What Do We Know About the Middle Tier of Education Governance from Latin America?

Following decentralization reforms, middle-tier governance structures (e.g., districts and municipalities) in Latin American education systems have evolved in structural and auxiliary ways, yet their roles, effectiveness, and impact on school improvement remain understudied. We systematically review gray and academic literature (2004–2023) in Spanish, Portuguese, and English to understand how scholars conceptualize and analyze subnational actors and organizations. We find that (a) the research is uneven, concentrated in Chile and Brazil, with limited comparative or empirical work across contexts; (2) the papers describe reforms that oscillate between local autonomy and strong central oversight, producing prescriptive models that improve accountability but constrain local innovation (i.e., middle-tier actors are tasked with new pedagogic and managerial responsibilities without the resources, clear mandates, or capacity development needed to carry them out effectively); and (c) few studies evaluate whether and how the middle-tier structures improve teaching and learning, leaving evaluation and measurement underdeveloped. The review calls for deeper empirical and comparative research on the topic.