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Why Chile's SATs Have Become the New Frontline of Inequality Protests

BY CIARA NUGENT (JANUARY 23, 2020 10:38 AM EST)

On Jan. 6 and 7, roughly 300,000 high school seniors were set to take the University Selection Test (PSU) - a prerequisite
Left students' union for highschoolers, disrupted the test centers, blocking entrances, burning test papers and clashing with security forces. At least 82,000 students were unable to take one of the four tests that make up the PSU. ACES is promising to repeat the disruption on Jan. 27 and 28, when authorities plan to rerun the exams. In the meantime, students have occupied the offices of exam authorities, and protested in the streets, calling for an end to the PSU.
Many in Chile agree that the PSU is biased toward the 6 out of 10 Chilean students whose families can afford to pay extra for their child's schooling. In the country's highly stratified education system, students attend either free public schools, partially private schools that both receive state funding and charge fees, or fully private schools that are funded only by student fees. In 2018, just 30% of public school students that took the PSU got a high enough score to apply to college, compared to 43.5% of those from partially-private schools and 79% of those from fully private schools.
That educational inequality is a major reason why Chile has low rates of social mobility and high rates of income inequality, says Ayelen Salgado, an 18-year-old ACES spokesperson. "Someone who could afford a good high school education will get into university and then get a good job. Someone who goes to a poor school won't be well prepared, so they won't get in and they'll end up as a spare part for the workforce in our country." Salgado and her fellow union members see their actions as part of a long tradition of Chilean high schoolers taking a leading role in national social justice movements.
But ACES' drastic methods have not been popular. Local media and even other student unions have condemned the PSU boycott, arguing it was unfair to target fellow students who have spent years preparing for the test, and that stopping the test by force was undemocratic. On Jan. 8, the government said it was filing a lawsuit against Salgado and 34 other students who led the action under Chile's national security law, accusing them of disrupting public services. But ACES say it won't back down until the PSU is canceled indefinitely and replaced with a new admissions process. With the promise of fresh disruption when the new school year begins in March, national politics will be high on the curriculum for Chile's students.
It was a group of high school students that kickstarted the protests - soon joined by university students and older people- that have gripped Chile since mid-October. After the government introduced a small hike in the price of subway tickets, thousands of young people carried out "mass fare evasions," jumping turnstiles at stations in Santiago in protest at the high cost of living in the capital. Their demonstrations quickly morphed into a nationwide "social explosion", as Chileans used marches and strikes to highlight the deep inequalities generated by Chile's market-driven economic model, and the underfunding of public services like education, healthcare and transport in the continent's wealthiest countries. Clashes between protesters and security forces - often accused of excessive force in Chile - have left 29 dead and more than 3,500 injured.
This month's fight over educational inequality - like most other grievances behind the protests - has its roots in the era of Augusto Pinochet's right-wing military dictatorship, which ruled for 17 years from 
1973In the early 1980s, Pinochet began to reform elementary and secondary education, reducing the role of central government in funding education, increasing control for local authorities and encouraging more involvement by private providers. The aim, the regime said, was to improve education quality through competition. But after more than three decades of this decentralized system, a World Bank report found the quality of Chile's secondary schools had actually gotten worse between 1980 and 2015, with Chile experiencing the greatest decline in quality of the 22 large economies studied.
Salgado says the PSU is "the tip of the iceberg" in terms of the problems that poorer students face in Chile's part-privatized education system. "The whole system is designed so that people can profit from what should be a right." Chile is hardly the only country in the world where private schools give the children of the wealthy a boost. Part of the reason that Chilean teenagers are taking such radical action is the extent of privatization. 62% of students attend private or partially private high schools — one of the highest proportions in the world.
The disruption of the PSU has been highly divisive in Chile. Some on the left have praised the courage of Salgado and her co-spokesperson in ACES Victor Chanfreau, arguing they are continuing the fight started by leftwing dissidents under the dictatorship. But many in Chile's media say ACES have gone too far and that the disruption of test centers amounts to using force to undermine other students' right to education. Some commentators say the union's leaders are dangerous far-left radicals, pointing to their support, expressed on social media, for the disgraced leftwing government of Nicolás Maduro in crisis-stricken Venezuela.
Salgado says the government and the media's condemnation is "just what they always do when people are mobilizing and making legitimate demands," and that she's not scared of the personal implications for her future.
(Source: https://time.com/5770308/chile-student-protests/)