Civil Society and Social Movements: Building Sustainable Democracies in Latin America

                This post is a summary of a book with the complete title above published in 2008 at  http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=1555501

              Over recent decades, the political and social landscape of Latin America has been transformed by the impressive growth of civil society organizations (CSO) and civic activism. These citizens organizations have become an important and vibrant way to mobilize political energy and social aspirations of the least powerful. Their impact are examined under the still changing political environment in Latin America. In newly formed democracies, CSO are involved in the process of consolidating democratic institutions. In effective, working democracies, CSO seek to deepen democratic institutions by promoting wider political engagement and expanded social and economic opportunities. These cases show how CSO have given birth to independent community leadership, taught people how to organize themselves and to design and implement new approach to social problems. Against this backdrop, CSO are almost certain to play an expanding role in shaping Latin America's future political and social landscape. A post-dictatorship "rebirth" of Latin America democracy was celebrated at the 1994 Presidential Summit of the Americas. On subsequent reflection, Jorge Castaneda noted that "the region today faces an increasingly unpredictable future. People blame democracy for economic stagnation, or at least for failing to deliver economic growth. We see that dissatisfaction with governments was not without cause. Many citizens who lacked confidence in their governments reacted by forming or joining new social movements and citizens' organizations. CSO espouse concerns with human rights, environmental threats, treatment of women, opportunities for indigenous people, overcoming rural poverty, housing for low-income families, promoting small enterprises and local employment, participatory government budgeting. These concerns are each important in defining democracy, and the values that sustain these organizations are the foundations of democracy's historical heritage. What is Civil Society? Civil society, its citizen constituents and its organizations, are the prime focus of this work. Contradictory conceptions of civil society are easily found, both as to the definition and to the importance of its interaction with political society. The idea of "civil society" is inherited from Greek and Roman philosophers, but has become an important element of contemporary political thought. Among other encomiums, it has been credited with "bringing down dictatorship of every possible description. Edwards calls attention to what civil society can achieve. For example, Cato institute sees CSO as "fundamentally reducing the role of politics in society by expanding individual liberty." Meanwhile, the World Social Forum contends that civil society is "the single most viable alternative to the authoritarian state. To the World Bank is the key to "good governance and poverty-reducing growth." CSO are defined by the IDS as "an intermediate sphere between the State and the household." Even if we agree with that, the definition borders are still murky. When a fuller effort is made to determine which groups are, practitioners most often insist that CSO do not include: 1) Government institutions and political parties. 2) For-profit, market-oriented business (although associations of business are part of CSO). 3) Families and kinship groups. 4) Violence-oriented associations. What is Democracy? There is no simple definition for democracy, and inevitable quibbles surround the concept. Like obscenity, we may have trouble defining it, but we certainly know it when we seeit. Government is defined as the social institution with a monopoly on the power of coercion. Such power does not confer wisdom, but it does explain Churchill's well-known aphorism: "Democracy, we know, is but one of many forms that government may take. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise." Athenians prided themselves on their discovery of democracy. Democratization is an "open-ended, long-term and complex process," that may be compared to science in that the process is never complete, always open to new tests and improved ideas. Within these boundaries, political analysts have identified two operating models of "democracy": the adversarial and the deliberative. In a adversarial democracy, each party with access to the public decision-making process seeks maximum benefit from each exhange as it is negotiated in the political "marketplace." Participating approach the process with non-negotiable preferences, and are adversarial in all political dealings. In contrast, the "deliberative" or participatory democracy model emphasizes continuity and process. It is messy but has proved durable. Personal and groups preferences are defined and defended on the grounds of thier contributions to general welfare, rather than on ideological grounds. A "public agenda" emerges from the deliberative process that would not have been designed by any of the contending groups acting alone. Although a few countries in the region, most notably Uruguay and Costa Rica, follow the "deliberative model", the adversarial model better characterizes more Latin America countries. The differences between these forms helps explain the differences in growth of civil society and its organizations, and the evolution of the roles of CSOs in shaping forms of governance. Educational efforts are only a part of what is needed to increase citizen engagement and strengthen democracy. Community organizations, social movements and advocavy/service NGO effect their governments and public policy when they are able to gain access to the halls of power. In broad terms, the interaction of civil society with political process impacts governance in at least four ways: 1) by influencing public policy and decision making. 2) By enhancing performance of state agencies. 3) by achieving greater transparency and information about official acts and actors. 4) by fostering social justice and the rule of law.

130th Birthday of Gyorgy Lukacs - Part II

                            This post is a summary of a chapter of a book published at  http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9781137372819_sample.pdf. The second summary is from the book, "The Theory of the Novel," published at  https://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/georg-lukacs-the-theory-of-the-novel.pdf . The third summary was published at http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/27375-georg-lukcs-reconsidered-critical-essays-in-politics-philosophy-and-ae

        Gyorgy Lukacs (1885-1971) was without doubt one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. His views on philosophy, aesthetics and literary criticism exerted an immeasurable influence on intellectuals in Europe. Thanks to the impact of his 1923 book "History and Class Consciousness," with its philosophycal content and political message, Lukacs became known as one of the founders of Western Marxism and its principal representative. In all fields of culture, politics and indeed, in everyday life, we are witnessing the advance of irrational beliefs and the agressive attacks of forces hostile to reason and democracy. We face a situation in which the values of rationality need to be strengthened, just as Lukacs in his day considered the defence of such values to be one of his major tasks. Lukacs argues that the lack of transparency and "objective irrationality" of the social whole collide with the rationality of the systems of production and social organization and with the rationality of the now indispensable scientific research. Without a doubt Lukacs' work in the literary field is dominated by criticism. The most obvious sign of a continuity connecting the various periods of lukacs' work is his literary taste, which remained unchanged throughout his life. He always directed his attention to the canonized authors of world literature, in aprticular to the great realists of the 19th century, in whom he saw the protagonists of "art's struggle for freedom"  and the interrelated actors of an ideal progression of historical development.

           The method of "The Theory of the Novel" depends to a larger extent on whether the chief protagonist's soul is 'too narrow' or 'too broad' in relation to reality. This highly abstract criterion is useful, at most, for illuminating certain aspects of "Dom Quixote", which is chosen to represent the first type. "The Theory of the Novel," was the first book belonging to the 'intellectual sciences school in which the findings of Hegelian philosophy were concretely applied to aesthetic problem. We have already recognised the dangers that arise from abstract nature of the novel; the risk of overlapping into lyricism or drama, the risk of narrowing reality so that the work becomes an idyll, the risk of sinking to the level of mere entertainment literature. The irony of the novel is the self-correction of the world's fragility: inadequate relations can transform themselves into a fanciful yet well-ordered round of misunderstandings and cross-purposes, within which everything is seen as many-sided, within which things appear as isolated and yet connected, as full of value and yet totally devoid of it, as abstract fragments and as concrete autonomous life, as flowering and as decaying, as the infliction of suffering and as suffering itself. The outward form of the novel is essentially biographical. The fluctuation between a conceptual system which can never completely capture life and a life complex which can never attain completeness because completeness is immanently utopian, can be objectivised only in that organic quality which is the aim of biography. The novel comprises the essence of its totality, and thereby raises an individual of one who must create an entire world through his experience and who must maintain that world in equilibrium, the epic individual owed his significance to the grace accorded to him, not to his pure individuality.  The objective structure of the novel shows a heterogeneous totality, regulated only by regulative ideas, whose meaning is prescribed but not given. That is why the unity of the personality and the world, a unity which is dimly sensed through memory, yet which once was part of our lived experience. A natural consequence of the paradoxical nature of this art is the fact that the really great novels have a tendency to overlap into the epic. The events in Dom Quixote are almost timeless, a motley series of isolated adventures complete in themselves, and while the ending completes the work as a whole as to its principle and problems, it does so only for the whole and not for the concrete totality of the parts. It was Cervantes the intuitive visionary of the historical-philosophical moment, his vision came into being at the watershed of two historical epochs; it recognised and understood them, and raised the most confused problematic into the radiant sphere of a transcendence which achieved its full flowering as form. The relationship between the objective and subjective worlds is therefore maintained in adequate balance: the hero is rightly conscious of the superiority of the opposing outside world, yet despite this innermost modesty he can triumph in the end because his lesser strength is guided to victory by the highest power in the world; the forces of the imaginary and the real correspond with one another; the victories and defeats are not contradictory to either the actual or the ideal world order. When this instinctive sense of distance, is lacking, the relationship between the subjective and the objective worlds becomes paradoxical, because the active soul, the soul that matters from the point of view of the epic, is narrowed, the world likewise becomes narrower for that soul than it is in reality. But since this reduction of the world and every action which follows from it and which is aimed only at the reduced, all that opposes the soul must come from, sources which are heterogeneous from it. Thus action and opposition have neither scope nor quality, neither reality nor orientation in common. The narrowing of the soul of which we speak is brought about by demonic obsession by an existing idea which it posit as the only.  The greater closeness of 19th century literature to certain organic natural conditions, made it possible for that literature to be creatively polemical. Tolstoy, who was an essentially novelist of disillusionment, created a form of novel which overlaps to the maximum extent into the epic. The paradoxical nature of Tolstoy's historical situation, proves better than anything else how much the novel is the necessary epic form of our time.

