Page 1 PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID) APPRAISAL STAGE Report No.: AB5330 Project Name School Based Management 2 Region LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN Sector Primary education (60%); Secondary education (10%); Pre-primary education (30%); Project ID P115347 Borrower(s) GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO Implementing Agency Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) Brasil 31- 312, Centro Histórico, 06029 México, DF México Tel: (52-55) 5723-6713 Environment Category [ ] A [ ] B [X] C [ ] FI [ ] TBD (to be determined) Date PID Prepared January 25, 2009 Date of Appraisal Authorization February 9, 2010 Date of Board Approval March 25, 2010 1. Country and Sector Background Mexico, a member of the OECD, is the world’s fourteenth largest economy. Human development, as measured by the Human Development Index, is relatively low compared with other large economies: overall, Mexico ranks 53 rd , the second lowest among OECD members and behind other middle income Latin American countries. In the past two decades, Mexico has seen important gains in coverage in basic education (preschool, primary, and lower secondary) reaching 94 percent in primary education. Those still outside the system are disproportionately indigenous groups and live in remote areas. There are also concerns about the quality and relevance of learning. Improving educational attainment and learning outcomes is central to Mexico’s competitiveness in the global economy. As the country faces an economic downturn due to the global financial crisis, increased investing in education is of paramount importance. Mexico’s experiences in past economic crises show that the demand for basic public education may actually increase, particularly at the lower secondary level. Under this scenario, the basic education system has to maintain quality in the face of growing demand and possibly reduced budgets. To address the issues of quality and relevance of education, the Alliance for Education Quality ( La Alianza Para la Calidad de Educación ) was created through a formal agreement between the Federal Government of Mexico and the National Teacher’s Union ( Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de Educación , SNTE). The Alliance is working with civil society and state Page 2 governments to improve student learning in basic education, through large-scale social mobilization leading to a transformation of the management and service delivery in the education sector. Improving social participation in schools is a long-term goal of the education sector . In 2001, the Federal Government created the Program of Quality Schools ( Programa Escuelas de Calidad ; PEC) to promote community participation in schools. PEC contributes to school autonomy by allowing local stakeholders to diagnose the specific shortcomings of a school and to design a School Transformation Strategic Plan. Community participation has the potential to bring a number of benefits to education. How a school is run and the local school environment play a significant role in education. Changes and improvements in the school climate (relations between students and teachers, for example, belief in students’ ability to learn and support for that to happen) and schooling practices are shown to have an impact on achievement. 2. Objectives The proposed project is the second phase of an ongoing Adaptable Loan Program (APL). As approved by the Board of Directors (December 13, 2005), the long-term development objective of this APL is to improve the education coverage, social participation, and educational outcomes in Mexico. This objective is measured as follows: · Commitment of the Government to the Program as expressed by the number of schools participating in the Program as a percentage of public basic education schools; · Commitment to the goals of School Based Management, as expressed by social participation in school financing (parental contributions) and in School Strategic Plan’ (Programa Estratégico de Transformación Escolar PETE) ; and · Educational outcomes as expressed by average test scores in Math and Spanish for students in participating PEC schools. Consistent with the Program development objective, the Project Development Objective for Phase II (the Project) is to expand the coverage of PEC, with increasing social participation and focus on schools with poor and indigenous population. 