las universidades del Estado, si, pero les vamos a demandar más cosas y mejor gobierno.

Cuarto, queremos revolucionar la capacitación en este país. Queremos pasar de un sistema en que los trabajadores esporádicamente toman cursos para perfeccionarse en cosas relativamente específicas a un Sistema de Educación para los Trabajadores integrado con la educación media técnico profesional y la educación superior técnico profesional que establezca la educación para toda la vida como un derecho de los trabajadores. El otro día fuimos a INFOCAP y asumimos un compromiso con los trabajadores allí: queremos un país en que todos los trabajadores sean estudiantes. No es poco. No hemos escuchado que los otros candidatos hayan asumido un compromiso como el nuestro: hacer de la educación el tema central de la vida del trabajador chileno. Y para partir con este plan queremos implementar un plan masivo de nivelación de estudios y re-alfabetización adulta que triplique el esfuerzo actual en esta área y les entregue premios a las familias de los trabajadores que abordan esta tarea.

----------------

Propuestas de candidatos presidenciales
José Joaquín Brunner

cand_meo.jpgcand_EF.jpgcand_SP.jpg


Ya en una oportunidad anterior nos referimos a las propuestas educacionales de los principales candidatos a la presidencia, observando de paso su carácter aún demasiado genérico que, decíamos, dificultaba su evaluación.

Ayer en el diaro La Segunda (21 de agosto 2009) se contiene un reportaje que da a conocer "los temas principales con que [los candidatos] pretenden conquistar al electorado". La educación aparece como uno de estos temas. [Ver más abajo los planteamientos]

Si bien se mantiene el carácter esencialmente retórico de las propuestas, al tenor de su presentación de ayer se perfilan desde ya algunas diferencias en el terreno simbólico-polémico y programático.

La propuesta más concreta, al momento, es la de Enríquez-Ominami. Las otras dos aparecen aún en exceso generales.

La de Frei llama la atención por su tono ingenua y nostágicamente estatizante, que contrasta con las posiciones modernizadoras que bien se sabe fueron en este sector la marca de fábrica de la gestión del gobierno Frei durante el período 1994-2000.

Las formulaciones de Piñera no presentan mayor novedad, salvo su insistencia en la necesidad de doblar la subvención escolar en ocho años (o sea, ¿aumentarla en 50% durante el próximo período presidencial?)

En cambio, todas las propuestas subrayan la necesidad de modificar el estatuto docente, sin dar mayores detalles sobre cómo se espera en la práctica lograr este objetivo.

A continuación se transcriben los puntos programáticos que destacan las candidaturas de Frei, Piñera y Enríquez-Ominami en el reportaje de La Segunda, ajustando solamente la diagramación para facilitar la lectura y comparación.


Eduardo Frei

Bajo el título de Revolución educativa, Frei introduce su propuesta con el siguiente enunciado:

El mercado tuvo su oportunidad en la Educación y perdió. Es por ello que el Estado debe garantizar el derecho a una educación de calidad para todos los niños y niñas de Chile. Para eso es necesario hacer dos cosas.

Primero, una intervención muy grande del Estado en este sector para:

-- promover una educación pública de calidad, y

-- exigirle más calidad a los sostenedores privados, pues hemos aprendido que si no los apretamos, no dan buena educación.

-- Los sustanciales recursos que estamos asignando (la totalidad de las holguras presupuestarias existentes) serán condicionados a mejor gestión educativa.

Segundo, es necesario cambiar la carrera docente:

-- En este cambio respetaremos los derechos adquiridos,

-- haremos al Colegio de Profesores socio de este cambio estructural.

-- La nueva carrera docente estará basada en salarios más elevados pero con medición regular de la calidad de la enseñanza

-- y aumentos de salarios en relación a mayores niveles de capacitación y perfeccionamiento.