              Lukacs's work and intellectual legacy, always complex and provocative, have in fact never wanted for attention, but in the past few years new impetus for re-engaging with his book has come from litearary studies, where his theory of literary realism and his implacable opposition to literary modernism in all forms resonate with neo-realist aesthetics, and from social and political theory, where  Axel Honneth's recent re-appropriation of the central concept of reification, and how well the concept might survive transplantation into theoretical climates far different than lukacs own.The anthology's third section,"Perspectives on Critical Theory," continues this contrastive work: refers to criticisms of the shortcomings of discourse-theoretical revision of the projects of critical theory in order to suggest that Lukacsian thought, offers help in addressing the charges of formalism.The revised version emphasizes an open history as the site of "a nonmechanistic emergence of a qualitatively new form of consciousness and a corresponding social practice as the concrete embodiment of effective human freedom," An updated Lukacsian world history is left with nothing but the classical idea of Enlightenment, the idea of enlightening people about their real conditions of existence and the application of this knowledge to the field of politics and the social practice of citizens. If today it strike us as outrageous it is because, despite the 'democratic' spirit of our age, we have, to a great extent, lost faith in the power of deliberate agency.

130th Birthday of Gyorgy Lukacs

                      Tomorrow, April 13th, the master of the theory of literature would complete 130th years-old. So, this post is a tribute to him, His writings help the people to understand better and consequently appreciate more this noble art called literature.  This post is a summary of four articles. The first was published at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C3%B6rgy_Luk%C3%A1cs. The second was published at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lukacs/#AesReaWorArtCloTot. The third was published at http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/critical_define/crit_marx.html. The fourth was published at http://newleftreview.org/II/91/franco-moretti-lukacs-s-theory-of-the-novel

                Gyorgy Lukacs (1885-1971) was a Hungarian philosopher, writer and literary critic. He developed and contribute to Marxist Theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was especially influential, because of his theoritical developments of realism and of the novel as a literary genre. Lukacs was born in Budapest, to the Banker József and his wife Adele, who were a wealthy Jewish family. He studied at the Budapest and Berlin, and received his doctorate in 1906. Lukacs developed Leninist ideas in the field of philosophy. His major works in this period were the essays collected in "History and Class Consciousness"(1923). Altough these essays display signs of what Lenin referred to as "ultra-leftism", they provided substantive philosophical basis. In 1925, he published a critical review of the historical materialism. He advocate a democratic government of the proletariat. After Lukacs' strategy was condemned by The Communist International, he retreated from active politics into theoretical work. During the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Lukacs was present at debates of the anti-party, while remaining part of the party apparatus. In Lukacs' view, the parties could win social leadership only by persuasion instead of force. In addition to his standing as a political thinker, Lukacs was an influential literary critic of the 20th century. His important work in literary criticism began early in his career, with "The Theory of the Novel" (1916) a work in literary theory, an investigation into its distinct characteristics. Lukacs literary criticism includes the well-known essay, "Kafka or Thomas Mann?" in which Lukacs argues for the work of Thomas Mann as a superior attempt to deal with modernity, while he critises Kafka's brand of modernism. Lukacs was opposed to the formal innovations of modern writers like Kafka, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, preferring the traditional aesthetic of realism. "The Historical Novel", is his most influential work of literary history. In it he traces the development of the genre of historical fiction. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars brought about a realisation of the constantly changing, evolving character of human existence. This new historical consciousness was reflected in the works of Walter Scott, whose novels use representatives characters to dramatise social conflicts and historical transformations. Lukacs argues that Scott's new brand of Historical Realism was taken up by Balzac and Tolstoy, and enabled novelists to depict contemporary social life not as a static fixed types, but rather as a moment of history, constantly changing, open to the potential transformations. Although abstraction can lead to the concealment of objective reality, it is necessary for art, and Lukacs believes that realist authors can employ it "to penetrate the laws governing objective reality, and to uncover the deeper, hidden, mediate, not immediately perceptible of relationships that go to make up society" After a great intellectual effort, Lukacs claims a  realist can discover these objective relationships and give them artistic shape in the form of a character's subjective experience.

               According to this conception of art as a mode of reflection, the function of a art is to present humans with the totality of the objective, historical reality within an "homogeneous medium". The medium of  specific form of art establishes laws that allows the work of art to adequately present the whole world of humanity from a specific standpoint. For this reason, such works of art allow us to comprehend the universal aspects of our existence and to consciously participate in the collective life of humanity. A successful work of art can thus have the effect of "catharsis", transforming the "whole person" of everyday life into a "person as a whole", the person who realizes their humanity by acquiring a sense of self-consciousness regarding the richness of human relations that constitute the historical development of humankind. Lukacs' commitment to a conception of the work of art as a closed totality, structured by the laws of its medium and objectively reflecting the development of humanity in the mode of mimetic evocation, has considerable implications for his own judments as an aesthetic theorist. However, as far as Lukacs' commitment to realism reflects the demand that works of art should present a totality of meaning that is not alien to the life of individuals, but rather overcomes the alienation they suffer from in everyday life, it expresses an intuition that sustains Lukacs work from the beginning: the desire for an overcoming of the tension between human life and the objective social forms that constitute modern society.

