Abstract

GLUZ, Nora  and  FEENEY, Silvina. Between discourses and practices: the contradictory logics of standardized evaluations of educational quality in the Province of Buenos Aires (2015-2019). J. Pol. Educ-s [online]. 2023, vol.17, e92197.  Epub Apr 08, 2024. ISSN 1981-1969.  https://doi.org/10.5380/jpe.v17i0.92197.

The article presents an analysis of the uses of standardized quality assessment results for the development of educational policies targeting the most vulnerable groups during the government of the new right-wing in Argentina (2015-2019). We focus on the implementation of the “Programa Nacional Escuelas Faro” in the secondary level of two jurisdictions: the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and the Province of Buenos Aires. The study of policy designs and the implicit rationales behind the measures adopted, as well as their appropriations by institutional actors, reveals the contradictions between the purposes and practices aimed at improving the academic performance of the most disadvantaged groups and the effective contribution of quality tests for this purpose. The results indicate that, even though external tests are presented as the basis and monitoring strategy of the Program, they are scarcely used as pertinent and relevant information at the institutional level on one hand. On the other hand, their disciplinary nature is inconsistent with the aim of developing interdisciplinary project-based work as an improvement device. These tests also do not take into account the living conditions of students and the organization of teaching work that influence performances. Instead, we posit that the tests served as a legitimizing device for the new policy orientations because they are symbolically imbued with a scientific and neutral evaluation that obscures the political nature and interests at stake in the new conceptions of the right to education carried by the new lines of intervention.

Keywords : Quality Evaluation; Inequalities; High School.

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