The presentation will discuss the complex process, discussion and tensions impacting on the implementation and establishment of a teachers’ career in Chile, through passing of the Teachers’ Professional Development Law (2016). In so doing, reference will be made to Cuenca’s (2015) analysis of teacher career systems in Latin America and its two historic periods of development, which aptly characterise the Chilean case. The first period covers the 1950s to 1990s, in the context of welfare societies where public teachers are public servants, and progression is based on fixed promotion levels covering long periods of time (escalafón). Teacher entry into these career systems is based on competitive processes known as “concursos” and later progression is based on years of experience, carrying the right to salary increase. The second generation of teacher careers develops from the 2000s onwards and coincides with the impact of neoliberal policies. Teacher progression ceases to be merely based on years of service. Teachers must compete with each other in complex evaluation processes with successful individual performance evaluation becoming the criteria for career progression (Cuenca, 2015). The presentation will centre on discussions, tensions and agreements in Chile, from the early 2000s onwards, on teacher performance evaluation and its links to a possible formal career system. It will show the tensions around the kind of performance evaluation, from voluntary to compulsory, and the kind of standards to use as criteria. It will refer to influences of USA models over the system of standards, compulsory and voluntary progression forms, as well as tensions between formative and summative evaluation, using Value Added Models. The presentation will describe the career finally approved, its form as largely reflecting accountability norms found elsewhere (Tournier et al., 2019), but also the role of public/teacher input in moderating its individualist focus through accepting “teacher collaborative practices” as a criterion for evaluation.

Avalos-Bevan, B. (2018). Teacher evaluation in Chile: Highlights and complexities in 13 years of experience. Teachers and Teaching. Theory and Practice, 24:3, 297-311, DOI:10.1080/13540602.2017.1388228 Cuenca, R. (2015). Carreras docentes en América Latina: La acción meritocrática para el desarrollo profesional. Santiago: Oficina Regional de Educación para América Latina y el Caribe (OREALC). Tournier, B., Chuimier, C., Childress, D. & Raudonyte (2019). Teacher Career Reforms: Learning from Experience. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning.