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Propuesta de ponencia para simposio “Historia y políticas sociales en América Latina

Pablo Toro Blanco

Educational Freedom or Teaching State? : political discussion of the school subvention law in 1951. A key episode on a deep cleavage in the history of Chilean education.

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the political discussion on Law nº 9864 (January 25, 1951), which reformulated the school subvention system in Chile. This episode is taken just as a sample of a major contradiction of the educational history of Chile: the cleavage between supporters of a market-oriented education against those who defended a strong Teaching State.

The main sources on which this study is grounded are political debates in Chilean congress, articles on press and written testimonies of promoters and critics of private cooperation in State´s action as ultimately responsible for public education.

One of our main findings is that in this conflict at the early 1950´s is shown the initial public emergence of contemporary subsidiarity principle, cornerstone of an idea that eventually prevailed in Chilean educational policies after the civic-military dictatorship (1973-1990) led by Augusto Pinochet.

I. Background of the subsidy system

One of the crucial points of the demands of the social movement that has emerged in Chile with particular force since 2006, mainly expressed through the so-called penguin revolutioni, has been a critical evaluation to the financing structure and supply management education paid with tax funds. In the numerous protests arose from several organizations, academic forums and socio-political groups, the expression: ¡No al lucro! (No to profit in education!) has become a common topic primarily identified with the existence of a system of schools and subsidized institutes, extended throughout the country, which have functioned according to the guidelines of stimulating participation of the private sector in the educational offer that were boosted manu militari since the 1980s. Ata horizon ofsocialpolicies in educationaimedprincipally toresolvethe inequities of thesystem, focused at present from the perspective ofthequality of educationto which childrenofChilehaveaccessrather thanthe entrance to theeducation institutions, the common sense of the uninformedactors(thoughmilitantlymobilized) usually identifies thesubsidizededucation exclusivelyas a productborn mainly of educational policiesof the dictatorshipofAugustoPinochet,without noticing thetime depthofthis subsystemin Chilean educationhistoryand changingnuances of astructuralnaturerelationshipbetweenstate and privateportions ofeducational offerwithtax funds.

Theabysmalgap between thematerial and financialpossibilitiesof the Chilean Stateand itspurposesto ensure an educational offer with acomprehensive coveragedeal, framedindifferent paradigmsofstate-society relationshipthrough twocenturiesof republican lifesince first drafts of educational policies after the end of independence wars by 1818. It has constituted astructural gap that led to cohabitationofstate schools, on one hand, and private schoolsand institutesthat receive statesubsidies, on the other hand. The first legal expressions of these can be found in the grants of aid for the operation of the Seminary of Santiago in October 1834. Years later, the national budget incorporated subsidies associated with missionary work among Mapuche people in the southern border area, allocating $50 to each teacher of primary schools (Soto Kloss, 1963, p. 56). These first experiences of delivering tax funds to individuals, usually from religious orders, were the result of specific situations and therefore lacked of any fixed and universal criteria, which began to emerge in the second part of the nineteenth century. Thus, the Elementary Education Law of 1860 established initial parameters which were subsequently improved in 1889 through the first Subsidies Regulation (Decree 170 of the Ministry of Justice, Cult and Public Education), legal body that tries to operationalize through a Visitation of Subsidized Schools in the early years of the twentieth century. Theidentification of a morespecific criteriaforsubsidization(which leave behind the release of funds by figureswithout an explicitbaseand orientedto the mainidea of assigningan amount perpupil enrolledandconsideringas reference theunit costsofeducation of the students belonging to the state system) coincides witha substantial increasein the amountsthat subsidized schools received in the changing century, educational institutions whosedoctrinehas enrichedin the second halfof the nineteenthcentury, to the extent that they werenot onlyreligious schoolsthose receivingtaxhelp,but also establishmentssupported bylocallay associationssuchas the Society ofElementary Educationorschoolsemergedfromthe initiative of other organizedgroups like artisans and workers societies.

