When the mayor of Vitacura, a leafy suburb of Chile's capital Santiago, gave all schools the choice of becoming self-governing, only one took up the challenge. It meant teachers giving up their job security, protected in employment law, to run the school themselves.
At Maria Luisa Bombal, a school with 510 pupils, the teachers voted for change and set up in business as governors and partners in the running of their own school. Their objective is to raise the standard of teaching.
'Our experience has been positive,' said Maria Leticia Obando, head of English. 'There is an internal level of quality control that has led to excellent performance.'
The radical experiment has achieved impressive results and earned a host of accolades. Maria Luisa Bombal is the top-scoring school in its commune at fourth and eighth grade. It has received the Academic Excellence Award of the Ministry of Education four times, and was one of the first schools to be awarded a certificate of quality in education management by Fundacion Chile.
Brian Caldwell, a global expert on the transformation of schools, has singled it out in his new book Raising the Stakes as an example of how the management of schools can be reorganised to transform achievement. 'Everything is geared to providing the best possible outcomes for all students,' he said. And this offers an example of how many schools could be run in 10 to 20 years' time, if teachers were given the freedom to turn schools into communities of learning for staff and pupils alike.
'The academic results so far have proven that the path we are following to become a high-quality school is the right one,' said the principal, Nilda Sotelo Sorribes, 61, who has 43 years of teaching experience. 'But it is one that requires continuous evaluation and revisions.'