3. Rationale for Bank Involvement Mexico invited the Bank’s participation to strengthen PEC . Research and education literature have long showed the importance of schools in “producing” education quality and highlighted the opportunity to use participation and assessments to improve quality. In 2005, the Mexican Government requested World Bank support for PEC to help improve education learning outcomes. At that time, PEC had been operating for four years and there were concerns about its impact and sustainability. The Government felt that the Bank’s presence would consolidate gains and provide crucial support to expand the Program as well as strengthen fiduciary norms. This built on earlier technical and financial support that the Bank had provided to the education sector. Bank support for PEC was designed to be both flexible and long-term . Reforming an education system is a long-term process and the Government and the World Bank agreed that an Adjustable Program Loan (APL) would be the most appropriate mechanism to provide support for PEC. This Page 3 would allow the Program to adjust to changing conditions in Mexico and to incorporate lessons learned both with the Program and in other countries. The lessons of the previous project and recent Bank studies on school governance have been incorporated into Project design. The program aims to increase the role of community participation in school management. The proposed second phase would consolidate gains and make appropriate improvements to the model, and expand the Program to more disadvantaged schools while increasing social participation, with the goal of seeing improvements in intermediate school outcomes such as reduction in dropout rates. The third phase would see the maturation of the Program and improvements in learning outcomes. 4. Description The second phase of the Program would follow the basic design introduced in Phase I. The main focus of Phase II would be to increase the coverage of PEC while also improving the targeting, educational focus and management of the Program. Specific changes would include improving the information system, developing new targeting and prioritization mechanisms, and improving social participation in school decision-making. The PEC has developed a new PETE-Formato Concentrador, which is shorter and substantially more user friendly than the original instrument. This will become the main instrument to allocate resources and would be used to ensure that PEC schools achieve their strategic objectives. In addition, PEC would play a greater role in coordinating various federal programs at the basic education level and in strengthening the supervision system. Phase II of the School-Based Management Program would maintain the three components from Phase I: Component 1: School and Education Grants (US$280.8 million with contingencies or 93 percent of project cost; Bank financing: US$204.5 million) . This component would finance the necessary resources and technical assistance for participating schools to implement school improvement plans and to support local efforts to improve education quality. Sub-component 1.1: School Grants (US$267.8 million) would be carried out at the school level, with grants offered by the State Education Authorities (AEEs). Sub-component 1.2: Local Education Grants (US$13 million) would provide similar support as in Sub-component 1.1 but at a higher level of aggregation, such as for a groups of schools or at the state or supervisory level. Component 2: Program Monitoring and Oversight. (US$17.5 million with contingencies or 5.8 percent of project cost; Bank financing: US$12.7 million) This component would finance Program monitoring, oversight and supervision, and dissemination and it follows the structure of Component 2 in phase I. The component would include support for the redesign of the school-based information system (SIPEC) and accreditation of other information systems, through sub-component 2.1: Program Monitoring ($1.6 million) . Sub-component 2.2: Program Implementation ($10.6 million) would finance Program management and supervision, allowing the supervision of activities in all of the states and the organization of national and regional events. Sub-component 2.3: Program Dissemination ($5.3 million) would continue to support the dissemination of information on Program objectives, activities, and results. Component 3: Policy Development and Evaluation. (US$3.3 million with contingencies or 1 percent of total project cost; Bank financing: US$2.4 million) As in Phase I, this component would support the organizational and institutional development of the Program and contribute to policy changes that in the long term can mainstream positive experiences. Specifically, the component would finance the evaluation of PEC’s impact on education outcomes (including student learning) through sub-component 3.1: Program Evaluation ($2.5 million) as well as policy studies and the evaluation of Page 4 SEP programs included in the PETE of participating schools through sub-component 3.2: Policy Studies ($0.8 million) . 5. Financing Source: ($m.) Borrower 82 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development 220 Total 302 6. Implementation Phase II of the Program would be implemented over a period of three years by SEP (Secretaría de Educación Pública) using implementation arrangements that are already in place for the Program’s Phase I. These arrangements are characterized by transparent operating rules, shared financing by the federal and state governments, decentralized implementation by the states, and efficient tools for federal oversight. PEC’s Operating Rules (Reglas de Operación) issued by SEP annually govern all Program implementation activities, including the eligibility and the selection criteria for schools to enter the Program. At state level, the Program is carried out by AEEs (Autoridades Educativas Estatales) . State education authorities are allowed to introduce state-specific Program rules and procedures provided these are compatible with the Program Operating Rules. The processes and procedures for Project implementation are described in the Project Operations Manual. 