Specialized Secondary Programs (SSP): State Schools Chief Jack O’Connell Announces Grants to Develop New Advanced High School Programs

More Minorities Go to College, But Many Don’t Graduate

Education Coalition Calls for Substantive Solutions to Fully Fund California’s Schools

New Education Statues - 2008

‘Reading First’ Not Helping Students Grasp Meaning, Federal Study Finds

“What We Think,” An In-Depth Research Study on Urban School Climate

• 
  Financial support from individuals and the business community allows UCLA SMP to continue partnering with learning communities to ensure high achievement for every  student.

• More on how you can help today

LOS ANGELES — Teachers in Santiago, Chile, continue to see significant improvements in the quality of public education as a result of collaborating with educators in the United States at the UCLA School Management Program (SMP).

It’s a relationship that continues to grow stronger as SMP faculty members anticipate serving this fall as visiting professors in Chile for a third year.

The educational challenges and inequalities in Latin American countries like Chile have been a source of discussion for several years. A World Bank executive opined in 1998 that the problem was “the quality of teachers, textbooks used, and the (inadequate) amount of time students spend in school."

Similar concerns were on the mind of a Chilean professor in 2000 while she was at UCLA in pursuit of a doctorate. At that time the professor, Janet Cadiz, met Dr. Dan Chernow, the Executive Director of SMP, and spoke about issues related to improving education through leadership, learning that low-performing schools in both countries were facing the same issues.

As a result of that discussion, and several visits between the two countries, SMP began to collaborate with educators in Chile. Lessons learned by educators are already being applied in a Chilean government-funded intervention program that has targeted 14 schools in Santiago as having the most critical need for improvement of math and language skills. As a result of the efforts of SMP and the School of Education of the Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile, the quality of leadership professional development is on the rise.