                Marxist criticism is a type of criticism in which literary works are viewed as the product of work and whose practitioners emphasizes the role of class and ideology as they reflect, propagate, and even challenge the prevailing social order. Two critics stand out: Mikhail Bakhtin and Gyorgy Lukacs. Bakhtin viewed texts in terms of discourses and dialogues. Lukacs appreciated realistic novels that broadly reflected cultural totalities and were populated with characters representing human types. In Germany, critic Belfort Brecht critized Lukacs for his attempt to enshrine realism at the expense of poetry and drama, which Lukacs ignored. Theodor Adorno attacked Lukacs for his dogmatic rejection of nonrealist literature and for his elevation of content over form.

              When Lukacs is still mencioned nowadays in connection with the study of the novel, it is either for "Theory of the novel" or for "The historical novel", The second is a very useful book, written by a serious professor. The first it is an essay, where the critic is always talking about the ultimate question of life. And in fact, whenever this book talks about the novel, the reader senses that through the oblique refraction of books, something much more momentous is at stake. But what? What is the ultimate question that the Theory of the novel is trying to address? An initial answer could be: it is the transformation of social existence, at some unspecified moment between Dante and Cervantes, into a world of convention whose abnormality Lukacs tries to captures through the metaphor of the nature. Nature, because the embracing power of convention subjects the social world to laws whose regularity can only be compared to that of physical nature: strict laws, without exception or choice, that are, this is the decisive passage, the embodiment of recognized. What "The Theory of the Novel" has to say. But just as important as what the book has to say is the way it says it. But what kind of book is this? Certainty, no one that worries solely about knowledge. Make no mistake: there is plenty of knowledge in the pages of the "Theory" dispensed in countless well-wrought allusion by its prodigiously author. Yet that is not the book is about, It is not after knowledge: it is after meaning. After meaning, by way of its style. The style of the essay: reflection plus emotions. It is the heat of emotions that extracts meaning from this world that has become rigid and alien. 'Every art form' we read in the Theory, is defined by the metaphysical dissonance of life. Lukacs, too, placed a methaphysical dissonance as the foundation of his book, and then tried to resolve it with the prodigious plasticity of his style. Beauty and knowledge together, was a miracle that would not be repeated. But perhaps, the future of literary theory lies in accepting its fundamental dissonance without lookinf for a resolution.

Reforming Democracy

                  This post is a summary of three articles. The first with the incomplete title above and was published in June of 2014 at  http://www.theglobalist.com/reforming-democracy-and-the-future-of-history/, The second was published at https://www.ndi.org/citizen-participation . The third is a review of the book, "Reforming democracies," written by Douglas Chalmers former director of the Institute of Political Science at Columbia University and was published in January of 2013 at.  http://cup.columbia.edu/book/reformingdemocracies/9780231162944

              In 1975, a report, "The Crisis of Democracy," prepared by the Trilateral Commission, signaled the pessimism and defeatism prevailing in Western democracies at the time about the future and sustainability of democracy. The report reflected a deep economic downturn, as well as social and political turmoil. The crisis of democracy was tightly connected with concerns about "monopoly capitalism," rampant materialism and corruption. Four decades later, democracy is again in a state of crisis. This comes as somewhat of a surprise, given that successive waves of democratization have touched every region of the world over the past 40 years.  What is becoming evident now is that an opposite trend has emerged. In the early 1990's, the end of the Cold War had brought the revalidation of democracy with greater vigour as the most representative form of government. Yet this exuberance has been counterbalanced with criticism of its failings and shortcomings. Democracies guarantee political freedom, the rule of law, human rights and a platform for citizens to engage in the political process. Yet, in practice, democracies feature numerous inadequacies. Inequality, disempowerment, lack of opportunity, infringements of civil liberties, ethnic, social and cultural discrimination, corruption and opaque honor titles systems are all present, and apparently not antagonistic to democracies. As Joseph Stiglitiz, economist professor at Columbia University has noted, "the rich do not need to rely on government for education or medical care or personal security, they can buy all these things for themselves. In the process, they become more distant from ordinary people, losing whatever empathy they may once have had." Corporate financing of political campaigns have reinforce this, hijacking the democratic process. It further alienates voters who feel they are excluded from a process that is beyond their control. The role of money in politics is worth as a major problem with democratic governance. Its effects are truly worrisome, especially when there is little transparency and regulatory mechanisms to limit the distorting role of money in politics. Finally, the sense of disillusionment with democracy in its current form has been reinforced with disclosures of large-scale government surveillance, violations of privacy and civil liberties. The claim of sweeping authority over the right to collect personal data is harmful to core liberties. Overseeing the overseers and keeping states' need to know in balance with the safeguard of privacy and civil liberties remains a challenge. Opinion polls across many continents reflect this current dissatisfaction with democracy. These forms of disillusionment indicate the need to embrace a paradigm that goes beyond political freedom and addresses the human need for dignity. Democracy guarentees political freedom and rights. A greater emphasis on human dignity and a governance model that places dignity at the center can halt the current disenchantment with democracy. Dignity means more than absence of humiliation. As a basis for government, it commands institutions and policies that comply with nine dignity needs: reason, security, human rights, accountability, transparency, justice, opportunity, innovation and inclusiveness. Creating institutions that upholds these needs would better address three key attibutes and motivators of human nature: emotionality, amorality and egoism. To make this work in practice requires recommendations to amend current democratic systems. To make them more sustainable requires a stronger focus on, and application of, eight criteria of good governance: 1)Participation. 2) equity and inclusiveness. 3) The rule of law. 4) Separation of powers. 5) Free, independent and responsible media. 6) Government legitimacy. 7) Accountability and transparency. 8) Limitation of the distorting effect of money in politics.

