translated from Spanish: The historical origin of the SIMCE

on 16 and 17 November met 30 years from the first application of the SIMCE. In its anniversary it is worth make some clarifications regarding its debated origin.
Some scholars say that the genesis of the proof was in the commodification of education, under the dictatorship, in order to encourage competition and guide “free choice” of parents. Other contra – argue, considering that it was intended with a pedagogical purpose from a team of the Catholic University, through the previous “test of evaluation of the performance school” (PER). Others insist that the Simce arose from an alliance between the military regime and the PUC to feed a neo-liberal vision in education.
I can tell that they all have a point, because the origin of the Simce cannot be understood by a single fact historic, nor by a single rationality. It is an eclectic history.
The story began in 1978 with Gonzalo Vial as Minister of education and an agreement with the Catholic University, under the direction of the expert in statistics, Erika Himmel. The purpose was to develop the aforementioned test, known by its acronym “PER”. This test was applied for the first time in 1982 census so 4th and 8th Basic.

This type of testing were not new. Under the reform of Frei Montalva was introduced for the first time standardized assessments, as it was the “national test of skill Verbal and mathematical” applied in 1967 to the 8th basic year and “Test of fitness academic”, applied for the first time the same year.
At the end of the 70s, although actually it was preparing reform the educational system, the PER was not initially devised from a mercantil-competitiva rationality. The objective was to carry out a study to identify the variables that affect in the academic performance of students, as well as give ‘objective’ information to the teaching teams.
During this period the PUC team insisted that the results had pedagogical purposes and that they could not be public or be linked to sanctions. The results were given detailed by percentage of achievement with respect to each curriculum objective for each student, in a sealed envelope, together with various materials (videos, manuals, instructions, reports) about how to interpret and use such results.
Rationality with which was prepared the PER was rather a continuation of what had been brewing since the 60s. It was part of the positivist technocratic utopia of the time that was around in the intellectuals of education, influenced by various aspects that converged, as advances in psychometrics and statistics, studies of ‘school effectiveness’, the technocratic curriculum (inspired by authors such as Tyler and Bloom), the use of standardized tests in other countries (especially the USA SAT test), added to the visions of development at the time.
The neoliberal logic in the application of the test was introduced particularly with the transfer of power of Minister Gonzalo Vial Alfredo Prieto. At the end of the year 1979, Prieto asked the evaluation team change the purpose of the test to – measure the quality of each establishment- and thus to disseminate assessment results and focus the school choice for parents. This rotation explains the change of name from “School performance assessment program” to the rear “measurement of the quality of the education system” in 1988.
This in turn merged with a rationale of State control. Gonzalo Vial, for example, raised the need for intervention in establishments with low results, and the later Minister of education Monica Madariaga proposed that schools be closed with low performance. However, this implied important problems with equipment PUC who objected to such measures and finally not enforced.
In short, in the beginnings of the SIMCE (not of the PER) test was devised as a mechanism to guide and promote the competence of the school system, but the historical process of this assessment cannot be reduced to this. It is an eclectic history that came together different actors, rationalities and technologies so that finally reached materialized.

The content in this op-ed It is the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial line nor the counter position.

Original source in Spanish

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