The increasingcorporatepressurefortax fundsfor the privateprovision of education,certainly haddifferentiatedlevels when regarding organizations of a moreoligarchicmatrix(under charitable orphilanthropicideological orientations, according to the clerical-lay polarpair) or from sectors that represented a from below social demand for education (Toro & Pablo, 1993). Ineither case, it is useful to appreciate that the problemof subsidies, in theturn of the nineteenthto the twentieth century, is impliedasanother element intheconceptualtransit that is happening ina period ofincreasing questioning of the oligarchicliberalapproach: stateeducation policyunder the early premise of the TeachingState in the dual dimension of attending the welfare ofsociety as a wholeand being aproduct of its demands (Núñez Prieto, 1997, p. 8). Along this line of sense, in the argumentsfor oragainst the existenceoftax subsidiesto operateprivate schools that collaborateto fulfillthe constitutional mandate ofensuring accessto education(mainlyelementary education), it can be appreciated theinstallation of alogic ofsocialpolicywith higher degrees ofconsistency. This is related tothetransfer froma primalhorizon of actions of episodic nature, based onan enlightenedapproach,towards a process of increasing complexitythat should be undertaken(in a reactive rather than propositional mode)of the consequencesof economic transformation, the popular manifestationsofsocial tensions in theurban settingand additional productsofthe crisisof both themono-exportingmodernizationasof the oligarchicalpolitical orderexperienced by thecountry in the firstthird of the twentiethcentury.

Fromthe above,it is appreciatedthatthe tax subsidiesto privateschools willbecome anincreasingly widespreadresourceduring the twentiethcentury.According toJuanLuisOssa, from the world ofactorsthat are involved inissuesregardingteaching, barriers were presented to the assignation of taxfunds to individualsfor educational purposesbased onthree major areas ofcontroversy: opposition, already mentioned, between approachesthat promotedthe strengthening of the identification of public educationwithmanagementonly throughthe State; generaldisagreementsregarding theeducation budgetand its management; andfinally,suspicionsgeneratedamong teachers, especially the syndicate in the National Education Association, about the quality ofteaching that wasdeliveredin schoolsbeneficiaries of the taxsubsidy (Ossa Santa Cruz, 2007, p. 77).It can beappreciatedthat thesecoreargumentswould remainfor various decades, encouraging the debatewhich constitutes the mainfocus of interest of these linesand forming part ofthe currentcriticism to theexistence ofsubsidized private educationinChile.

1920marks amilestone in thehistory of schoolsubsidiessince theMandatoryPrimary EducationLawincorporatesthem as another axisof the state's policy destined toliquidateilliteracyindicatorsand to ensure the formation offundamental competenciesfor the consensualandinstitutionalizedincorporation of national majoritiesin the project ofcapitalist modernizationandstrengtheningof inclusivepolitical trendsin a contextofglobal threatrelated to thedestabilization of theoligarchical modeland the outbreak ofanti-liberaltendencies.The Law 3,654 dedicated its fourth paragraph to regulate different types of subsidies, establishing requirements for their provision and quantifying the fiscal contribution per student enrolled in up to $25 per year paid in due months, after checking the average attendance ( a matter that was certainly one of the historical practical gaps of the subsidies system). Along with establishing the obligation for employers and landowners to open and maintain schools, the State recognized and encouraged the collaboration of these actors in the fight against illiteracy and lack of schools through the provision of subsidies.

It is relevant to appreciate thatthe new tasksemergingfor social policiesin the followingdecades, in the transitionfromProtection State to Welfare State, willbe marked bya strong fiscalinvestment indifferent fieldsrelatedto the wellbeingof the majorities(mainlythose that possessmechanismsofsocialand unionpressure inurban massive politics thatcharacterizedthe periodof radical party governmentsbetween 1939and 1952).Thus, the fields of social welfare, health and housing, becamepriority forpublic policies (Arellano, 1985, p. 32).Regarding education,the amountswere increasedconsistentlyand the participationof private institutionsinthe provision of education grew significantly. In this sense,as has beenpointed outto account forthe politicaleducationof the period, it can be appreciated an interesting tensionbetween the discourse ofthe core of variouscoalitionssupportedinthe 1940s, theRadicalParty,who claimed that public education was an exclusivesynonymous of state educationand, moreover, the actual practice oftheirgovernments,which facedthe urgentsocialdemand for education utilizingall available tools, including subsidiesto private education.