               Deepening democracy so it can provide tangible improvements to people's lives is an overarching objective of citizen participation. Making democracy work requires informed and active citizens who understand how to voice their interests, act collectively and hold public officials accountable. Citizens must understand ideas about citizenship, politics and government. They need knowledge to make decisions about policy choices. They also need to have the desire to exercise their rights, and they need the political space to do so without unreasonable resistance or harassmment from authorities or others. Any citizen participation program, including support of civic and voter education, budget oversight and government monitoring, help citizens master the techniques needed to initiate action, solve complex problems and become leaders in their own right. It is need programs to activate and empower citizens and civic groups, establish strong civic cultures and achieve an appropriate balance of power between citizens and government. Citizens around the world desire accountable and responsive political institutions. It is important share experiences and offers a range of options, so that leaders and activists can select those practices that work best. Also is important promoting solidarity among democratic activists and helping them share lessons with one another. Democracy's credibility and sustainability depends, to an degree, on how it works in practice, and what it delivers. Democracies must be able to move beyond elections and forming institutions and begin to successfully tackle issues related to security, jobs, human rights, well-being and human development. Democracy should facilitate economic growth and deliver the means for people to achieve a better life, while protecting fundamental rights and ensuring that citizens are free from oppression and arbitrary government intrusion. Helping democracy deliver requires a greater focus on the practice of democracy. Democratic practice emphasizes collective action and inclusive, evidence-based decision making. It also emphasizes access to information, a voice for citizens and accountability measures and mechanisms. Government planing, budgeting and spending are potential opportunities for citizens to participate in government. Citizens should be able to access information, influence priorities and hold public officials accountable. To help citizens participate, processes begin with citizens advocating for freedom of information legislation to create mechanisms through which budget information can be accessed. Citizen participation programs usually involve assistance to NGOs or community organizations. Programs also helps groups that organize themselves around issues, such as good governance, health, education, or public safety. 

               In Reforming Democracies, Douglas Chalmers offers a thoughtful and challenging critique of the basic concepts informing our understanding of 'liberal democracy.' He begins with questions about the interests that should be represented, including those of no only citizens but also 'quasi-citizens' who play a critical role in the functioning of the politics. He challenges us to move beyond the conventional analysis of party and interest-group linkages between the people and decision makers and to take into account dynamic and informal relationship outside of these traditional channels. Finally, he urges us to look more directly at decision-making as a deliberative as well as a bargaining process. Underlying all of these challenges is an affirmation that 'democracy' should be conceived not only in terms of procedural norms but also in terms of its capacity to govern in the public interest. In this book, Chalmers builds on decades of teaching and writing as a political philosophy too. He takes us to neglected places in the democratic decision-making process and argues that we need new institutions to regulate these places, to facilitate action, benefit the people, and adapt continually through linkages that convey information and accountability. These new ideas will make you think.

Raising Student Learning in Latin America: The Challenge for the 21st Century - Part II

                     This post is the summary of the part II and part III, from the same book of last week. The book with the title above published  in 2008 at  http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/Raising_Student_Learning_in_LAC_Document.pdf

