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Educação em Revista
versão impressa ISSN 0102-4698versão On-line ISSN 1982-6621
Educ. rev. vol.38 Belo Horizonte 2022 Epub 16-Fev-2022
https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-469825020
ARTICLE
MANAGEMENT FOR RESULTS AND CONTROL ACTIONS IN THE EDUCATIONAL PUBLIC POLICY OF SÃO PAULO1
3 Universidade de São Paulo (USP) São Paulo, SP, Brazil
2 Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp). São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
From the perspective of internationalization of the modes of regulation of educational policies and school management, this article aims to discuss São Paulo’s state educational public policy between 2007 and 2018, by using authors such as Akkari (2011), Afonso (2013) and Paro (2012). For this purpose, this study presents an analysis of the concept of management in the educational policy agenda of the public school state network of São Paulo, through qualitative research on the documentary source of programs in force since 2007: “Reading and Writing”, “Quality of the School” and “São Paulo Makes School”, prepared by the São Paulo State Department of Education. The initiatives were justified with the narrative of improving the quality of teaching, limited to results in external evaluation and are characterized by a process of control of pedagogical work with the introduction of hyper-structured materials in all stages of teaching, prepared with public-private arrangements, the association between educational index goals, student performance in external evaluation and bonus remuneration and the role of coordinating teacher as an executor of the curriculum under technical and standardized molds. The announced improvements alleged evidence the management for results public policy, guided by a centralized control, in contrast to the prediction of active community participation and democratic management of education.
Keywords: education public policy; curriculum control; management for results; democratic management; internationalization of policies
Na perspectiva da internacionalização dos modos de regulação das políticas educacionais e da gestão escolar, o objetivo do artigo é discutir a política educacional paulista no período entre 2007 e 2018. Para tanto, recorreu-se a autores como Akkari (2011), Afonso (2013) e Paro (2012). Apresenta-se uma análise da concepção de gestão na agenda da política educacional da rede estadual de São Paulo, por meio de pesquisa qualitativa sobre fonte documental de programas vigentes desde 2007: Ler e Escrever, Qualidade da Escola e São Paulo Faz Escola, elaborados pela Secretaria de Estado da Educação de São Paulo. As iniciativas foram justificadas com a narrativa de melhoria da qualidade do ensino, circunscrita a resultados em avaliação externa e caracterizam-se por um processo de controle do trabalho pedagógico com a introdução de materiais hiperestruturados em todas as etapas de ensino, elaborados com arranjos público-privados, associação entre metas de índices, desempenho de estudantes em avaliação externa e remuneração por bonificação e papel do professor coordenador como executor do currículo sob moldes técnicos e padronizados. As pretensas melhorias anunciadas evidenciam a gestão para resultados, pautada pelo controle de modo centralizado, em contraposição à previsão da participação ativa da comunidade e à gestão democrática do ensino.
Palavras-chave: política educacional; controle do currículo; gestão para resultados; gestão democrática; internacionalização das políticas
En la perspectiva de la internacionalización de los modos de regulación de las políticas educativas y la gestión escolar, el objetivo del artículo es discutir la política educativa de São Paulo en el período comprendido entre 2007 y 2018, utilizando autores como Akkari (2011), Afonso (2013) y Paro (2012). Para este propósito, se presenta un análisis del concepto de gestión en la agenda de política educativa de la red estatal de São Paulo, a través de una investigación cualitativa sobre las fuentes documentales de los programas vigentes desde 2007: “Lectura y escritura”, “Calidad de la escuela” y “São Paulo hace escuela”, preparado por el Departamento de Educación del Estado de São Paulo. Las iniciativas se justificaron con la narrativa de mejorar la calidad de la enseñanza, limitada a los resultados de la evaluación externa y se caracterizan por un proceso de control del trabajo pedagógico con la introducción de materiales hiperestructurados en todas las etapas de la enseñanza, preparados con arreglos público-privados, asociación entre objetivos de índice de educación, desempeño del estudiante en evaluación externa y remuneración adicional y papel del maestro coordinador como ejecutor del currículo escolar bajo moldes técnicos y estandarizados. Las supuestas mejoras anunciadas muestran la gestión para resultados, basada por el control de forma centralizada, en lugar del pronóstico de la participación activa de la comunidad y de la gestión democrática de la enseñanza.
Palabras clave: política educativa; control curricular; gestión para resultados; gestión democrática; internacionalización de políticas
INTRODUCTION
The two decades of the 2000s show the global advance of educational policies aligned with the neoliberal ideology already emphasized in the 1990s, which aim at the reduction of the role of the State with social policies, fiscal adjustment, the economy regulated by the market, management for results, the challenges from the technological advances with reflexes in the educational field. Appropriating the discourse of democracy, the guarantee of rights, and the reduction of inequalities, these policies show strategies that, to a large extent and through control mechanisms, annihilate and/or nullify rights such as the one that guarantees the participation of the population in making decisions to help the people.
In Brazil, due to the referrals established by agents external to education that, authorized by the administrations, start to dictate the forms and contents of educational policies, which question the very young democratic management of education, the result of social struggles for rights such as the participation in decision-making bodies, enshrined in the Federal Constitution of 1988 (CF/88), in the Law of Directives and Bases of National Education of 1996 (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases - LDB/96) reaffirmed in the 2001 National Education Plan (Plano Nacional de Educação - PNE), and in the goal 19 of the 2014 PNE (BRASIL, 1988; 1996; 2001; 2014), already having some interesting experiences recorded in schools and education networks in the 2000s.
Regarding the internationalization of models for regulating educational policies, according to Abdeljalil Akkari (2011), there was a growing pressure in the 2000s for the decentralization of education with increased participation of the private sector in the elaboration of agendas and the formulation of policies for basic education. Some expressive examples of policies that have become internationalized are the reduction of teaching expenses and the pressure on teachers who have to show their pedagogical actions by measuring results. These are proposals developed in different countries with policies linked to governments of different political-ideological hues. In democratic countries, they are very present in the electoral debate, being constantly evaluated.
In a global movement, policies adopted in one country are quickly “appropriated by political elites and powerful interest groups in other countries” (AKKARI, 2011, p. 13), taking root in different ways in national systems. Different groups outside the school such as political, social, industrial, and financial sectors start to guide education. However, the history of each country, region, and locality makes its interpretation, counting on the reflections of social movements, unions, and others. Tensions between the global, the national, and the local are evident. In this perspective, Akkari (2011, p. 17) states that “national education policies can no longer be conceived and implemented without considering international debates”.
In the discussion on decentralization, privatization, and globalization, the author mentions accountability as the obligation to show results or income statements related to good governance (AKKARI, 2011), and he suggests its relationship with actions planned to achieve goals proposed in educational politics. Thus, following the logic of internationalization of educational policies, it has been common for federal, state, and municipal governments to present their proposals. From the point of view of policy regulation, the adoption of management control strategies has a direct impact on school work and can appear as hallmarks of governments.
We can observe an example in early September 2019, when the governor of the State of São Paulo João Dória Júnior, from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira - PSDB), communicated on his Twitter account about “an unacceptable error” contained in the Student´s notebooks of the São Paulo Makes School program (Programa São Paulo Faz Escola), intended for students in the 8th grade and ordered the education secretary Rossieli Soares da Silva to collect them immediately, alleging that this error referred to “the apology of gender ideology”. Then, the Secretary of State for Education (Secretaria de Estado da Educação - Seduc) established a Working Group (WG) to analyze and review the content (SÃO PAULO, 2019) and, within a few hours, most of the Notebooks in the possession of students were collected.
After a few days of this serious act of censorship and control of the content taught in schools without any kind of legal justification and process of formal communication or dialogue, the Government of the State of São Paulo was forced to return the notebooks through a lawsuit filed by a group of professors-researchers and lawyers.4 In a letter to principals of the São Paulo state network, the aforementioned group considers:
This fact says a lot about the current state of schools in São Paulo, the management difficulties they face, the treatment they receive from political authorities and the State Department of Education - SEDUC and their view on the role of principals in implementing the public education policies (REDE ESCOLA PÚBLICA E UNIVERSIDADE, 2019, p. 1).
Based on this action, the following question arises: Had not the educational policy in São Paulo already paved the way for such control over the curriculum and the management of schools?
This article aims to discuss the educational policy of São Paulo between 2007 and 2018 based on qualitative research with document analysis (CELLARD, 2008). Facing the perspective of the internationalization of educational policies, this text shows an analysis of the management concept in the educational policy agenda of the state network of São Paulo, based on the projects and programs called Reading and Writing, Quality of the School (Ler e escrever, Qualidade da Escola) (which condenses Saresp5 and Idesp6) and São Paulo Makes School program in force since 2007, under the government administration in which they were implemented. This approach allows research on the relationship between the successive administrations, given the permanence of the same party in government since 1995 - PSDB.
The text is organized with the following discussions: the control of pedagogical work based on a narrative of the quality of education; an analysis of these programs on the agenda of São Paulo's educational policy; the legitimation of such actions referenced in the internationalization of regulatory modes. We end with a synthesis of the criticism of the non-relevance of democratic management in the educational policies of the State of São Paulo.
CONTROL FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION
In 2007,7 based on the results measured in the school census and external evaluations, the former governor José Serra (PSDB) announced, during his administration, the improvement of the quality of education in state schools as a priority on the education agenda. He stated that the performance of the state school system was insufficient (SÃO PAULO, 2007a).
External evaluations were privileged, using the creation of indices and goals to, supposedly, mobilize schools to improve their results. In this text, we consider that the management of the curriculum had a set of actions that gave centrality to the control of the pedagogical work carried out in the schools of the teaching network, based on the three volumes of the Manager's Notebook: management of the curriculum at school - Caderno do gestor: gestão do currículo na escola (SÃO PAULO, 2008d, 2008e, 2009c) prepared by Seduc.
These evaluation policies constituted a double investment in the state network: gathering information for the creation of programs and projects to define government priorities and their respective focus, inducing changes and consolidating reforms that were previously structured for public education.
