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This paper aims at analyzing decentralization reforms in the education sector in Latin America (their status, impact and on-going challenges) by making use of the accountability framework developed by the 2004 World Development Report. It starts by identifying three main groups of models according to the sub national actors involved, the pattern adopted in the distribution of functions across sub-national actors and the accountability system central to the model. It then reviews the impact of these models, according to the available empirical evidence, and explores determinants of this impact, extracting lessons useful to the design of future reforms. It concludes that the single most important factor in ensuring the success or failure of a reform is the way the accountability relationships are set to work within each of t he models and provides some lessons on how to get these relationships to work effectively. It also provides three main general lessons for the selection of “successful” models: (a) avoiding complicated models; (b) increasing school autonomy and the scope for “client power”, maintaining a clear role for the other accountability relationships; and (c) putting more emphasis on the “management” accountability relationship and the sustainability of the models.