Given thisrecurrence inthe useof schoolsubsidies,embedded ina practice thatoriginatedin the nineteenthcentury, is valid to ask howplausibleis the ideaof understanding themas toolsofsocialpolicyconceptualizedaccording tomodern approaches, that is, intended as:

“A cohesive and temporalized set of actions, mechanisms and instruments, conducted by a public agent, explicitly aimed to improve the distribution of opportunities or to correct the assets allocation in favor of certain groups or social categories” (Atria, 2006)

Fromthis definition, itmakes senseto observe,atan initialexercise ofanalyzing the problem, ifin the process oflegislative discussionof the regulation ofschool subsidies, in the context ofthe 50s, existed an explicitawareness regarding ifthey constitutedpublic policytools destinedto remedystructuraldeficiencies in access toeducation (and,therefore,equity) or, quite simply, if they respondedto the inertia ofpracticedrawnfromthe nineteenthcentury.Similarly,theconjunctureof anunprecedentedrise intax subsidiesgenerates a controversialfieldthat mobilizesarguments,some of which areanchoredin the field ofproblems inherent to thelay-clerical struggleandothers who looktoward the redefinition ofthe role of the Statewithina time ofincreasedexpectationsand threateningsigns of economicstagnation.

II. Discussion of the Subsidies Law of 1950.

The last years of the government of radical president Gabriel González Videla (1946-1952) passed within worrying signs of political crisis and economic stagnation. Considering as a background the deep polarization derived from domestic manifestations at the beginning of the Cold War (which involved the breaking of the initial political alliance and the proscription and persecution of the Communist Party), the search after achieving political balance led to the emergence of a cabinet of social sensitivity, starting in 1949, which introduced in government Conservatives and Social-Christians, and generated a fracture within a radicalism that was already starting to show worrying signs of party decaying, which would be exposed in the conjuncture presented in these pages, since in the discussion of the draft law of subsidies the positions of the government faction severely confronted in favor of the proposal against those who belong to the major part of the radical parliamentary group.

Against this background, in late 1950was discussedheatedly in the National Congress a proposalgenerated by theconservative SenatorJulio Pereirain July of thatyear, supported by the Governmentthrough itsMinister of EducationBernardoLeighton, founder of the Falange Nacional (National Phalanx, a social-Christian party), which wasguided by twomain lines: establish the fixing of the subsidy of each student attendingfreeprivate schoolsto a 50%of therevenue cost perstudent and, on the other hand, facilitate the managementand collection ofsuch subsidies, regulating its annualdelivery in the firsthalf of eachyear andnot bysemiannualpartialities, which in practicehad ledto the establishmentsto receivea paymentdue forseveral months and to depend oninformalratings orthe credit systemfor subsiding operational expenses, plus in some casesgeneratingloss ofcommitted amounts, which should have been executed in the budgetwithin the yearand oftenit wasnot possible due tobureaucratic obstacles.The productof the legislative workof the Committee on Public Education andthe analysisin both chamberswas the Law9,864, of January 1951.

The general termsof the discussion onthe draft law of subsidieshave beenfollowedthrough twosources: the sessionsof legislative bodiesand discussions present in the press. A first considerationto keep in mindis that the reaction that the analysis processaroused amongprint mediaand subsequent approvalofthe initiative to establisha subsidingcriteriabased ona fixed proportionof the average costof a studentformedin public schools, was notdistinctivelyturbulent. The most divided means with their respective competing positions were limited generally to spread, almostwithout comment,the argumentspresented bythe deputies and senatorsinCongress sessions. The exceptioncamefromthe area of theliberalrightsectors, in which the wordwas heldmainly byEl Mercurio, newspaper that raisedits positionon the issueunder discussionthroughan editorialinwhichit was argued that:

'Another important consequence of the project is that with its presentation is clearly indicated that the evolution of the country has become indispensable in the concept of a teaching State. Some years it was thought that the State would be the only educator, chimera that has been gradually abandoned, either by economic difficulties involved, either by the moral commitment that fall on the weak shoulders of a few officials. In Chile, after this project, the State will continue teaching, but will no longer pretend, as before, the exclusivity of the educational function, won’t make a side, with gesture of imperial arrogance, as many that could have helped in that task. In contrast, will call in collaboration to all Chileans with relative generosity, as it will be given to them subsidies that will allow installing educational institutions over decent and reasonable basis.'ii