              Acknowledging the significance of student learning is only the first step toward improving it. The real challenge lies in understanding how student learning is achieved and identifying policies that can improve it. Learning hinges on myriad factors that can touch on seemingly unrelated variables, from a parent´s education and societal values regarding education to school infrastructure. Historically, education policy has focused on providing easily quantifiable inputs (money, infrastructure, textbooks) to schools and systems. But improving educational inputs does not necessarily guarantee that learning will take place. Empirically identifying the extent to which and how different variables contribute to student learning is difficult, for multiple reasons. Factors influencing learning may fall on the student side or the school side, or they may be part of the education system as a whole. These factors are numerous and complex and may affect students differently. Moreover, they may interact with one another to produce unexpected outcomes. Researches have used education production functions to try to measure the complex relations betweeen individual, family, school, and institutional characteristics on the one hand and endowments and learning outcomes on the other. By identifying which school inputs, or combination of inputs, may be most effective at improving school quality and outputs, this research has great potential utility for education policy makers. To date, however, it has not offered as much guidance to policy makers as originally hoped. Little consensus has emerged over how to create accurate models for education quality. This report approaches the issue of raising student learning by examining student-side, school-side, and system variables. Student arrive at school with a series of endowments and behaviors that influence their learning.The endowments and behaviors of student are influenced by their families and households, those of school are affected by teachers and administrative authorities. The economic, social, and political context of a country provides the background for these interactions. Student performance tends to be higher in wealthier countries, but the relation between GDP and average scores is not very strong. The lesson to be drawn fom this evidence is that how resources are spent on education seems to be much more important than how much is spent. The debate on education financing underscores the difficulty researchers have had in identifying exactly what contributes to students learning. Of course, money must matter, students need access to a minimum standard of resources and materials. Political commitment to student learning affects not only funding but also the types of educational policies put into place. Elected officials often care about showing results while they are in office. While progress in expanding access to schools can be achieved in relatively short periods of time, improving student learning outcomes is a medium to long-term proposition. Thus, unless they are under pressure from the electorate, elected officials are not often willing to be held accountable for improving student learning. Education systems are a mirror of society: Latin America's inequities are reflected in who gets educated, what students learn, and how students and teachers interact. How parents and communities value education can affect how decisions are made at the school level and beyond. Parents' and students' appreciation of good-quality education can not be taken for granted. However, parents do not always educate themselves about their children's schooling or necessarily value school quality over other factors. The social value of education is also reflected in the value placed on the teaching profession, the prestige of teachers in the community, and in turn, the training and salaries teachers receive and the profile and number of people entering the teaching profession. In Latin America the teaching profession carries little prestige. Research has found that student-side factors explain most of the variation in learning outcomes. Some of these endowments are inherent characteristics. Others, such as early literacy, are more flexible and responsive to the decisions and actions of parents, communities, and governments. Household factors and the support students receive at home have been viewed as having the greatest effect on success in school. Research shows that parents' education and occupation are strongly related to their children's learning in the classroom. Such effects can vary according to context. Books in the home have a consistently strong and positive affect on student performance. According to the OECD, an increase of one standard deviation on the PISA Test index of home educational resources and cultural possessions is associated with an average increase of 12 points in reading. Studies examining student and household factors all point to the same conclusion: family background have the largest effects on student performance. This finding calls for policy interventions that mitigate the effects of disadvantageous family background on educational performance. Researchers and policy makers have tried to understand just how school-side factors affect student achievement by examining differences across classroom, schools, and countries. Two categories of factors can influence how schoolaffect student learning: school characteristics (such as class size, materials, and time spent in school) and teacher characteristics (such as teacher behavior, knowledge, and teaching methodologies). A teacher's impact on student learning outcomes is cumulative and long lasting. An ineffective teacher potentially reduces a student's performance for years, several ineffective teachers in a row may compound such an effect. Latin America lags behind OECD countries in the quality of its initial teacher education and ongoing professional development, according to a study carried out by World Bank. While countries such as Chile and Uruguay have made efforts to attract talented students to teaching through schorlarship programs. Ensure that all school have effective teachers, for this many kinds of incentives exist. These include, among others, adequate school infrastructure and educational materials, the internal motivation to improve students' lives, the opportunity to grow professionally, and nonsalary benefits such as pensions, job stability. In most countries, teachers cite working conditions as one of the critical factors affecting their performance. Many teachers-education policies in OECD countries, describe below, reflect these new concepts of quality. These policies can help guide countries in the region as they focus on upgrading initial education, improving in-service opportunities, and collecting information on results. 1) Create a profile of teacher competencies to guide teachers in their learning and facilitate alignment of teacher education, development, and certification. 2) Treat teacher education as a career-long process. 3) Understand the value of flexibility. 4) Recognize that new teachers need special support. 5) Integrate teacher education with school development. 6) Promote professional learning communities. 7) Evaluate programs in a systematic manner. The promise that ICTs can expand access to education and improve teaching and learning process has contributed to their rising profile in education among developing and developed countries. Computer use at home is associated with better test performance. Studies find weak albeit negative effects of student-teacher ratios on achievement, and these affects become even weaker for higher student-tecaher ratios. OECD finds that as the student-teaching ratio rises above 25, there is a continuous decline in school performance in all PISA subjects. In contrast, a study by OECD does not find a performance advantage of smaller student-teacher ratios. The way in which schools and schools sytems are organized and administered can have a bearing on how much students learn and on the equitability of student learning opportunities. The factors that influence student learning are complex and difficult to measure. Moreover, because every child is different, as is every classroom, school, community, and nation, no single intervention will meet the needs of all students, schools. Some common lessons can nevertheless be drawn from the most recent research on student learning in Latin america and the rest of the world. Which policies can raise student learning? 1) Prepare student for primary school. 2) Provide conditional cash transfers. 3) Provide merit pay, evaluate teaching policies, and review the assignment of teachers to schools. 4) Use resources effectively. 5) Give schools more autonomy. 

