Introduction

The growth of the citizens action in the definition of the educational policies is an old claim of the social movements, educational institutions, educational labor unions and of the student organizations as a means of give priority to the society broader interests, ensuring that the right of education is established. This participation is a key issue to ensure the effective exercise of democracy and autonomy in the educational institutions and an independent school education.

However, the mentioned movements that claim for these interests are not the only ones. In the last decades, specially in the twenty-first century, the market forces do not passively watch to this organization of society. The groups who perform the capital interests added with their interests to approach the educational concerns, looking for an effective and organized performance in the education policies conduction, in different spheres of the government, beneath the excuse to increase the civil society engagement in the educational management.

The embodiment of this organization takes place in an expressive quantity of institutions, linked or financed per active groups from the competitive market. They were created aiming to come forward with solutions for the problems faced by the education. Organizations such as the Airton Senna Institute, Lemann Foundation, Todos pela Educação (All for Education), among others, take action not only to pursue influence drafting the public policies, but also to convince the public opinion about proposals and solutions that they have in favor of the qualification of the

Under the excuse of to increase the participation of the society, since they are not part of the state apparatus, these organizations create proposals aligned with a society project which does not aim for the income concentration break, social inequality and marginalisation, but they aim for the maintenance and perpetuation of the above mentioned fields. A school education for the exercise of the autonomy is not an objective for the organizations which supports the interests and profits of big corporations. These organizations support the meritocracy, the leadership and the individual efforts as essential requirements to the development of the citizens.

The growing entry of these organizations in the government, as well as in the implementation of educational policies, even soaking valuable parts of the public funding up, require an attentive look from the academic world because educational projects for students from different nations are being disputed. With the purpose of research who are they, how do they act and which is the content of the purposes that they build, this study discuss the performance of the think tanks pro-market and analyze the Latin American Network of Civil Society Organizations for Education (Rede Latino-Americana de Organizações da Sociedade Civil para a Educação - Reduca) and the its connection with the entrepreneurship and international organizations.

The performance of the think tanks pro-market

The think tanks are organizations which aim for the knowledge development in several areas to exercise a dominant influence in the performance of public policies and in the shape of the public opinion. The way that these organizations act is diverse (^{TEIXEIRA, 2007}; ^{ROCHA, 2017}). Some act linked direct or indirectly to government agencies, to political parties, to business groups and others operate in an independent way, which does not mean that they perform without interests. Among these, there are organizations that perform to validate the strength of the market, which are called think tanks pro-market.

These organizations put pressure on the State to assert their interests and intervene on the intern and extern execution of public policies inside the countries. They appeal to the mass media to disseminate their own values, in a way to build the public opinion. They also want to guarantee that the commercial logic will be seen as natural and indispensable to the human relationships which might get in all society venues. These organizations also interfere in the ways of the State act to embody the interests of the groups who intend to preserve and perpetuate ways of economic and political domination (^{CASIMIRO, 2018}).

The organizations pursue to create a common understand about the inevitability of the private intervention to qualify the services offered to the State. There is a pression on the State to ensure the execution of public policies to the corporate sector, under the excuse of efficiency and the agility during the decision-making process and action implementation.

Some characteristics are common in the presentation of the think tanks pro-market as: the non-profit work, the non-binding to political parties, the interest to pursue universal problems solutions, the development of knowledge without ideological engagement. We then proceed to the analysis of each of them.

One of the first characteristics that, usually, is displayed on the web pages of the Think Tanks is the non-profit work. The budgetary composition is wide, but often is noted that they have the financial support of all sized companies. Specially in United States, there is already a tradition in which companies donate to research foundations, philanthropic institutions and universities. If, for a long time, in US, the donations did not have the aim to intervene directly on the guidance of the organization's actions, it modified since the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twentieth first century, when they started to intensively promote the outline of the implementation of actions, in special in the educational field (^{RAVITCH, 2011}).

The interest of seeking solutions for the global problems in areas like environment, healthcare, education, defense, among others, confers to these organizations, which are non-profit, legitimacy to get into the mass media and announce their projects and perceptions about the best ways that should be adopted by different government levels.