With the implementation of Saresp8 in 1995, considered as a prelude to educational policies with goals and centralization of the curriculum, the government's main conclusion was to achieve greater control over pedagogical work through goals of the Idesp and the São Paulo Makes School program, a centrally designed curriculum proposal. These policies induced certain longevity, as the first one foresees duration until 2030 and due to this index, the second composes a technical apparatus of Seduc, which translated into the management policy for results, supposedly perennial.
This set of policies continued the external evaluation actions adopted by the federal government during the administrations of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002) and Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2006 and 2007-2010). In 2007, to monitor the goals and actions of the Education Development Plan (Plano de Desenvolvimento da Educação - PDE),9 the Basic Education Development Index (Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica - Ideb) was created, still in force, obtained from the aggregation of the average pass rate, captured by the School Census, and the average score of the Brazil Test (Prova Brasil) (BRASIL, 2007a).
With Ideb at the national level, the intention to implement Idesp enabled an international comparison of educational data from the state network due to the comparison with itself, which considered its historical time and the socio-political context in which the network was inserted.
However, the differential of the São Paulo state government consisted of the unit the policy of quantitative goals and control through the curriculum under the axis of management for results, represented in the expression: management for results = external evaluations + goals + centralized curriculum.
Focusing on the results of Saresp and following the logic of actions for “good governance” (AKKARI, 2011), the curriculum started to be centralized via didactic material for schools. Texts and activities started to be produced by Seduc to be used in the classroom and based on the content required by Saresp.10
São Paulo's educational policy has established a strong bond between curriculum management and external evaluations because they interfere with the didactic material distributed to schools, on the content to be taught, and on collective workspaces between teachers and the management team. With the consolidation of the curricular proposal, the participation rate of students in the Saresp test in 2009 was a record in the history of the application of the test.11 The collective pedagogical work schedules also started to have guidelines on the use of handouts and the centrality in applying them (BOIM, 2010).
IMPLEMENTATION OF POLICIES ESTABLISHED IN THE MANAGEMENT OF PEDAGOGICAL CONTROL
Aimed at highlighting its curriculum management strategy together with the management for results, the government of São Paulo has adopted articulated and so-called innovative initiatives since 2007: the Reading and Writing program, linked to the Public School and University Scholarship (Bolsa Escola Pública e Universidade); the Quality of the School program and Idesp and the São Paulo Makes School Program, proposals that will be discussed below.
Reading and Writing and Public School and University Scholarship in the management for results
The Reading and Writing Program, launched in 2007, contains a teaching material called Notebooks for the Educator (Cadernos para o Educador), which offers a path to be followed by the literacy teacher, presenting results focused on guidance on activities, step by step. Its content proves to apply to any child, regardless of their social, economic, cultural background. For example: for reading and writing, works with traditional tales, rhymes, among other literary genres are proposed. Issues of class, gender, race, and ethnicity, among others present in children's daily lives, are made invisible. If the school has such reflections recorded in its Pedagogical Political Project, the literal use of Reading and Writing may bring impasses for the teacher, and the intentions expressed in the program reveal its limitations.
Supposedly linked to the improvement of data from the Saresp test applied in 2005, Reading and Writing is a program of pedagogical intervention in the classroom with the teacher and the students, and intervention in management, involving supervision, management, and pedagogical coordination in the school setting. Originating in the Municipality of São Paulo and considered as a successful experience, it was implemented in the state network through Resolution 22/2007 (SÃO PAULO, 2007b), which established a WG coordinated by Iara Glória Areias Prado,12 an assistant secretary at that time and also a participant in the Foundation for the Development of Education (Fundação para o Desenvolvimento da Educação - FDE).
The aforementioned WG was responsible for a series of interventions together with the school management teams, especially focusing on training actions for technical-pedagogical assistants, teaching supervisors, principals, and pedagogical coordinators of the schools involved.
Despite this self-declared commitment, training for citizenship, social coexistence, collective and individual decision-making, the appreciation of differences, as presuppositions for a democratic society, as provided for in the LDB/1996, are secondary to the focus on only the standardized content and not to the subjects involved in the educational process. The expectation was that the result would be presented as soon as possible: a literate student. The subjects were evidenced only between the lines and as their attributions as responsibility. Teachers and students, school, and family were seen as the only responsible in case of failure of the literacy process. When the success is identified, it is attributed to the proposal prepared by the government.
Since its first implementation phase, its goal was to involve all schools in the capital, aiming to improve the quality of education, especially in reading and writing, trying to articulate the State and Municipal Departments of Education in São Paulo. Focusing on the four years of Elementary School, the teachers participating in this program would be assigned an additional 4 hours in their workday.
Aiming at long-term goals, the Reading and Writing Program aimed to teach all Elementary School students up to eight years of age in the São Paulo network to read and write and to recover the reading and writing learning of students in all grades of Elementary School.
Relations between public and private areas are also expressed in the articulation between the literacy results programs of the state network of São Paulo.
The Public School and University Scholarship program was instituted through Decree 51,627/2007 (SÃO PAULO, 2007c), and is still in effect. It is for undergraduate students at higher education institutions who, under the supervision of university professors, are responsible for working in classes and during class hours in the state education network or extra tuition and learning support projects.
The program is developed by Seduc, directly or through the FDE, by signing agreements with public or private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that work in the training of teachers for Elementary School, Middle School, and High School, whose clauses provide for a transfer of resources from Seduc to the HEIs that sign the agreement, with a duration of at least 2 years and can be extended up to 5 years.