The controversyabout the relevanceof TeachingState, understood as the definition of adesirablestate monopolyof education,became oneof the axes ofdiscussion of the lawofsubsidies duringthe legislative process. The initiativeof the Executive, expressed in a Messagetoparliamentarians togiveurgency to theprocess ofthe law proposal, was damagingthis expensiveexpectationto the speech of political radicalism to the extent that was making explicit the recognitionof the difficultiesthat the State hadto fulfill itstasksconcerningeducational coverage.The reportingDeputy of theproject, Conservative HugoRosende, stated that:

”First, the Government recognizes the extremely serious problem of illiteracy that seriously comprises the progress of our democratic system and the cultural level of our people. Also, the Executive recognizes that the mere action of the State in educational matters is insufficient to solve this problem quickly and properly”iii

That diagnosis expresslycontained in the messageofpresidential initiativeconditionedanimportantpart of the discussionof the project, polarizing arguments intwodifficult to reconcilefields,anddistant in terms of programs, startingfrom adifferent conclusionabout whatactuallyhappened withthe existence of theTeachingState (or, rather, its attemptover time) and, moreover, of contrastingdevelopment projects ofeducation policiesto meet theurgencies of the moment.As statedat the beginning ofthese pages,three lines ofdiscussion derived fromcontroversiallegacies fromlate nineteenthcenturyandearly twentieth century,could be recognize throughthe speeches of thevarious parliamentary as in force: thealready mentioned,aboutfiscal monopolyof public educationunder the wingof the concept ofTeaching State; critical remarksabouthow harmfulit was thatpublic fundsmaybe handledinappropriatelyandbudgets destined foreducation were notclearlydefinedand executed;and finally, concerns about thequality and conditions ofexercise of teachinginschools receivingtaxsubsidy.

Regarding the criticisms of themanagement offunds providedthroughsubsidies,parliamentariansopponentsto the existence ofthese,grouped theirdoubts aboutthe manyvicesgenerated by boththe desirethey identifiedopenly ascommercial from part ofthe regents ofthe participating schools, and alsobased onown failuresof implementing thesubsidy policyby theagencies concerned. In this way,it was argued thatit might be preferable to targetfundsto the numerousareas of the taxeducationon which diagnoseswerealready madeabout theirshortcomings,rather than riskthe use ofhuge amounts of moneyto subsidizea set ofschoolsthatcould eventuallybe challengedas beneficiariesof taxmoney, losing resourcesthat were forurgentuse. It was mainly alluded to the complications of control over the tuition declared by the owners of the schools and the difficulties of operating the amounts derived from it, situation that led to, in occasions, a budget destined for subsidies simply remain unexecuted or to be implemented as a vicious habit the late payment of the respective fees, being engaged in a chain the budgets of each year by the flaws in the system during the previous year. This heavy inheritance which had to carry over his shoulders each annual budget, also appeared enhanced according to lawmakers who opposed the law of subsidies, by the presumption that the resources needed to meet the basic assumption of the project would not exist or would not have sustainability over time, an argument that proponents of the pro-government initiative dismissed, stating that it was possible to finance its cost due to expectations of the rising in the international price of copper, the main Chilean commodity, which involved increasing tax revenues at a time in which, however, the benefits of export of copper were not associated with state ownership of the reservoirs, as would occur starting from the nationalization of the copper mines during the Popular Unity government (1971).

The opposition based on operating problems and denounced commercial motivations of the owners of schools receiving subsidies, pursued to strengthen its arguments placing in sight that the explosive increment in the amounts did not correlate with the effective expansion of enrollment or with the quality of the education delivered.In this same set of qualms emerged perhaps the most critical to the existence of subsidized: the ease with which the owners had to artificially amplify their incomes lying on the registration lists. That problem had become a recurring complaint during the previous years, and in the presidential balance on the progress of the country in 1949, González Videla had stated that several schools lost their status as contributors to the educational role of the State because the figures were falsified to receive a larger amount of subsidies, which was detected by the ministerial inspectors (Mensaje, 1950, p. 186). One problem with the draft law of subsidies was that it mainly focused on establishing a basic floor of economic survival for a large number of collaborative schools of the State, a dramatic problem given the inflationary environment of the country, but did not provide sufficient administrative protections for an adequate inspection, which only emerged with some clarity by the regulations of the Law 9,864, that was adopted rather late, in February 1959, in a context in which it was tried to have more control and coordination over financial and operational dimensions of education policies, which is a transcript, for example, of the creation of the Superintendency of Education in 1953.