The fact of being non-profit does not mean that they cannot increase their wealth; expand actions and work groups; recruit highly educated people to perform duties, with a compensation which is consistent with the academic qualification; appeal to modern technologies to spread ideas that effect and agree with the funders interests. In other words, all these expansion creates conditions that makes these organizations stronger and become increasingly their intervention area, and consequently, their capacity to exert pressure on the executive and legislative powers.

The non existence of a link with political parties allows the think tanks the entry in right or left-wing governments. Thus, the organizations can preserve their actuation on the inside of the government structures independently of the elected group. This is considered a threat to the democracy because this groups do not pass through the election process, when proposals are submitted to the citizens' choice.

Therefore, with the argument that they guarantee a bigger social participation guiding the government actions, these organizations define themselves as extremely democrats, whereas they are out of the governments and would represent the wide interests of the society.

Commonly, the think tanks pro-market have the aim to look for solutions to important questions which affect the society. There is a diversity of materials that are created permanently, based on statistic scenarios and on data collection to indicate which ways might be followed by the governments. Clearly, the disclosure of these products do not stay limited to the government offices, but it occupies and expressive place in the mainstream press, striving to convince the society about which are the best choices to be adopted to overcome the social problems.

^{Freitas (2018)}, makes a brief reflection about the performance of the think tanks in the United States and state that is needed to be attentive to the scientific evidences produced by this organizations in the educational field, because the presented results can be questionable as they have the interest to put public institutions in the competitive market.

Finally, the statement that they build impartial knowledge and without ideological engagement place the think tanks as organizations which act on behalf of the wide society interests, hiding the intentionality of an excluding and unequal production model. As ^{Ravitch (2011)} says, it means a way to hatch out in generations the pro-market values.

The myth of scientific impartiality is retrieved by these organizations as they pretend to stance in the face of surrounding society problems, disconnected to historical events and social constraints. They believe that the impartiality pervade their ideas, purposes and interpretation to the press, to the academy and to the governmental areas. If this is a scientific idea, supposedly without ideological constraints, this is an settled issue in a range of academic areas which does not look like to be meaningful to the major portion of the population who can see as truth the data interpretation of released researches specially in the mainstream press.

The think tanks aim to form consensus correlated to projects which are supported by them and to achieve this purpose they count on voluminous financial resources, advanced technology and an extensive partner network. In the educational field, they appeal to the statistic which has a carefully selected data to justify an impartial performance bereft of any type of engagement with a group or sector, as could be possible to ignore the cultural conditions that support any scientific data analysis.

Is important to break up with the scientific impartiality, lack of ideological stance and promote the detachment of the market interests of the think tanks pro-market because there is a growth and a capillary action of these organizations in the world. The capillary action occurs even by the expansion of the performance with the opening of offices in different countries and regions as well as with the combination of various organizations who operate with similar purposes.

The University of Pennsylvania, in United States of America, creates annually a report with the purpose of identify which are the most influential think tanks in the world (^{McGANN, 2008}). Besides to present quantitative data about the number of think tanks in 80 countries and the distribution in the different regions of the world, the report shows a qualitative analysis of these organizations to indicate which are the most influential ones. Even with severe critics about the used methodological strategy and about the map cuttings defined by the institution to execute the research, the data exposed in the report flags movements and patterns which deserve to be observed with care.

Is important to notice that the number of think tanks in the world has a significant growth in the last two decades. This is an index which shows the importance that these organizations have inside the countries. This is not about a new type of organization, because some of them already operate over one century, as is the case of the Brookings Institute, established in 1916, situated in United States of America, which makes researches about international politics, economy, development and domestic politics, performing in more than 80 countries and with over 300 researchers. Another organization which has strong presence and a long time of services is the Rand Corporation, established in 1948, also based in United States. The Rand Corporation, which performs in 50 countries, makes researches and analysis of world interest about security, health, education, sustainability, growth and development.