The cooperation system in the Public School and University Scholarship and Reading and Writing programs provides for the public-private relationship and an instrument for the management of results adopted by the government.
Private HEIs, whose main objective is profit, in this type of cooperation with the public sector can have as a counterpart, for example, tax exemption. The resources for the Reading and Writing program were prepared by consultants recognized as principals of private HEIs.13 Also, the state government allowed the entry of private agents in the implementation of the aforementioned literacy actions.
These programs were expanded to schools in the metropolitan region of São Paulo in 2008 and cities in the interior of the state from 2009.
The Public School Scholarship in Literacy program (Programa Bolsa Escola Pública Universidade na Alfabetização) was expanded through Resolution 83/2007, aiming both the support to the initial training of professors with the performance of undergraduate students, as assistants of teachers in classes of the literacy cycle, persisting in the goal stipulated in the first phase of implementation of the program: “to guarantee the learning of reading and writing to all students” (SÃO PAULO, 2007d).
Regarding the expansion of the Reading and Writing program, Resolution 86/2007 considered it as urgent “to solve the difficulties presented by Elementary School students in the skills of reading and writing, expressed in the results of SARESP 2005”. It is necessary “to promote the recovery of reading and writing learning by students of all Elementary schools” and essential “to invest in the effective improvement of the quality of education in the initial years of education” (SÃO PAULO, 2007e).
The management of state schools in the period started to have new measures implemented from the expansion of these projects and programs, whose initial focus was the literacy cycle, starting to focus on Middle School and High School in 2008.
The first measure was the redefinition of the role of the coordinating teacher who has since assumed the pedagogical coordination of the school in all forms of basic education, sharing coordination with the school management and teaching supervision.
Seduc, in Resolution 88/2007, considered that “pedagogical coordination constitutes one of the structural pillars of the current policy to improve the quality of education and the Coordinating Teachers act as implementers of this policy” (SÃO PAULO, 2007f).
The role of the coordinating teacher was responsible for linking the political-pedagogical projects of the schools in which they worked to internal and external assessments. An agent had the task of raising student school performance as evidenced in these assessment instruments, and should also intervene in the practice of school teachers to diversify work proposals to overcome difficulties detected with students and for the effectiveness of their work (SÃO PAULO, 2007f).
On the one hand, the coordinating teacher faced the challenge of promoting teaching as an educational process. On the other hand, he had to act in the process guided by results, evidencing his role as a controlling manager of the curriculum in the school, which, according to the rhetoric of the program, must improve quantitative results in Saresp.
Quality of the School Program (PQE)
The Quality of the School Program introduced, pari passu to the centralization of the curriculum, the change like state schools, making Saresp the main way of measuring school quality.
Important topics such as dropout, extra tuitions, and student learning have been a numerical professional enterprise granting salary bonuses. The effort to involve school communities in improving the quality of education has also been transformed into a control and accounting strategy, in which the modus operandi is to follow rules and measures, so then to punish or reward.
In contrast to the community's participation in the construction of the school's curriculum, as an expression of its democratic management, from the Quality of the School Program (PQE) the other programs and projects of Seduc assumed a more evident association with the management policy guided by the control. Established by Resolution 74/2008 (SÃO PAULO, 2008a), the PQE introduced the Idesp in the management of state schools, as another indicator of the quality of education. Like the Ideb, it is calculated based on school flow data, promotion indices, and student performance in external assessments. Based on Idesp, goals are set annually, scheduled from 2008 to 2030, to be achieved in each school in the state network of São Paulo.
According to Resolution 74/2008, the PQE and Idesp try to evaluate the quality of state schools in Elementary School, Middle School, and High School, set goals to guide the management team in decision-making guiding schools towards the improvement of educational services and subsidizing actions to promote the improvement of quality and equity in state schools (SÃO PAULO, 2008a).
Seduc stated that to achieve the objective of “promoting the improvement of the quality and equity of the education system in the state network of São Paulo”, the task was to evaluate “each school[...] the quality of the educational service provided annually” and propose “goals for improving the quality of the education they offer” (SÃO PAULO, 2009a, p. 1).
According to Seduc, when evaluating the quality of the school, “a good school is one in which most students learn the skills and abilities required for their grade, in an ideal period - the school year” (SÃO PAULO, 2009a, p. 1), emphasizing that the performance of students at Saresp and the school flow constitute criteria for the quality of teaching.
The role of teaching supervision was adapted to the management policy for results, as explained in Resolution 97/2009: “supervisory action in the implementation and monitoring of education policies, guidelines and goals”; emphasizing that it was necessary to “rationalize the criteria used in the establishment of work sectors, given the education development indices obtained by the Quality of the School Program” and considering that the education goals aimed at improving the quality of education in state schools (SÃO PAULO, 2009b, emphasized by us).
In the hierarchy of powers of the State Department of Education, the teaching supervisor is a Member of the Supervision Team of a Regional Instance, directly reporting to the Education Board. However, the teaching supervisor was responsible for the errors and failures that were reflected in the Saresp results, if they had not been properly oriented to be overcome.