Sebastián Piñera

El candidato sitúa su propuesta educacional dentro del área Chile de oportunidades, que prologa con la siguiente visión del país:

Volveremos a crecer al 6% promedio anual y crearemos un millón de empleos productivos en el período 2010-2014. Para ello, incentivaremos la inversión, llevándola del 22% al 28% del PNB, promoveremos la innovación, el emprendimiento, la ciencia y la tecnología, simplificaremos la burocracia, extenderemos el subsidio a la contratación a mujeres, discapacitados y otros sectores vulnerables y daremos nuevo trato a las Pymes según su realidad y problemas.Pero debemos asumir el desafío de mejorar la calidad de la educación y fortalecer la familia. Así:
-- duplicaremos en 8 años la subvención escolar, privilegiando a los alumnos vulnerables.

-- Flexibilizaremos el estatuto docente, premiando a los muchos profesores que lo hacen bien, capacitando y formando mejor a los futuros educadores.

-- Fortaleceremos el liderazgo de los directores, y la información y participación de los padres.

-- Modernizaremos contenidos y métodos, y exigiremos a los alumnos que estudien más y mejor.


Marco Enríquez-Ominami

Su planteamiento para la educación aparece presidido por la idea: Educar personas y no mano de obra, que se inspira en la siguiente visión:

la sociedad chilena es «de privilegios» y debe avanzar a ser una de «oportunidades».

-- El nuevo trato docente que planteamos implica entregar mayores facultades, herramientas económicas y administrativas a los profesores:

-- Queremos equiparar las horas lectivas con las de preparación,
-- Aumentar recursos para la formación y post formación
-- La disminución progresiva de los alumnos por curso para cumplir con el estándar OCDE, y
-- Proponemos revisar el Estatuto Docente, el que no será necesario con este nuevo trato.

-- Junto con esto, proponemos una inversión de US$ 1.900 millones en infraestructura, y

-- La «desmunicipalización» de la educación, para que los establecimientos sean administrados por unidades territoriales capaces de generar economías de escala necesarias para maximizar las posibilidades de negociación con sus proveedores y optimizar la entrega de recursos.

---------------

Noviembre 16, 2009
Entrevista sobre la coyuntura educacional y los programas presidenciales en educación
José Joaquín Brunner
DiarioFinan.jpg

"Los programas de los candidatos presidenciales tienen miles de ideas, pero son muy débiles"
josé joaquín brunner analiza las propuestas en materia de educación de los abanderados
J.Aracena/S.Celedón, Diario Financiero, Lunes 16 de noviembre de 2009

Ex ministro secretario general de Gobierno y actual director del Centro de Políticas Comparadas en Educación de la UDP, afirma que con el paro de los docentes "nadie ganó y nadie puede ganar." A su juicio, "los partidos políticos han jugado a lo más fácil: la demagogia y el populismo".

A menos de un mes de la elección presidencial, crítica y escéptica es la visión que tiene el ex ministro secretario general de Gobierno, José Joaquín Brunner, respecto de las propuestas en materia educacional que han realizado los candidatos.

Es que a juicio del investigador sobre estas materias y actual director del Centro de Políticas Comparadas en Educación de la Universidad Diego Portales, "falta una visión más global e integral del tipo de reforma que se quiere impulsar".

De paso, sostiene que "en cuatro años es imposible completar una reforma. De ahí, la necesidad de tener claro qué es lo que se busca implementar".

- ¿Qué ha echado de menos en las propuestas de los abanderados?

- Los programas de los candidatos presidenciales tienen miles de ideas, pero son muy débiles. Son una especie de menú de medidas a aplicar. Sin embargo, no existe una visión integral sobre cómo darle un impulso al sistema para que éste dé un salto en calidad. Las propuestas, en general, son relativamente parecidas y no veo un marco sobre lo que se quiere hacer.

- ¿En qué tipo de materias?

- Por ejemplo, ninguno de los candidatos dice qué les tomará mayor tiempo durante estos próximos cuatro años, cualquiera que sea el que gane. Me refiero a poner en marcha lo que está dispuesto en la Ley General de Educación (LGE) y la norma que crea la Agencia de Calidad y la Superintendencia. Esos son grandes cambios en el sistema escolar, porque hay que implementar una nueva institucionalidad, llenarla de conducción, de personal, de manejo de recursos y crear procedimientos, pero en estas materias tan importantes hay un vacío enorme de los candidatos. Asimismo, hay que hacer una reingeniería del Ministerio de Educación y, al respecto, no veo planteamientos en las propuestas.