Specifically in Brazil, the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) is an example of think tank with strong performance both in the mass media and in the government instances. This foundation was established in the 1940 decade and is known for the strong performance with higher education in the business and administration area. The FGV has been consolidating itself internationally as one of the most important think tanks in the Latin America. In 2017, the institution began to operate the Center of Excellence and Innovation in Educational Policies (Ceipe), an branch of the FGV instituição, which aims to be the main think tank specialized in educational policies in Brazil. (^{FUNDAÇÃO GETÚLIO VARGAS, 2019}).

These organizations are scattered by the whole planet, according with we can see in the Table 1, therefore, the distribution varies in each nation. In the North America, for example, there are 2.058 institutions and 1.872 located in United States.

In the Latin America there is a concentration of think tanks in countries as Argentina, Brazil and México. The elevated number of the type of organization which aims to intervene in the conduction of the domestic and foreign affairs, needs to be observed with caution, specially, in a place of the plant with huge social and economical weaknesses. It is crucial, in the context of the private incitement in the government agenda, to understand what these interests represent, how they act and who is funding them.

Os think tanks in the Latin America and Education

In the current political, economical and social situation in the Latin America, there is a reconfiguration of the hegemonic power competing for the public education in different countries. If in one hand in the last decades there was an improvement of the progressivist movement with the construction of an anti-hegemonic project, in the other hand this growth would not happen without the reaction of the conservative movement and those who benefit from the social, political and economic structure the way they are. When we map the think tanks in the Latin America, we found Brazil in the second position among 15 countries that have a large number of this type of institutions.

In this new scenarium where new ideas of leadership of the civil society arise, the participation of new entrepreneurs and philanthropists have scattered because of the growth beyond the borders of the networks and "think tanks" linked to the private business segment. By civil society, we mean the double space of the class conflicts which express inconsistencies and adjustments between parts of the ruling class where, at the same time, arrange itself in the class conflicts.

^{Olmedo (2013)} says that the new philanthropists and its foundations appear as a political people, individual and collective which act in the conception, promotion and negotiation of processes and policies in all areas and spheres of the human activity, including the reorganization and promulgation of public services, civic action and community development. According with the same writer, "the wide political and economical agenda is closely aligned with the neo-liberal belief” (^{OLMEDO, 2013}, p. 283). On the other hand, "the public education had becoming seized by the collective corporate action striving to attend the aims of a ideological dispute" (^{FREITAS, 2018}, p. 29).

The collective corporate action also reveal the idea that the State, and its representatives, would not have competences to answer quickly to the social issues with creativity, technology and tecnical contribution. The Reduca is a network of think tanks constituted by various Latin American countries which has entrepreneurs and philanthropists, considered as civil society, as leaders.

The Latin American Network of Civil Society Organizations for Education (Reduca)

The Reduca is a network formed by organizations of fifteen Latin-American countries which work according to the declaration of its members, aiming for a common goal: guarantee to all children and young people of the region the right to an inclusive, equitable and with quality public education. This network is defined as a cooperation between Latin America and Caribbean that approach education from a regional perspective to study, compare practices and experiences besides to purpose and act in the Latin-American context. This network was created with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (BID), in September 16th of 2011, in Brasilia, Brazil, where were established the network and its goals. Each one of the organizations who participate sets up deliberately to the network without waive their on distinctive identity or its own agenda. In contrast, organizations work in the corresponding countries is supposed to be stronger because of the network support.

In this research we present the Reduca, formed by social and entrepreneurial organizations, most of them guided by business leaders which have no links with the State educational field, but with the commercial private segment. The Table 3 shows how the institutions that participate to this network present itself. It is worth pointing out that Uruguay was the last country to have an entrepreneurial institution in the Reduca network and, curiously, this institution is base in United States.

We emphasize that members of Reduca integrate part of the most wide networks and establish in their home countries, interfaces with another national and international institutions, because of that, we call it networks inside networks. The Reduca network combines organizations, governments, the third sector and the think tanks, which states that the quality is linked to the results of the international assessments and padronization of the projects and programs.

The organization of the private sector, through philanthropists and entrepreneurs is defining the educational policies because there is a direct involvement of these individuals in the educational agenda setting which use the corporation networks and organizations to achieve their goals where the “convergence point is to make the market as an obvious solution for all social and economical issues” (^{BALL, 2014}, p. 59). For the author, the corporations are working to change the perception from the public to the social issues, including the education.