Teaching supervision was also mobilized to guide the management teams of state schools to equip for adjustments in the various dimensions of the school apparatus, ensuring that schools reach Idesp's goals.
Part of this framework was crowned with Complementary Law 1078/2008, which instituted the bonus for results, whose bonus is an increase in the payroll without being linked to the salaries of the civil servant and does not apply as social security and medical assistance factor, paid in direct proportion to the goals achieved in the school, in one year. It is still in effect in the period of the writing of this article (SÃO PAULO, 2008b). But its payment depends on a budget allocation from the State Government and in cases where the school exceeds the target established by Seduc, the bonus is paid in two installments (SÃO PAULO, 2008b, art. 9).
From the PQE, Seduc implemented impact actions on the school curriculum, the role of management teams in the state network, and the salary policy of the teaching staff and school management.
São Paulo Makes School Program: centralization of the curriculum and coordinating teacher as controlling manager
The São Paulo Makes School - Curricular Proposal program was implemented by Seduc the day after the launch of the PQE, as a consequence of this project. With this, curriculum management gained a specific direction, seeking to articulate the actions in the management policy for results with the launch of the Manager's Notebook, focusing on executing subjects of the proposal and evidencing a strong mark of control of the school's pedagogical actions.
The curriculum proposal had its materials prepared by the Coordination of Studies and Pedagogical Norms (Coordenadoria de Estudos e Normas Pedagógicas - CENP) and a pedagogical advisory team made up of university professors,14 including some from USP. The resources of the proposal were called Notebooks and, in the case of students, it consisted of a notebook of activities, soon named Course Booklet.
With the objective of “establishing common references that meet the principle of guaranteeing quality standards” and “subsidizing school teams with common curricular guidelines that guarantee the student access to basic content, knowledge and essential skills” (SÃO PAULO, 2008c), with effect on all curricular units and languages worked with the students of the network, the policy provided for the complementation of “a set of documents, with didactic guidelines and learning expectations, distributed by levels of education, years and grades” and “the support of printed materials, technological resources and training and monitoring actions” (SÃO PAULO, 2008c, art. 2 and 3).
The Manager's Notebook had three volumes released. At the beginning of volumes 1, 2, and 3, the secretary of education made indirect criticisms of the previous administrations of the PSDB, stating, in the “Letter to the managers”, that the curricular proposal presented in her administration is “a 'watershed' for education in São Paulo” (SÃO PAULO, 2008d, p. 3). She also added that this proposal was organized and integrated, sometimes implying that the curriculum of the São Paulo network was, at the time, in opposite conditions in previous administrations. Such criticism, made indirectly, does not appear in other editorials of the manager's notebook, but it is significant since the government in question is the PSDB, a party of former secretary Maria Helena de Castro, which governs the state of São Paulo since 1995, even using different coalitions. In other words, even in a government that presents itself as one of continuity, there are criticisms and disagreements regarding the directions adopted until then, proposing a turnaround from the new proposal.
The “Letter to the managers” seems to indicate the understanding of being addressed to the school principal. However, in the presentation of the Notebooks signed by Maria Inês Fini, General Coordinator of the Curricular Proposal, it is stated that the content of the Notebook was “specially produced for the Coordinator Teacher” and it is possible to perceive the explicit division between who thinks and who should carry out the proposals, a long questionable dichotomy. As announced in volume 1, “1. What is expected of the coordinating teacher” (SÃO PAULO, 2008d, p. 7) which highlights the new manager profile of this professional, asserting that he “must have a broad domain of a communicational competence, once the effective implementation of the meanings of the Proposal Curriculum, which he will represent, provides for the adhesion of other school agents[...]” (idem).
Volume 1 of the Notebook provides prescriptions for what the Coordinating Teacher should be, listing what he should “avoid” and what he should “assume” (SÃO PAULO, 2008d, p. 8) and the “competencies” he should have (idem, p. 9). From the perspective, Seduc thinks and the Coordinating Teacher executes, the Notebook volume 1 also brings what it calls the “First Public Action of the Coordinating Teacher”, which is about the dissemination of the Curricular Proposal. Thus, it presents a timed agenda to be followed, which ends with the following reminder: “At the end of this process, make a report of this first stage and organize the data collected. Subsequently, they will be forwarded to different audiences. The next agenda is the organization of the HTPCs” (SÃO PAULO, 2008d, p. 44).
The coordinating teacher, until then understood as that professional who worked with his peers in the formative perspective, establishing dialogue, sometimes being the interlocutor of demands presented by them, has his status elevated to that of manager, from a material aimed particularly at shaping his acting.
Seduc attributes to the coordinating teacher a political role in the “coercive” conduct of the proposal that, more directly, was expected from the figure of the school management, or, in a broader understanding, from the management team (principal, vice-principal, and coordinating teacher).
A strategic figure for the advancement of the Reading and Writing program, the goals of Idesp and the implementation of the curricular proposal, the emphasis placed on the figure of the coordinating teacher seems to have hidden objectives of shifting the axis of many rancidities that were previously directed towards the direction of the coordinating teacher.
