A nation's transition from dictatorship to democracy generally involves institutional reform attempts with new priorities serving a wider range of people and goals. This study describes and compares the goals, means, and outcomes of administrative reforms in the public educational systems of three Hispanic nations (Venezuela, Colombia, and Spain). All three countries executed decentralization and regionalization reform strategies with common characteristics that either facilitated or detracted from the proposed changes. A field research methodology was used to gather data from classroom teachers and ministers of education. A decade after decentralization efforts began, Spain and Colombia had demonstrated considerable success toward achieving their goals, while Venezuela had not. There are eight principal reasons for this situation related to (1) differences in collaboration methods; (2) political party politics; (3) incremental approaches; (4) government continuity; (5) costs; (6) budget control; (7) regional boundaries; and (8) formalization of educational organization and management structures. Spain and Colombia's practice of decentralizing in stages allowed more experimentation leeway than Venezuela's "all at once" strategy, which proved difficult to integrate. Included are 44 references in Spanish and English. (MLH)