Public-Private Partnerships in Education: Experimental Evidence of the expansion of Administration Schools in Colombia

Schools in Administration are 35 public institutions run by private agents in low-income areas of Bogota, Colombia. These private providers are chosen in competitive processes with a quality criterion. The providers have flexibility in the administration of the institution—including teacher management and pedagogical model. The government provides state-of-the-art infrastructure. The contract between the government and the private provider stipulates standards of educational quality. The Secretary of Education of the city started in 2022 implementing (with the technical input of Vanderbilt University) a pairwise random offering of places in these schools for the entry grade (pre- and kindergarten). The pairs are based on a poverty index built with administrative data. The researchers are using random assignment to follow individuals in time to assess the effect of these schools on cognitive and socioemotional outcomes. They rely on both administrative data and on their own data collection in association with IPA.