On the one hand, having the possibility of establishing another type of relationship with the school principal is more characterized by complicity than by obedience. On the other hand, having the elevation of the status of the Coordinating Teacher to that of manager, as explicit in the Notebook. There is a working professional, fulfilling the demand presented to him without great spaces for questioning.
In this way, the Coordinating Teacher is differentiated, both from his peers and from the other members of the so-called management team (principal and vice-principal), falling on him the obligation of intervention with the teachers, may render any questioning to the proposal innocuous. This relationship explains hierarchy, verticality, and obedience for the success of the program. Therefore, it appears that the principle of democratic management, which provides for the participation of the community and teachers in the elaboration of the Political Pedagogical Project of the School, is completely ignored since it does not foresee that the school has the autonomy to elaborate its proposal with the school community. This must be received, intermediated, and transferred to the teachers by the Coordinating Teacher.
In volume 1 of the Manager's Notebook15 the technical perspective of management for results is explicit:
Management is understood here as the conscious effort of the individuals responsible for the school to generate changes, based on decision-making about planning, its application, and evaluation. This requires technical competence, responsible participation, and a commitment to effective and meaningful educational outcomes. (SÃO PAULO, 2008d, p. 7)
Considering the coordinating teacher as one of the pillars in the implementation of the curricular proposal, the Manager's Notebook reported that the expectation regarding the work of the coordinating teacher was that he would be “capable of defining and articulating multiple actions aimed at the quality of teaching and its results in student learning” (SÃO PAULO, 2008d, p. 7). He declared that he expected such a professional to act through consensus and also counter the criticism of the team of education workers to the curricular proposal, which associated the Notebooks to the instrumentalization of the evaluation of improvement of the results of management and teaching:
The skepticism of the agents upon receiving the Proposal must be considered as a real argument.[...]
The Coordinating Teacher, to counter this argument, must be informed about the “practical” actions of the Secretariat, and use this information to convince agents that the Curricular Proposal is, above all, a Political Proposal that supports innovative school movements[...]. For this, it makes use of permanent educational research on the evolution and evaluation of management and teaching quality criteria and their results. (SÃO PAULO, 2008d, p. 8-9)
On the other hand, volume 2 of the Manager's Notebook focuses on the results of student performance in Saresp applied in 2008 and on the coordinating teacher's responsibility for converting the results achieved in their respective schools for the management focused on improving performance:
Por isso, o objetivo principal deste volume é ajudar esse professor na organização das discussões coletivas, dando-lhe uma noção geral dos resultados, para que possa transformá-los em propostas de ação voltadas à melhoria do processo de ensino-aprendizagem. (SÃO PAULO, 2009c, p. 7)
Therefore, the main objective of this volume is to help this teacher in the organization of collective discussions, giving him a general notion of the results, so that he can transform them into action proposals aimed at improving the teaching-learning process. (SÃO PAULO, 2009c, p. 7)
Volume 3 of the Manager's Notebook focuses on the construction of pedagogical planning, seeking to interfere in the management of the school as a whole, highlighting the classroom. It foresees that the lesson plans must be adapted to the school routine, flexible, and reflected in the collective hours of pedagogical work. At the same time, it also indicates that such plans must contemplate the curricular proposal and that the coordinating teacher must act in this mediation, considering that the evaluation becomes a consequence. The proposal exposes the need to build consensus in the work of management within the schools and, also, of intervention for the centralization of the actions to be evaluated.
The Pedagogical Coordinator is the mediator of this collective discourse that speaks of real practices. This is a way of starting to build a team to develop the proposed contents and methods and, consequently, the evaluation, in each subject, grade, and class, according to the plans foreseen in the Pedagogical Proposal of the school and the Curricular Proposal of the State of São Paulo. (SÃO PAULO, 2008e, p. 6)
The subordination of the coordinating teacher to the principal highlights the ideological discourse and understanding of school management that guides Seduc’s proposal, as we can see in the “Necessary Note”, in volume 1 of the Notebook:
The Coordinating Teacher reports to the principals of his/her school. They are legally responsible for the school's pedagogical decisions. Any project or action of the Coordinating Teacher must have the acceptance of its Principal, to avoid contradictory information or power disputes. The principals are responsible for the school and its great leader. (SÃO PAULO, 2008d, p. 11 emphasis by us)
This guidance does not encourage the need for a broad debate to take place among the individuals of the school about the subjects of their interest, but rather obedience to the hierarchy of the administrative structure of the system and the school. It also places the principal as a holder of power when referring to him/her as a “great leader”, a connotation that does not correspond to the historical debate on democratic management, in which the decentralization of decision-making at school, with the participation of other individuals through the School Council, the student union, the Association of Parents and Teachers, for example. This understanding, which disregards the assumptions of democratic school management, guides the three volumes of the Manager's Notebook.
