Raising Student Learning in Latin America: The Challenge for the 21st Century

Noting poor student performance, Vegas and Petrow summarize evidence on the impact of student learning on policies and programs and present policy options for improvement. They rely mostly on national and international standardized test data in addition to dropout and completion rates in their discussion of how economic, political, and social conditions influence learning; student and school endowments and behaviors; and institutional factors and policies. They then consider evidence from countries that have succeeded in attaining high levels of learning and present policy options on education quality assurance. Vegas is an education economist in the World Bank's Human Development Department of the Latin America and Caribbean Region. Petrow works at the Inter-American Foundation, managing grants to nongovernmental and community-based organizations in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the Eastern Caribbean. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)