1. Discussant: Emiliana Vegas The World Bank June 7, 2007
Comments for “When schools are the ones that choose: the effect of screening in Chile” by Dante Contreras, Sebastián Bustos and Paulina Sepúlveda
Discussant: Emiliana Vegas
The World Bank
June 7, 2007

2. Relevance & timeliness of topic
Key issue in the education debate in Chile is the inequity in the system resulting from school selection
Government just introduced a (controversial) law proposal that would eliminate selection in all publicly financed schools through grade 8

3. Findings
Contreras et al. find that when controlling for school selection, the private school advantage disappears
Interesting result that supports the hypothesis that the private school advantage relies on their ability to “cream-skim” students

4. But…
Previous studies that have documented the private school advantage in Chile are inconclusive due to the inherent inability to attribute causality using cross-sectional data
Contreras et al. has the same identification problem

5. Suggestions
Take advantage of likely implementation of new law that will forbid student selection in some schools to identify whether a private school advantage remains using longitudinal data