From this perspective, the content of volume 2 of the Manager's Notebook collection presents what the Education Department considers the objective of Saresp, which “must be understood as another instrument that is at the service of the school” (SÃO PAULO, 2009c, p. 6), and presents an analysis of the results of the 2008 edition of Saresp, divided into two parts: in Part 1, it presents general data on the São Paulo state network; and in Part 2, it presents an analysis of these results “in a perspective[which he considers] didactic” (SÃO PAULO, 2009c, p. 7).16
In a supposedly guiding way, volume 2 of the Notebook shows questions that should be discussed with parents, students, and teachers on different aspects of Saresp: test application, participation, and test results. Often of a comparative nature between schools, the analyses permeate the objective data of the test, such as student participation and the grade achieved by schools, and do not address issues such as teacher qualification, school infrastructure, and the surrounding social problems, among other issues such as school culture and organizational structure that, according to the literature, influence the construction of a quality school (GOMES, 2005). Also, by bringing ready-made questions to the discussions that would be held with and in the school community, it directs the possibilities of differentiated analysis of the interested people and interferes in the democratic management of the school.
Given this scenario, we can perceive strategic alignments regarding productivity policies, centralized evaluation, and ranking, that is, the guidelines dealt with in the volumes of the São Paulo Makes School Manager's Notebook.
LEGITIMIZING THE CONTROL OF PEDAGOGICAL WORK
During the PSDB government from 1995 to the present year of writing this article, we noticed two movements: one characterized by the permanence of actions in tune with the perspective of the internationalization of policies in which education is, to a large extent, marked and guided by the market, by management for results; on the other hand, by the discontinuity of the State policy conferred by the CF/88 which, among its principles, brings the democratic management of the public school and education system.
Despite the continuity of government, this contradiction of the discontinuity of policies and the fact of not meeting the constitutional precepts of democratic management of education is important for the analysis of the educational policy agenda. For Dourado (2009), the discontinuity of educational policies normally occurs due to the interruption of the continuity of policies adopted by governments, especially when these are not translated into State policies.
The decision by the São Paulo government is similar to the Bush administration’s “No child left behind” program in the US, which introduced a school reform characterized by “accountability, tests that defined everything, decision-making based on statistical data, school choice, autonomous schools, privatization, deregulation, merit pay and competition between schools” (RAVITCH, 2011, p. 37).
This program made testing and accountability the main education strategy in the country, providing a reduction in the training of students in curriculum topics, as the aforementioned program “had no other vision than to improve test scores in reading and mathematics”. It produced plenty of data, not educated citizens” (RAVITCH, 2011, p. 47).
When we analyze this narrowing in the school education of students, one of the historical roles that have been fulfilled by the school curriculum becomes clearer: the construction of social homogeneity. Through a normative and cognitive consensus between subjects of a society, the curriculum was treated as a social instrument that induces the standardization of a community with a single thought, to reach a consensus with economic and social policies (APPLE, 2006).
In this standardization of alleged modernization of processes, diversified models were implemented that gave the evaluation a structuring axis of public administration reforms and forms of government constituted after periods of dictatorships, configuring itself as an evaluating State (AFONSO, 2013).
In the current context, there is a shift in places and actors of reference in education and international comparison, in which the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico - OECD) is a reference actor and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is constituted into an important control instrument that validates the performance data in the tests and emerges as a
[…] successful soft regulation, and the attribution of credibility to PISA, by public action, appears to be a prerequisite for the politicization of the instrument to materialize[…][and which has] special importance as action coordination mechanisms, fixing the actors to the Program, based on relations of mutual influence, proving that it is a multidimensional regulation instrument, which acts, in a circular way, through different regulation spaces (global, national and local), involving various actors, interconnected in a multidirectional way (COSTA, 2011, p. 4).
Based on the construction of comparable indices on an international scale, the performance measurement procedures lack the consideration of education as a process of human-historical updating (PARO, 2012). Such so-called evaluation policies, discussed here, act as regulatory instruments and, in this perspective, reveal the need to create mechanisms to control the curriculum to achieve the desired results, which disregard the importance of the participation of school subjects in the construction of the educational process.
Based on these programs, in contrast to the policy of democratic management as a constitutional principle, we observe that management policies for results will remain in schools in the state network of São Paulo, in line with the internationalization of educational policies in progress in the first decade of the 21st century (AKKARI, 2011).
Such programs and projects in the state network of São Paulo deepen a management model suited to technical and standardized molds that give the daily life of schools elements of exteriority, controlling their actions in contrast to the autonomy of school culture and the critical observation of typical issues of their communities that need to be diagnosed, referred and collectively strengthened.
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The educational policies analyzed encompass a variety of actions that show the conception of management for results of interest to the ruling class of society, in opposition to the constitutional principle of democratic management.
They acquire greater identification with the neoliberal ideology that guides educational policies in an internationalized way, as more incisive external evaluation strategies are created through Idesp and, added to other measures, the emphasis on the centrality of management is revealed in their interfaces of the curriculum, using mechanisms to control the pedagogical process, such as the Reading and Writing Program and its articulation with the School and University Scholarship Program, the management of the curriculum with the Manager's Notebooks and bonuses.
Based on the research data presented here, we can say that internationalization provides for control mechanisms incorporated by government policies, such as those of successive São Paulo governments. Idesp is an example of these mechanisms that establish quantitative targets associated with remuneration bonuses instead of a real increase for educators, imbricated with curricular standardization, as can be seen in the Reading and Writing and São Paulo Makes School programs, programs formulated with public-private arrangements. This set of actions removes the autonomy of subjects from the school, with a direct impact on the active participation of the school community, a presupposition of the democratic management of public education.
