Publication

This paper addresses the question whether government control of school systems facilitates equality in school quality. The authors look at the difference between centralized and localized control of schools. When government implementation capacity is weak, centralized control could lead to only the illusion of equality, say the authors. The authors use a wide array of empirical data from various countries to test this hypothesis and they find that central control of education with weak internal or external accountability actually allows for much greater inequalities across schools than entirely 'uncontrolled' local schools.