Does Local School Control Raise StudentOutcomes?: Evidence on the Roles of SchoolAutonomy and Parental Participation

School autonomy and parental participation have been frequently proposed as ways of makingschools more productive. Less clear is how governments can foster decentralized decisionmakingby local schools. This paper shows that across eight Latin-American countries, most ofthe variation in local control over school decisions exists within and not between countries. Thatimplies that the exercise of local authority to manage schools is largely a local choice onlymodestly influenced by constitutional stipulations regarding jurisdiction over school personnel,curriculum and facilities. As a consequence, estimated impacts of local school autonomy,parental participation or school supplies on student performance must account for theendogeneity of local efforts to manage schools. Empirical tests confirm that local managerialeffort by the principal and the parents and the adequacy of school supplies are stronglyinfluenced by parental human capital and the size and remoteness of the community, and thatthese effects are only partially moderated by central policies regarding the locus of control overthe schools. Correcting for endogeneity, parental participation and adequacy school supplieshave strong positive effects on 4th grade test performance, but school autonomy has nodiscernable impact on school outcomes.[...]