Por otra parte, cuando me plantean 30 medidas, a mi juicio se trata de un juego, ya que muchas iniciativas no tienen mucha importancia o, bien, los candidatos no tienen claras sus prioridades.


Gestión de Bachelet

- ¿Cómo evalúa la gestión de la actual administración en materia educacional?

- Hubo una hoja de ruta clara en cuanto a la necesidad de aumentar el gasto en función de objetivos de equidad y eso se tradujo en dos grandes iniciativas: incrementar de manera notable la disponibilidad de vacantes en jardines infantiles, y la aplicación de la subvención escolar preferencial. Por lo tanto, uno podría decir que sí hubo una clara intención del gobierno y una planificación previa, luego veremos los resultados porque para eso es muy temprano todavía.

- ¿Y respecto del trabajo en reformas institucionales?

- En ese aspecto, el gobierno no tenía planificado hacer ninguna modificación mayor, pero se encontró con una movilización estudiantil muy fuerte en 2006. De ahí que tuvo que construir una hoja de ruta paralela para modificar completamente la institucionalidad, en función de la cual aprobó la LGE mediante un acuerdo que fue una gran conquista.

- ¿Cuál es su análisis de la LGE?

- El gobierno condujo adecuadamente este tema en la medida que logró un acuerdo. Respecto de los cambios, estos van en la dirección correcta, ya que el tipo de institucionalidad que surge a partir de la LGE, así como la Agencia de Calidad y la Superintendencia, le darán al sistema escolar una institucionalidad muchísimo más flexible y sólida que la que existía con la LOCE.

- ¿Cuáles fueron las principales debilidades de la administración Bachelet?

- La mayor debilidad es que no hemos enfrentado en serio durante este tiempo dos problemas centrales. Por un lado, la creación de mecanismos para mejorar el desempeño de los profesores, particularmente la evaluación de éstos. Y, segundo, formar directores para las escuelas. Al respecto, la presidenta habló el pasado 21 de mayo y se espera que antes de que finalice su gestión deje establecido un programa. Por otra parte, me habría gustado que se enfrentara con mayor fuerza la transformación del sistema público municipal de educación. Allí, hay problemas de gestión muy serios que no han sido abordados.

- ¿Cómo cuáles?

- El punto acá tiene que ver con que los colegios y sus directores no tienen la suficiente autonomía. Además, los propios municipios -en cuanto a sostenedores- tienen una posición extremadamente ambigua. Por el lado de la educación superior, la mayor debilidad es no haber abordado una reforma al sistema de financiamiento, ya que en esta materia hay problemas estructurales.


Paro de profesores

- ¿Por qué usted ha calificado el paro de profesores como un juego de suma negativa?

- Porque nadie ganó nada y nadie puede ganar nada. Los alumnos -que son los principales sujetos del sistema- pierden, particularmente los más pobres, lo cual es más grave todavía porque son los más dañados por las clases perdidas y la falta de acceso a la alimentación gratuita en todos estos días. Es decir, han perdido las familias.

- ¿Y los profesores?

- Ellos saldrán de esto muy mal. Ante la sociedad han quedado pésimo, han interrumpido el año escolar, han demostrado que su principal interés es defender sus propios asuntos de remuneraciones, pero no preocuparse de su vocación pública y su servicio a los alumnos. Han pedido algo que es completamente infundado. Ellos mismos tuvieron que reconocer que esta deuda no tenía base legal y, entonces, se transformó en una deuda moral y después se habló de compensación o restitución, pero en realidad el Colegio de Profesores apareció defendiendo algo indefendible y poco claro.

- ¿Cómo espera que el próximo gobierno aborde la deuda histórica?