The organization of the private sector is increasingly to give direction to the public policies through the networks. ^{Ball and Olmedo (2013, p. 41)}, they create “[...] networks inside networks [...]. These are the ways to promote policies and aligned ideas [...] they are formed and are placed in”. ^{Peroni (2015, p. 26)} warn that “the networks are not abstractions”, because “they are formed and operated by individuals and collectives in a class project, and they are part of and historical offensive from the market in this particular capitalism period”.

In general terms, the Reduca, idealized by the Inter-American Development Bank (Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento - BID) and by the All for Education (Todos pela Educação - TPE) movement, brought together initially fourteen Latin-American countries that operate, according to them, for the guarantee of the right for and inclusive, equitable and with quality education in the region. The Reduca network was launched in 2011, in Brasilia - Brazil. In that occasion was also launched the Brasilia Declaration which specifies about this network constitution. In the declaration, the network presents itself as a assembly of organizations of various Latin-American countries which has the public and common compromise with an inclusive education with quality for the countries who belong to that. The document still mention:

the Reduca is constituted in a free and volunteer practice to exchange experiences, resources and projects among the members; to express opinions, to provide solutions and agreements; to disclose marketing campaigns in the public forum; to study and evaluate measurements, programs, local and regional public policies; to participate in joint actions between us and another participants (^{REDUCA, 2011}).

The launch occurred in the last day of the International Congress “Education: an urgent agenda”, promoted by the Todos pela Educação movement, a component of the Reduca network, which had the support of the Inter-American Development Bank as a facilitator and booster of the initiative, promoting the training and the participation of the civil society of the Latin-America region. These institutions were presented as a common thread, an idea of organized civil society, not only restrict to the education professionals; national character actuation; belief in education as the way to develop the country; the defense of quality in education, but without specify the concepts and pedagogic methods. In this context, the Reduca network aims for a leading role regarding to the State. According to Carrilo’s speech, ex-representant of the Inter-American Development Bank in Brazil, in the launch of the Latin-American Network for Education in Brasilia:

The leading role of the main educational reforms in the Latin-America is not exclusively of the public sector. There are a considerable number of new actors. The knowledge economy, the information and the new scenarios of educational reforms count with the participation of the private sector, the civil society, the academy. We can say actors. That is the key of this network which is being created. (^{TODOS PELA EDUCAÇÃO, 2011}, p. 149).

In Brazil, the Todos pela Educação Foundation is a think tank from the educational area, it means that is a specialized organism to produce and spread knowledge and ideas, besides to influence the brazilian educational policies with the support of the mass media. The Reduca is an articulator linked with other international organizations as BID, European Union and UNESCO.

In 2013 this network was selected by the European Union to develop a project together with the member countries which had to do with the docents and managers, early childhood besides the Education Observatory which is a milestone of the project and implemented an education monitoring system with indexes and educational information that are widespread in the web page named Educative Observatory. One of the highlights of the document is the promotion of empowerment, the participation of the civil society and the impact on the education policies.

The Educative Observatory of Reduca, aims to provide visibility to the educational data from the region then the society can track and evaluate the educational public policies, promote the exchange of good practices, train managers, researches and public policy-makers in all countries to develop solutions to the educational challenges. The idea is to cause a feeling of co-responsibility for the public education.

Among other actions already presented, the Reduca is placing themselves in various events for example in the document named “Positionament of the Latin-American Network Organizations from the Civil Society for Education”, in the Global Education for All Meeting (Encontro Mundial Educação para Todos - GEM), promoted by UNESCO. The meeting occurred between May 12th and 14th of 2014 and resulted in the Muskat Agreement, which outline the general purpose and the global targets suggested for the education agenda after 2015. Also the Reduca presented its position in the “Reduca Declaration after the Summits of the Americas 2015”, with the discussed purposes during the 7th Summit of America which happened in Panama, between April 10th and 11th of 2015. The document includes the purposes of the network for Education looking for add itself in de agenda.