Already with a few years of operation, the Law 9,864 continued receiving criticism. However, it is interesting bringing a voice that has to do with the experiential dimension of the operation of the policy: a supervisor and system analyst. Respect to that,his testimonyprovides dataon the difficulties ofsupervising the correctcomplianceof the regulations that benefitsubsidized schools, the main one being certainly thetransparencyregarding thenumbers of studentsserved.Froma carefulsurveydata, generated withthe purpose of presentingan overview of thestate of educationin aruraland indigenousprovinceof southernChile,this officercame tothe following reflectionsand judgments, in a complaint tone,aboutthe course of school subsidies:

”What is the cause of this unusual desire to create and maintain private schools? A large percentage of them are well placed; but many, many have arisen to satisfy the appetite of profit that has attracted a good compensation as the result of subsidies by average assistance.

These schools have been classified as 'witches schools' by the public opinion, they almost doesn’t count with the requirements explicitly outlined in the Law: maintaining a minimum average attendance of 20 students in rural areas (...) The supervisory task becomes difficult for educational officials of that province because of the high number of schools, both public and private, that they have to attend; for the extensive territory, for poor roads, some of which are impassable in the rainy season, and for the lack of means of transport. There are schools located in such remote areas that several days are required to visit them. Some have never been visited by a competent official.” (Aria, 1956, p. 176)

In connection withrealitiesas presentedin the previoustestimony, emerges the third lineof criticism thatwas already pointed out: opponents to law of subsidiesdenouncedthe negative impactof it overthe main actors ofeducation policies, that is, teachersand students. Regardingthe former, thedeputyNestorSandoval, member of the RadicalParty,expressed concern aboutthe situation in whichteacherswould remain, considering it wasa widespread practicein the private systembeneficiary of subsidiesthat teachingwas executed bypeoplethat did notpossess thenecessarilysufficientprofessional certificationsand also, if the trendofprevious yearswas maintained atgreater involvement ofprivate enrollmentin the wholesystem, they would become more and, moreover, would not occur the necessarylabor incorporation of pedagogically trained graduates ofNormal Schools.

As an element ofcritical judgment, Sandovalalsostated that thelaw of supplementsNo.8,392, of December 1947, hadeliminated aprovision that requiredthe regents ofschools that received subsidies topay their teachersaliving wage, which result in the generation of a greaterprofit ofthe ownersof establishmentsthat received subsidies, since this amount was increased and was release the constraintassociated with one ofthe most importantfixed costsin education:teaching work force. However,althoughSandovalcriticizedthe general sense of the project thatwould end up beingapproved as Law9,864, recognized thatthe initiativeindiscussionrepaired vices thatwere partof the traditional repertoireof criticismbeing made byopposition groupstothe existence of subsidiesfrom public funds handed to privatesat the restatement of theliving wageand establishment of minimum measures,though notsatisfactory, ofpractice of teachinginprivate schoolsbenefited with fiscal assistance. As can be seen, opponents of the projectcould realize thatmany of their concernswould be metby the detailsthat the Law9,864establishedbut, however, the already identifiedresentments remained unmovedandthat constitutedthe backgroundof the discussion:in what manner an education policy that had totake care of itsdimension ofpermanence in timeto satisfy auniversalaudience, thatwasin expansionby the demographictrends of the timeand the effects on thedemandbecause of a rapid urbanization, could respond to thattask withouthaving to rely onthecollaborative actionof asubsidizedsectorthathadhelped strengthen itfor nearlya lifetime of the republicanChile,firstunder atimelycomplementnatureand subsequentlyas a structural partofeducation policies.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the conjuncture ofdiscussion, adoption and early years ofimplementation of the lawof subsidies,is presented asa crossroadthat uniteselementsof the past and announcementsof approaches that wouldhavespecial importancein the coming decades. On one hand, the antinomy Teaching State versus freedom of education, the suspicion against the rising amounts of tax money given to privates and its relevance in terms of meeting the goals of policy raised at the time (mainly focused on coverage but not ignorant of the need to ensure quality of service) and, on the other hand, the emergence of a challenge open to the pretended monopoly of public offer of education, task synthesized in an intervention of the falangist parliamentarian Tomás Reyes in a rather premonitory manner which would constitute years later part of the common sense of the critical educational policies of the Chilean Welfare State version. Reyes,groundinghis supportto the draft law of subsidies,invokedtwo principlesthat would later become inmain ideasof the liberalspeech: the benefitsthat competitionwould have over thequality of educationand especially(considering the imagomundiderived from hisSocial Christianperspective), the primacy of what he understood asfundamentalconstituentagentsof society,being familythe first of them,overthe political and administrative. On this basis, heproposedwhatat the timewas already circulatingas an ideabehind the concept ofvoucheriv

