The Chilean reform has been pointed to (mostly by international agencies) as a model to be followed by Latin America. An insistence on this hypothesis justified the research developed in Santiago which focussed on 12 schools, where directors and some teachers were interviewed, and representatives of the teachers' unions and the Ministry of Education were also heard. Various official documents were studied for the purpose of clarifying how the reform has impacted on the school agents charged with transforming the directives in administrative and pedagogical practice. The text prioritizes discussion of financing and market mechanisms introduced into the system. It concludes that the technical pedagogical advances achieved have not prevented serious damage to social justice from being registered.