Freedom of choice, competition and quality: educational policies of the Autonomous Region of Madrid

Abstract

The current article constitutes a part of the broader research project “Endogenous and exogenous
dynamics of privatization in education: the establishment of the quasi-market model in Spain”,
funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education. One of the main line of research is being developed in
the Autonomous region of Madrid, and its main aim is to track and state explicitly endogenous and
exogenous privatization dynamics within the local educational system, in order to detect and
analyze their educational effects and consequences. The local educational government has as main
goal the promotion of families’ right to choose the school for their children. The promotion of this
right will have as consequence, as the local government argues, the promotion of the competition
between schools, which in turn will improve the quality of education. In order to achieve this aim,
the local government is carrying out two main approaches: promoting the autonomy of schools and
publicizing rankings of schools. This article is based on the analysis of the effectiveness of these
policies in relation with the quality of education from three perspectives: the implementation of
these policies by the regional government, which constitutes an analysis of internal consistency;
the real effectiveness of these policies, that is to say, their influence on the quality of the
educational system as a whole, and finally, the reception of these policies from the families and
from the schools, as they both constitute the supply and demand of education.