Parental Empowerment in Mexico: Randomized Experiment of the 'Apoyos a La Gestion Escolar (Age)' Program in Rural Primary Schools in Mexico

Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. 2040 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208. Tel: 202-495-0920; Fax: 202-640-4401; e-mail: inquiries@sree.org; Web site: http://www.sree.org

N

6

Rural Schools; Dropouts; Academic Achievement; School Based Management; Foreign Countries; Parents; Empowerment; Outcomes of Education; Standardized Tests; Experiments; Elementary School Students; Scores

Previous evaluations from Mexico are limited. The urban school-based management program, Programa Escuelas de Calidad (PEC), was analyzed using panel data regression analysis and propensity score matching. Participation in PEC is found to lead to decreases in dropout, failure and repetition rates. An evaluation of the rural parental empowerment program, Apoyo a la Gestion Escolar (AGE) using pre-program data over time and the phased-in introduction to construct an over-time difference-in-difference estimator, and controlling for fixed effects, shows a significant impact on reducing failure and repetition rates. Thus, while there is some evidence on the performance of SBM programs, little is known about their benefits in terms of learning outcomes. Even fewer studies are based on rigorous impact evaluation techniques or investigate the mechanisms through which SBM might affect student performance. It is also not clear in cases where the parental participation is funded through school improvement grants, whether the observed positive effects are due to the extra resources or the organization and empowerment of parents. In this paper, the authors contribute towards filling this gap with results from a three-year randomized evaluation of a parental empowerment program that provides resources and training to parents to improve rural schools in Mexico. The main questions addressed in this paper are: (1) What is the impact of doubling the financial resources that parent committees receive under the program in terms of intermediate school attainment measures such as repetition, dropout and failure rates, in terms of outcomes such as learning as measured from standardized tests? (2) What is the impact of training of parent committees on organizational issues in terms of schooling outcomes? (3) What is the impact of school committees when empowered with resources, training and both in terms of schooling outcomes?

ERIC

25

2012

ED530174