- Los partidos políticos y los parlamentarios, tanto de la oposición como de la Concertación, han jugado a lo más fácil estos días, a la demagogia y el populismo, para no separarse de lo que ellos creen son sus bases y perder los votos de los profesores. Lo que están pidiendo los profesores, ningún gobierno podrían aceptarlo. Sí podría instalarse una mesa para mejorar las remuneraciones, pero esto debe ir de la mano con asumir responsabilidades por el desempeño y dejar de lado toda resistencia frente a la evaluación.


Educación Superior

- ¿Cuáles son las principales críticas que usted plantea en su último libro sobre la educación superior en Chile?

- En la educación superior hay problemas de distinta naturaleza. Uno, la pertinencia de los programas educacionales y de las carreras que ofrecen nuestras instituciones. Es decir, cuán adaptadas están al tipo de competencias que requiere la economía hoy, y eso requiere una revisión a fondo de los currículos. Pero no hay que poner por delante este tema.

- ¿Por qué?

- Porque no me sirve de nada si voy a mantener la arquitectura y la estructura interna del currículum. Lo clave es revisar las competencias que estoy ofreciendo y preocuparme del tipo de tecnologías. En base a esto hay que ajustar los currículos, en algunos casos se justificará menos años y en otros no.

Brunner y su análisis político: "La Concertación debe replantearse en profundidad, gane o pierda"
ex ministro de eduardo frei expresa una crítica visión sobre el oficialismo
Diario Financiero, Lunes 16 de noviembre de 2009

- ¿Cómo ve a la Concertación después de estas elecciones?

- Es inevitable que tras esta elección la Concertación deba replantearse en profundidad, gane o pierda. El replanteamiento más serio consiste en realizar un ejercicio de revalorización de lo que ella a realizado y lo que puede ofrecer. Lo que ha ocurrido en los últimos años es una cuestión extremadamente paradojal. La Concertación se ha vuelto en la principal crítica de lo que se ha hecho durante estos últimos 20 años, con lo cual ha perdido completamente la identidad y capacidad de disciplina. De hecho, lo que ha ocurrido en el Congreso con el proyecto de presupuesto es absolutamente vergonzoso. Ante el país, la Concertación aparece perdiendo su gran virtud, que era darle gobernabilidad a la Concertación, a través de su apoyo leal a las medidas del Presidente. Los hechos demuestran que la Concertación realmente está en una crisis, no solamente política, sino que intelectual y ética en el sentido de comprender cuáles son sus responsabilidades.

- ¿Cuáles son las nuevas banderas de lucha que debiera tener la Concertación?

- Yo creo que la bandera principal de lucha, a pesar que no están muy presentes en ninguna de las candidaturas, debiera ser una propuesta muy potente para impulsar el crecimiento del país y la competitividad. La Concertación tuvo propuestas bien fuertes en esos campos durante los últimos 20 años, pero no parece tenerlo claro para los próximos años, más bien anda ahí enredada en problemas ideológicos completamente del siglo XX, como por ejemplo la pelea entre el Estado y el mercado.

- ¿Esas ideas están presente en el programa de Frei?

- No las veo con fuerza ni en el programa de la Concertación ni en el programa de Piñera, que son las dos candidaturas con mayor coherencia social e histórica. Veo que los dos candidatos están todavía en discusiones del siglo pasado.

Por otra parte, echo de menos propuestas para revitalizar un conjunto de aspectos que son propios del régimen político o de la democracia, de lo cual se habla mucho, pero centrados en el régimen electoral, como si ese fuese el único problema y la verdad es que la crisis de la democracia en el mundo es más profunda, es cómo generar nuevas formas de participación, cómo aprovechar las nuevas tecnologías de información para que la gente participe de otra manera, cómo mejorar la calidad del debate público y restituir el espacio de discusión de las políticas. Esos son grandes temas del futuro de la democracia y creo que han estado bien ausentes de la discusión nuestra de los últimos meses.

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Diciembre 20, 2009
¿Cuánto nos importa la educación superior?

LogoElMercurio.gif Columna publicada en la sección Educación del diario El Mercurio, 21 diciembre 2009.