7. Sustainability Project sustainability is closely linked to ownership on the part of the federal and state governments and of the local community. First, within the Government there is a high level of ownership, as shown by the political and financial support at national and state level. This is reflected in the sustained and increasing funding for the Program provided by both federal and state governments since its inception. In Mexico, there is wide recognition of the importance of School-Based Management (SBM) as a means to improve the quality of education, and this public awareness has been a decisive factor for the support provided at all levels for the operation of the Program. The Alliance for Education Quality has explicitly included social participation within its program and PEC has been incorporated in the Integral Reform of Basic Education. Second, beneficiary ownership has been rapidly growing, as the demand from schools to participate in the Program has increased steadily. 8. Lessons Learned from Past Operations in the Country/Sector The first phase was designed following a careful review of the international literature and Mexico’s experience with PEC. In the past four years, the World Bank has worked closely with PEC at the federal and state levels and has been able to observe how PEC works at the school level. This has helped to develop new lessons and to confirm some of the observations made during the Program preparation. In particular: Page 5 · Top-down solutions are often inefficient and do not work on the ground. · Targeting is complicated, given the multiple objectives of PEC and political realities. · Creating legal autonomy does not automatically lead to changes in school management. · School-based management can improve quality but encouraging cooperation among schools also has an impact on school learning. 9. Safeguard Policies (including public consultation) Safeguard Policies Triggered by the Project Yes No Environmental Assessment ( OP / BP 4.01) [ ] [X] Natural Habitats ( OP / BP 4.04) [ ] [X] Pest Management ( OP 4.09 ) [ ] [X] Physical Cultural Resources ( OP/BP 4.11 ) [ ] [X] Involuntary Resettlement ( OP / BP 4.12) [ ] [X] Indigenous Peoples ( OP / BP 4.10) [X] [ ] Forests ( OP / BP 4.36) [ ] [X] Safety of Dams ( OP / BP 4.37) [ ] [X] Projects in Disputed Areas ( OP / BP 7.60) * [ ] [X] Projects on International Waterways ( OP / BP 7.50) [ ] [X] 10. List of Factual Technical Documents 1. Garcia, V., F. Knaul and H.A. Patrinos. 2005. “Returns to Education and Quality of Education in Mexico.” World Bank (Processed). 2. Gertler, P., H.A. Patrinos and M. Rubio-Codina. 2006. “Empowering Parents to Improve Education: Evidence from Rural Mexico.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3935. 3. Jimenez, E. and Y. Sawada. 2003. “Does community management help keep kids in schools? Evidence using panel data from El Salvador's EDUCO program.” CIRJE Discussion Paper. 4. Jimenez, E. and Y. Sawada. 1999. “Do Community-managed Schools Work? An Evaluation of El Salvador's EDUCO Program.” World Bank Economic Review. 13(3): 415-41. 5. Patrinos, H.A. and S. Metzger. 2004. “Returns to Education in Mexico: An Upd ate .” World Bank/Universidad de las Américas, Mexico (Processed). 6. Patrinos, H.A. 2006. “Mexico: AGEs ( Apoyo a la Gestión Escolar ) – School Management Support: A Qualitative Assessment.” World Bank. Processed. 7. Patrinos, H.A. 2009. “Empowering Parents to Improve Education” . World Bank (Draft). 8. Shapiro, J. and J. Moreno-Trevino. 2004. Compensatory Education for Disadvantaged Mexican Students: An Impact Evaluation Using Propensity Score Matching. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3334. * By supporting the proposed project, the Bank does not intend to prejudice the final determination of the parties' claims on the disputed areas Page 6 9. World Bank. 2005. Determinants of Learning Policy Note (Report No. 31842-MX). Latin America and the Caribbean, Human Development. The World Bank, Washington, D.C. 10. World Bank. 2008a. What is School-Based Management . Washington DC: World Bank. 11. World Bank. 2008b. What do We Know about School-Based Management . Washington DC: World Bank. 11. Contact point Contact: Ricardo Rocha Silveira Title: Senior Operations Officer Tel: (202) 473-8490 Fax: (202) 614-0943 Email: Rsilveira@worldbank.org 12. For more information contact : The InfoShop The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone: (202) 458-4500 Fax: (202) 522-1500 Email: pic@worldbank.org Web: http://www.worldbank.org/infoshop