“Is especially important to us that this project tends to satisfy a deeply felt aspiration of ours: the system of proportional distribution of funds destined to public education in the country. Such procedure will allow to give a wider and more concordant satisfaction to the thought of the family, which must always be predominant in children education; the bonus for school-age child in order that the family can choose freely the establishment where developing his studies, in our view, should be the formula that education can finally accommodate to in the country”

Reyes's words are interestingas a glimpse of how important is to develop a genealogy of the approaches based onthe subsidiarity principleapplied to the education policy, specifically, andsocial policiesin general, understanding that its rootednessis moredeepand structural(andthereforedifficult to remove) than certainapproaches ofcurrent discussionsabout education inChileseem tohold.

References

Aedo, C. & Sapelli, C. (2001). El sistema de vouchers en educación: una revisión de la teoría y evidencia empírica para Chile. Estudios Públicos, 82, 35–82.

Arellano, J. P. (1985). Políticas Sociales y Desarrollo 1924-1984. Santiago: CIEPLAN.

Atria, R. (2006). Políticas sociales: concepto y diseño: un marco de referencia. Universidad de Chile. Instituto de Asuntos Publicos. Santiago, Chile: INAP, U, de Chile, Mar. 2006. 24h. Documentos de Trabajo INAP, Nr.6- Marzo 2006.

El Diario Ilustrado. Santiago, 1950-1951.

El Mercurio. Santiago, 1950-1951.

Mensaje de S.E. el Presidente de la República don Gabriel González Videla al Congreso Nacional (1950).

Núñez Prieto, I. (1997). Las políticas públicas en educación. Las estrategias de Reforma y experimentación. Una mirada histórica (1925-1997). Talca: Universidad de Talca.

Ossa Santa Cruz, J. L. (2007). El Estado y los particulares en la educación chilena, 1888-1920. Estudios Públicos, 106, 23–96.

Sesiones del Congreso Nacional de Chile (1950). Cámara de Diputados y Senado.

Soto Kloss, E. (1963). De la libertad de enseñanza y del estatuto jurídico de las subvenciones a la enseñanza privada. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria.

Toro B. & Pablo A. (1993). Sociedades para el desarrollo de la Instrucción Primaria: 1870 – 1910. Mapocho, 34(2), 137–156.

i Pingüino is a nickname, traditionally used with a bit of sarcasm, to describe secondary students because of their uniform (dark blue jacket, dark grey pants and white shirt). Since the 2006 movement its meaning has become less disdainfuland in nowadays is proudly accepted as a generational and identity label for students themselves.

ii “Subvenciones para educación primaria”, in El Mercurio, december 9th, 1950, p.3.

iii Chamber of Deputies, extraordinary session, December 13th 1950.

iv Voucherwould becomea very important toolto meetthedemand subsidyprecisely by the mid-1950s as can be noticed in academic papers and conferences of Chicago economistMiltonFriedmann (Aedo & Sapelli, 2001, p.45).

AbstractThe aim of this article is to analyze the political discussion on Law nº 9864 (January 25, 1951), which reformulated the school subvention system in Chile. This episode is taken just as a sample of a major contradiction of the educational history of Chile: the cleavage between supporters of a market-oriented education against those who defended a strong Teaching State. The main sources on which this study is grounded are political debates in Chilean congress, articles on press and written testimonies of promoters and critics of private cooperation in State´s action as ultimately responsible for public education. One of our main findings is that in this conflict at the early 1950´s is shown the initial public emergence of contemporary subsidiarity principle, cornerstone of an idea that eventually prevailed in Chilean educational policies after the civic-military dictatorship (1973-1990) led by Augusto Pinochet.