CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS AND EDUCATION: UNITED IN THEORY, DIVORCED IN POLICY

1. CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS AND EDUCATION: UNITED IN THEORY, DIVORCED IN POLICY Michelle Morais de Sa e Silva PhD, Columbia University

2. Background • CCT’s: expected to reduce poverty while building human capital through educational and health-related conditionalities . • International literature: pressure for CCT impact on ed quality indicators • This study’s assumption: minimum coordination between CCTs and education at the policymaking level.

3. Research Questions • RQ1 - What factors contribute to CCTs being adopted (or not) by education policymakers? • RQ2 - What factors prevent or enable CCTs to induce new policies for improved education quality? • RQ3 - How have conditional cash transfers been politically sustained?

4. Theoretical Framework • Four bodies of theory/literature that address policy continuity and change • Advocacy coalition framework • Policy borrowing and lending • Punctuated equilibrium theory • Civic capacity • Theoretical constructs and concepts guided data collection and analysis

5. Methodology Case selection: • Appraisal of all existing CCTs • Selection of three cases, each with a different structure of educational conditionalities: • Opportunity NYC: attendance and test performance • Subsidios (Bogota): attendance and completion • Bolsa Familia (Brazil): enrolment and attendance

6. Methodology Data sources: • 66 semi-structured interviews • Policy documents • National and international newspaper articles • Webpages of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank

7. Findings – Opportunity NYC • RQ1: Opportunity NYC has no buy-in within the DoE. It is seen as an experiment. • RQ2: Opportunity NYC is divorced from current debates on how to improve education quality. • RQ3: There is no mobilized opposition to the program.

8. Findings - Subsidios • RQ1: Program implemented by the DoE. Availability of international funding and the influence of consultants were important factors • RQ2: No change in education policies. Subsidios is seen as a program that enhances student well-being. • RQ3: Supported by teachers, principals, and parents. Support from other groups along party lines.

9. Findings – Bolsa Familia • RQ1: Bolsa Familia is not an ed policy • RQ2: Inadequate ed quality in public schools is recognized as a problem, but BF has not created additional pressure to solve that • RQ3: The continuity of BF is unquestionable. • Civic capacity created by beneficiary families • Flexibility to adjust to various political discourses

10. Conclusions • The assumption that there was coordination between CCTs and ed policies did not hold • CCTs have not been adopted or owned by education policymakers. They have not led to new policies for improved quality of education: • United in theory (in the international literature on CCTs) • Divorced in policy • Political sustainability due to their “popularity” and the possibility of making CCTs adjust to various political orientations