¿Cuánto nos importa la educación superior?
José Joaquín Brunner

A pesar de los cambios, las altas expectativas que las familias y los jóvenes ponen en ella y la retórica de su importancia para el futuro del país, la verdad es que este sector ocupa un lugar marginal en el debate público.

En las próximas horas comienza el masivo proceso de inscripción de nuevos alumnos en las instituciones de educación superior a lo largo del país. Más de 270 mil estudiantes se agregarán a la matrícula nacional en todos los niveles y programas de la enseñanza terciaria, que para el Bicentenario alcanzará a más de 850 mil estudiantes.

A su turno, este año se graduarán o titularán alrededor de 100 mil técnicos superiores, profesionales e investigadores en las diversas áreas del conocimiento. Estas cifras reflejan un extraordinario avance con respecto a 1990, cuando la matrícula total era de 245 mil alumnos, los nuevos alumnos fueron 40 mil y los titulados en ese año bordeaban apenas los 25 mil.

A pesar de tan impresionantes cambios, de las elevadas expectativas que las familias y los jóvenes ponen en la educación superior y de la habitual retórica sobre su importancia clave para el futuro del país, la verdad es que este sector o industria del conocimiento, como suele llamársele, ocupa un lugar marginal en la agenda y el debate públicos.

Por ejemplo, durante los últimos meses de campaña presidencial -pobre, en general, en cuanto a reflexión sobre los temas de fondo del desarrollo del país- este sector ha estado prácticamente ausente de la discusión. Lo mismo ocurre con la ciencia, la tecnología y la innovación.

Por su lado, el Gobierno, que en su momento encomendó a una comisión asesora proponer políticas para este sector, guardó esa propuesta junto a otro valioso informe preparado por la OCDE. Los partidos políticos se hallan, en general, alejados de las discusiones sobre la educación superior, a pesar de que allí se forman, en su gran mayoría, las élites que durante los próximos 30 años dirigirán la política y la sociedad.

Algo similar ocurre con el empresariado; a diferencia de sus pares de los países de la OCDE, y con escasas excepciones, los empresarios chilenos no participan en la deliberación pública sobre el futuro de este sector donde se crean el conocimiento y el capital humano necesarios para una economía competitiva ni contribuyen significativamente a la inversión en innovación.

También la prensa juega un rol secundario en este ámbito: su información y análisis de la educación superior suele ser superficial, centrándose de preferencia en aspectos llamativos, pero de escasa relevancia.

Incluso las propias instituciones de educación superior alimentan este juego de bajo perfil. En efecto, ellas carecen de una voz representativa en la esfera pública; ni siquiera las universidades han podido reunir una palabra que las exprese en su conjunto. Más bien, su presencia en el debate de políticas suele limitarse a una defensa más o menos encubierta de conquistas corporativas. Tampoco estimulan ellas la investigación sobre aspectos claves de la educación terciaria, tales como las modalidades del financiamiento institucional, la eficiencia interna y externa de las universidades, la reforma curricular y de grados y títulos, la información debida al público, las formas de gobierno de las instituciones, etc.

En suma, mientras durante las últimas dos décadas la educación superior ha devenido uno de los sectores de mayor dinamismo de la sociedad chilena, este dinamismo no se manifiesta ni en la conciencia, ni en la comunicación, ni en la acción de los principales agentes que participan en este sector.

--
Gregory Elacqua
Centro de Políticas Comparadas de Educación
Instituto de Políticas Públicas Expansiva-UDP
Universidad Diego Portales
56-2-676-8535
56-09-6-206-5993
gregory.elacqua@udp.cl
www.cpce.cl

Gauging the Dedication of Teacher Corps Grads

By AMANDA M. FAIRBANKS

Teach for America, a corps of recent college graduates who sign up to teach in some of the nation's most troubled schools, has become a campus phenomenon, drawing huge numbers of applicants willing to commit two years of their lives.

But a new study has found that their dedication to improving society at large does not necessarily extend beyond their Teach for America service.

In areas like voting, charitable giving and civic engagement, graduates of the program lag behind those who were accepted but declined and those who dropped out before completing their two years, according to Doug McAdam, a sociologist at Stanford University, who conducted the study with a colleague, Cynthia Brandt.