Raising Student Learning in Latin America: The Challenge for the 21st Century

                      This post is a summary of the first and second chapter of the  book with the title above published in 2008 at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/Raising_Student_Learning_in_LAC_Document.pdf

                 Countries in Latin America consistently perform poorly in international assessment even after controlling for per capita GDP. Performing is not only weak, it is also declining relative to other countries with similar income levels. Standardized test results are very useful for policy makers, for a variety of reasons: 1) They provide a quantitative measure of certain skills and knowledge that can be tracked and compared, allowing success in meeting learning goals to be tracked across time and schools. 2) They can provide teachers and schools with information about their own strengths and weaknesses and alert them to areas that need improvement. 3) They can provide parents and students with information about areas in which students are excelling or struggling. Learning hinges on myriad factors, from a parent's education and societal values regarding education to school infrastructure. These factors can be grouped into three categories. Student-side factors, school-side factors, and systemwide factors; which interact to produce student learning. in order to craft policies that raise both the quality and the equity of education, policy makers need to understand how these three sets of factors affect student learning. Ensuring that all students learn requires both a theory of action for providing education and strong alignment of the roles and responsibilities of all participants in the education system. Education has long been viewed as wielding powerful transformative powers. Achieving universal primary education has been on the global agenda since the UDHR affirmed children's right to free and compulsory education in 1948. Almost all countries in the region have achieved universal primary enrollment, and access to secondary and higher education is also on the rise . Average public spending on education increased, raising from 2.7% of GDP in 1990 to 4.3% in 2003. These accomplishments are impressive, but have left other goals, including learning, behind. Policy makers in the region now need to focus on equalizing access to secondary and tertiary education, reducing socioeconomics inequalities, and above all, ensuring that all children learn. Many challenges remain. Millions of students are failing to meet minimum learning requirements and to acquire basic skills. Almost one-fifth of children who enter primary school repeat grades or drop out of school. Among those who begin secondary or higher education, many do not finish. What and how much students learn is a policy concern for reasons that range from ensuring human rights to improving individual life outcomes, raising competitiveness, economic growth, to development outcomes. Several studies have shown a relation between student learning and labor market returns. The returns are especially great in fast-growing countries with open economies that enable the absorption of highly skilled workers. Researches has shown that the returns to education in lower-income countries are higher for low-skilled individuals. This finding represents a strong argument for investing in education in developing countries in order to promote economic equality. Education is a prerequisite for reducing poverty. But ensuring a child's right to education goes beyond simply providing access to schools. It involves guaranteeing all students an equal opportunity to learn. Effect of Learning on Individuals' Labor Market Outcomes. Education has been shown to be inextricably related to individuals' labor market outcomes. Until recently, most studies on the return to education focused on the relation between the quantity of education and income. These studies find a strong link between years of schooling and personal economic returns.     Several studies have shown a relation between student learning and labor market returns. The returns are especially great in fast-growing countries with open economies that enable the absorption of highly skilled workers. Researches has shown that the returns to education in lower-income countries are higher for low-skilled individuals. This finding represents a strong argument for investing in education in developing countries in order to promote economic equality. Education is a prerequisite for reducing poverty. But ensuring a child's right to education goes beyond simply providing access to schools. It involves guaranteeing all students an equal opportunity to learn. Effect of Learning on Society as a Whole. Both educational attainment and learning are tied to a number of development outcomes beyond individual outcomes. Education has been shown to affect health outcomes, infant mortality, age of marriage, civil participation, and reducing in violent and risky behaviors, such as criminality and teen pregnancy. The social returns to education thus exceed the private returns. How cognitive skills relate to all of these social outcomes is an important area for future research. Effect of Learning on Economic Development. The relation between education and economic growth can imply even greater gains for society as a whole. The gains are thought to occur through the accumulation of benefits to individuals, the increase in rates of invention and innovation, and the introduction of new technologies and improved production methods. Amost all studies have found a positive relation between education attaiment and growth rates, a relation that is widely accepted in development circles.New research on the relation between education quality and growth suggest that years of education may be less important contributing factor to economic growth than the quality of education. They argue that improving the overall literacy skills of society has a greater effect on growth than  developing a highly educated elite. In examining the relation between cognitive skills and economic outcomes, it is important to remember that cognitive skills do not stem only from schooling. Some cognitive skills are developed in the home, from family, and friends, and through the media. Schooling is only one way in which people acquire knowledge, but it is the one that policy makers can most readily influence. Effect of learning on Inequality. Evidence is increasingly showing that education quality, not just quantity, may be responsible for perpetuating income inequalities, improvement in the quality of education of the poor could thus potentially reduce them. Consider, for example, the evidence on private returns to education. This book uses student test scores as a measure of student learning. It examines the performance of Latin America based on international assessment, such as the PISA, which test 15-years-olds in a number of cross-curricular competencies. Among participating countries, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Peru ranked 34th, 35th, 36th, 37th and 41st respectively, in reading in 2000. Math results were similar. Educational performance in the region is low even compared with countries with similar per capita GDP, with the exception of Uruguay. In most countries in the region, individuals from disadvantaged background are not spending as many years in the education system, despite having equal access to school. Poorer students leave school earlier. While this gap in dropouts rates may be attributable in part to the effects of socioeconomics status and household factors, there is evidence that the poor have access to lower-quality schools and are therefore less inclined to stay in the system.