The Reduca insists that que governments and theIbero-American Countries Organization (OEA)should accomplish the purpose of “to create, without restrictions of participation, the Inter-American Forum of the Civil Society and Social Actors, in a way that there is a continuous process of participation and consult to the civil society and the social actors, not just before and during the Summit of the Americas event”, as an effective way to citizen participation during the summits. (^{DECLARAÇÃO REDUCA, 2015})

In a partnership, the Reduca and Sura Foundation released lately a research called “Learn is More”. This research presents an analysis of the education situation in fourteen countries, as well as recommendations to continue accomplishing the goals guaranteeing the right to learn of all latin-american children and young people. Also, the network declared that there is five challenges in this area that are closely related to the Sustainable Development Goals², whcih the accomplishment continues to be a challenge to the Latin America and according with international organisms as the World Bank, Ibero-American Countries Organization (OEA) and the Inter-American Development Bank (BID). The manifest has five goals: guarantee entire path, guarantee learning with purpose, enhance the role of docents and managers, joining forces through partnerships, go beyond the standard assessments (^REDUCA,2015).

The Reduca presented the #REDUCAManifest and required to the governments take action soon to guarantee the targets. In this aspect, the network articulate its “ability to be influential in the governments and act as a way to spread the successful experiences in the area as well as changes through its influence in the public policies” (REDUCA, 2016, p.15). The network act politically achieving and occupying public or governmental events spots, among others, and according to ^{Freitas (2018, p. 40)}, “they would like the State only as a provider of public funds, not as a manager”.

ThereforeReduca advocate the education as a priority in the Latin America, they develop actions which are closely related to the Sustainable Development Goals, which compliance is still a challenge to the Latin America, and we do not disagree.

The main point is that by delegating or sharing the responsibilities with the entrepreneurs and philanthropists the countries waive what is fundamental, it means the autonomy to create real democratic public policies, with a democratic management and with focus on the educational process oriented to the formation of autonomous and free citizens.

It happens that the entrepreneurs and philanthropists which fund these networks have a compromise with goals and results, besides to include management purposes that modify the culture of the public education, making the classes aligned to the market. We can say that the inclusion in the “civil society” is “in fact, a innovative way to obtain consensus around a project that was created and is managed by the corporate class” (^{MARTINS, 2009}, p.26). In this movement of the Reduca, the actuation of the entrepreneurs and philanthropists look to assert themselves as an ideological reference to the accomplishment of a public education project in the Latin America in which the right to education is conceived as a marketed service.

Conclusion

The performance of the think tanks pro-market, linked to the entrepreneurs and supported by International Organization has increasing in the last decades in the world, in particular in the Latin America, as it was showed in this essay. This hegemonic movement label the structure of the corporate networks on behalf of the education and it has contributed to the legitimation of the corporate culture in the educational policies, expanding its participation in the decision-making process.

In Brazil, the TPE (All for Education) is a corporate think tank which performs in the educational area and coordinate the creation of a Latin American network, the Reduca, linked with international organisms. The think tanks in general, and in the educational case specifically, have been performing to increase its participation in the decision-making process and build public policies in the countries where they take action. In other words, they influence the creation of policies through their programs and in the content of the educational purpose, expressing that the State does not have the capacity to answer the educational issues.

We understand that the entrepreneurs networks and organic intellectuals need to pursue an consecutive activity so they do not lose they hegemony over the whole society. The groups and individuals who make the networks use strategies to obtain consensus, establish relationships between the corporations and aim that the population will join its political social and economic project, intervening directly in the public management.

The Reduca is characterized as a think tank that performs in the education of Latin-American countries, linked to the public education and requiring that governments, in all levels, take action to guarantee the accomplishment of targets and results, articulating its power of influence and acting as a way to spread successful experiences in the region. We conclude saying that the corporate think tanks concentrate in seeking private solutions for public issues inside their own networks, excluding the communities which think about education as: docents, labor unions, students, school community and research associations. As we presented during this essay is fundamental to problematize and to deconstruct the characteristic premises of these organizations as an idea of scientific impartiality, absence of ideological stance, market guidelines for the think tanks pro-market as reference to an educational project; in this moment when there is a substantial growth and a capillarization of this institutions in the world.