The reasons for the lower rates of civic involvement, Professor McAdam said, include not only exhaustion and burnout, but also disillusionment with Teach for America's approach to the issue of educational inequity, among other factors.

The study, "Assessing the Long-Term Effects of Youth Service: The Puzzling Case of Teach for America," is the first of its kind to explore what happens to participants after they leave the program. It was done at the suggestion of Wendy Kopp, Teach for America's founder and president, who disagrees with the findings. Ms. Kopp had read an earlier study by Professor McAdam that found that participants in Freedom Summer -- the 10 weeks in 1964 when civil rights advocates, many of them college students, went to Mississippi to register black voters -- had become more politically active.

"There's been a very clear and somewhat naïve consensus among educators, policy folks and scholars that youth activism invariably has these kinds of effects," Professor McAdam said. "But we've got to be much more attentive to differences across these experiences, and not simply assume that if you give a kid some youth service experience it will change them."

Teach for America is nearing its 20th anniversary. Of its 17,000 alumni, 63 percent remain in the field of education and 31 percent remain in the classroom. (This reporter took part in the program from 2003 to 2005.)

Financed by the William T. Grant Foundation, the study surveyed every person who was accepted by Teach for America from 1993 to 1998. It is being published this month in Social Forces, a journal published by the University of North Carolina.

The study compared "graduates," who completed their two years; "dropouts," who entered the program but left before the two years were up; and "nonmatriculants," who were accepted but declined the offer. It included 1,538 graduates, 324 dropouts and 634 nonmatriculants. Nearly 45 percent of those sampled returned the 34-page survey.

While Teach for America graduates remain far more active than their peer group, the findings indicate that the program neither achieves an earlier organizational goal of "making citizens" nor produces people who, in great numbers, take their civic commitments beyond the field of education.

"To find that Teach for America graduates are more involved in education but are not serving in soup kitchens is interesting but not surprising -- it's consistent with their current mission," said Monica C. Higgins, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard who studies organizational behavior. "They're not trying to make global citizens. They're focused on education."

Professor McAdam's findings that nearly all of Freedom Summer's participants were still engaged in progressive activism when he tracked them down 20 years later have contributed to the widely held notion that civic advocacy and service among the young make for better citizens.

Ms. Kopp, 42, was curious to know whether something similar was occurring with her corps of teachers. But Professor McAdam, 57, said Freedom Summer was the exception, not the rule.

"Freedom Summer is the odd civic experience, and hardly representative of what happens when young people do service," he said. "A lot of the impact of any experience is where it's historically situated."

Rob Reich, 40, an associate professor of political science at Stanford, shares that view.

"Back in the '60s, if you signed up for Freedom Summer, it was perceived to be countercultural," said Professor Reich, who taught sixth grade in Houston as a member of the Teach for America corps. "But unlike doing Freedom Summer, joining Teach for America is part of climbing up the elite ladder -- it's part of joining the system, the meritocracy."

Last year, 35,000 people applied to Teach for America, 42 percent more than in 2008. Further, at more than 20 colleges and universities, Teach for America was the top recruiter. At Harvard, 13 percent of graduating seniors applied. At Spelman College, in Atlanta, 25 percent did.

"It's hard to see the incredible outpouring of interest among this generation and think of it as a lack of civic engagement," Ms. Kopp said.

"Unfortunately," she added, "it doesn't seem as if this study looked at Teach for America's core mission, by evaluating whether we are producing more leaders who believe educational inequity is a solvable problem, who have a deep understanding of the causes and solutions, and who are taking steps to address it in fundamental and lasting ways."

Cami Anderson, 38, who taught in Los Angeles as a corps member in 1993 and participated in Professor McAdam's study, is among the graduates who, relative to their peer group, already exhibited high levels of service before stepping into a classroom.

"Not many of us are heads of large public systems, but we're starting to be," said Ms. Anderson, who is the superintendent of alternative high schools and programs for the New York City Department of Education. "Just give us a few more years."