Principles For 21st Century Government

                This post is a summary of two articles. The first with the title above was published in 2014 at http://www.codeforamerica.org/governments/principles/. The second with the title of, "Principles for good governance in the 21st century." was published  at  http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UNPAN/UNPAN011842.pdf

                Governments through the use of technology and new ways of working can deliver a more effective, efficient, and fair governance for the 21st century. Through these, we have identified seven principles that we believe are critical for governments of any size, strucuture, or political persuasion in serving their communities. Governments should learn and apply these principles to any problem. 1) Design for people's needs - Government's purpose is to serve residents, and we can do this best when we deeply understand who we are working for. When government services are designed to treat all residents with respect, emphaty, and dignity, a transformative trust can be gained. Begin all projects by conducting research with the people to understand who they are and what they need. Design policy, and services around those needs, continuously returning to residents to get feedback. 2) Make it easy for everyone to participate - Serving everyone means working with, not just for, a true cross-section of the community. Governments should proactively collaborate with the community and seek participation from all residents in decisions that affect them. Communicate using language that is easy to understand. 3) Focus on what government can do - Government can not and should not do everything alone. With limited resources to solve complex problems, they should prioritize the work they can have most impact. Develop relationships with partners working towards similar goals, like universities to share skills and resources. Make it easy for others to build on their work by offering data with clear documentation. 4) Make data easy to find and use - Open data helps make government better. Governments hold a lot of information that is valuable and sometimes critically important. A 21st century government makes public data available so that others can use it in meaningful ways. Gets the relevant data at the right time, in a format that is easy to undestand for all. 5) Use data to make and improve decisions. - Good decisions are informed by data, and as we gather more information by testing assumptions, we can make better decisions. 21st century governments use data tools to get a more complete understanding of problems. Start with small solutions, test them to gather more data, and make improvements based on what is learned. Make this data publicy available to drive transparency, civic engagement, and accountability. 6) Organize for results - The successful governments have been those that challenge and reform policies and practices that are outdated and inefficient. This is nothing but the transformation of government, with technology and new processes working together. 21st century governments work in an agile way, continuously improving existing processes. Support new approaches to problems. Invest in staff to build skills, as well as hiring new talent. Acknowledge and reward good work. Recognize that once service has been delivered, continuous improvement must be in place.

                Defining the principles of good governance is difficult and controversial. The United Nations development Program (UNDP) enunciates a set of principles that, with slight variations, appear in much of the literature. There is strong evidence that these UNDP principles have a claim to universal recognition. In grouping them in five broad themes, we recognize that these principles often overlap or are conflicting at some point, that they play out in practice according to the actual social context, applying such principles is complex, and that they are all about not only the results of power but how well it is exercised. 1) Legitimacy and Voice - All men and women should have a voice in decision-making, either directly or through intermediate institutions. Good governance mediates differing interests to reach a broad consensus on what is in the best interest. 2) Direction - Leaders and the public have a broad and long-term perspective on good governance and human development. There is also an understand of the historical, cultural and social complexities in which that perspective is grounded. 3) Performance - Institutions and processes try to serve all stakeholders. Effectiveness and efficiency so the processes and produce results that meet needs while making the best use of resources. 4) Accountability - Decision-making in government, the private sector and civil society organizations are accountable to the public, as well as to institutional stakeholders. This accountability differs depending on the organizations and whether the decisions is internal and external. Transparency is built on the free flow of information. Enough information is provided to understand. 5) Fairness - All men and women have opportunities to improve or maintain their well-being. Legal frameworks should be fair and enforced impartially, particularly the law on human rights. Of the five principles, "Legitimacy and voice" and "Fairness" have the strongest claim to universal recognition based on over a half century of U.N. accomplishments in the field of human rights. Fairness is about the rule of law, among other things, this principle encompass an independent judiciary and right to seek legal remedies. Governance opens new intellectual space. It provides a concept that allow us to discuss the role of government in coping with public issues and the contribution that other players may make. It opens one's mind to the possibility that groups in society other than government many have to play a stronger role in addressing problems. The central conclusion is that a universal set of principles for defining good governance can be fashioned and that the strength of their universality rests to the body of international human rights. In addtion, these principles can be usefully applied to help deal with current governance challenges. Finally, the nature of governance, both the means and the end, needs to be understood. Only then it make sense to elaborate the principles in order to create a meaningful analytical tool.