In this scenario, the deliberate absence of democratic management in the analyzed state documents makes us conclude that it is not considered a priority in educational policies, even less about the curriculum desired by the school and the vaunted quality of teaching since the quality necessary for teaching is the one endowed with the sense of collective construction. With this perspective, the adoption of a curriculum management policy defined from the top-down, in tune with management for results that do not guarantee rights, largely invades the gap of intentionally generated democratic management.
If state schools were guided by an educational policy that aimed at the formation of critical citizenship, the evaluation and the curriculum would be treated as means for the training process, the construction of autonomy, the consciousness of the individuals, their development, progress, and difficulties and not the results of tests or the standardization of training that are closest to encouraging competition, unique thinking and the naturalization of meritocracy, as a way for individuals to accommodate themselves to the conditions to which they are subjected.
If the improvement of the quality of education is repeatedly called for in Seduc's programs, the community does not appear as a priority to elaborate these alleged improvements. On the contrary, the authoritarian character of the “innovations” of management for results is revealed, whose fancy name Curriculum Management is the structuring axis for introducing quantitative goals, centralization of the curriculum, and control of pedagogical work with little importance for the democratic management of the public school.
It seems that the way had already been paved for order via Twitter to be obeyed by a large number of schools when the episode of censorship and handouts returned in 2019.
For a consistent public education with the qualitative transformation of society, the community must be integrated into democratic spaces to develop and practice collective strategies so a public school contributes to overcoming subalternity. From this perspective, the school with its subjects in action must think, reflect and propose its curriculum. Every government must guarantee such an intention.
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4It is the Popular Action moved by a group of teachers linked to the Public School and University Network (Rede Escola Pública e Universidade - REPU), with legal support from the Human Rights Advocacy Collective (Coletivo de Advocacia em Direitos Humanos - CADHu). The aforementioned Popular Action is available at <www.repu.com.br/acao-popular-apostilas>. Access on May 17th 2019.
5Sistema de Avaliação do Rendimento Escolar de São Paulo (Saresp) (São Paulo School Achievement Assessment System).
6Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação de São Paulo (Idesp) (São Paulo Education Development Index).
7Agenda items can be consulted at <http://www.saopaulo.sp.gov.br/spnoticias/ultimas-noticias/sp-lanca-agenda-para-educacao-publica/>. Accessed on May 24, 2019.
8This is an assessment of school performance through a test applied to students in the 5th and 9th grades and 1st and 3rd grade of high school, specifically on Portuguese language and mathematics content.
9The PDE was adopted by the government of Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, with Fernando Haddad as minister of education.
10In 2008, teachers from the state network went on strike that lasted 22 days and, in 2009, errors in teaching materials distributed to schools were shown in the so-called mainstream media. According to news in O Estado de S. Paulo, available at <educacao.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,livro-traz-dois-paraguais-e-exclui-equador-nas-escolas-de-sp,340271>. Accessed on May 24, 2019.
11According to news available at <https://www.educacao.sp.gov.br/noticias/saresp-tem-a-maior-adesao-de-toda-a-sua-historia/>. Accessed on 11/20/2019.
12Iara Glória Areias Prado was also parto f the Ministry of Education (Ministério da Educação - MEC) as a secretary of the elementary education during the second mandate of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1999-2002).
13For exemple, Gisela Wajskop, Gisela Wajskop, principal of the Instituto Singularidades (private IES) at that time and former coordinator of Early Childhood Education at MEC during the FHC administration, wrote the section “Talking with parents” for the Reading and Writing program.
14The general coordinator was Maria Inês Fini and the designers of the material were Guiomar Namo de Mello, Lino de Macedo, Luís Carlos de Menezes, Maria Inês Fini and Ruy Berger.
15Volume 1 of the Notebook is authored by Zuleika de Felice Murrie together with Lino de Macedo and Maria Eliza Fini. Volumes 2 and 3, authored by Zuleika de Felice Murrie, were published during the period when Maria Helena Castro was secretary of education, a position assumed by Paulo Renato Souza, in 2009.
16In volume 2 of the Notebook, it is stated that the references of Saresp 2008 were expanded in relation to those of Saresp 2007, as the São Paulo Makes School program became, together with Saeb, the contribution to the preparation of the external evaluation matrix. Also according to the Notebook, based on the scale of results from Saresp 2008, the general performance of students is considered at the following levels: Portuguese Language - 4th grade of elementary school below basic, less than 150 (26.7%); 6th grade below basic, less than 175 (25.4%); 8th grade of middle school below basic, less than 200 (26.1%); 3rd grade of high school below basic, less than 250 (32.9%); Mathematics - 4th grade of elementary school below basic, less than 175 (39.1%); 6th grade of elementary school below basic, less than 200 (42.4%); 8th grade of niddle school below basic, less than 225 (34.5%); 3rd grade of high school below basic, less than 275 (54.3%); Natural Sciences - 6th grade of elementary school below basic, less than 200 (32.3%); 8th grade of niddle school below basic, less than 225 (31.7%); 3rd grade of high school below basic, less than less than 275 (49.8%) (SÃO PAULO, 2009c, p. 40-51).
Received: August 29, 2020; Accepted: October 10, 2021
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