Introduction

The social and political transformations that allowed the Brazilian promulgation of the Constitution of 1988 (^{BRASIL, 1988}) triggered major changes in its educational system. The democratic principles that supported political openness and became the banner of education professionals advocated for the participatory management of school institutions with public investments to ensure a socially referenced quality education to the entire Brazilian population.

However, under a neoliberal economic model, in which investments in social policies are considered public spending, the decentralization of responsibilities was not implemented as a possibility for expanding the political participation of the different segments that make up schools, but as an opportunity for financial savings, since the decentralization of resources to municipalities and schools has allowed a greater number of students to be served at lower costs. Under the neoliberal economic ideal, participatory management was instituted as a distribution of responsibilities among the federated entities, and the autonomy of schools was reduced to the adhesion and execution of programs proposed and financed at the federal level to “do more with less”, by encouraging community participation to make up for the absence of the state (ZIBETTI; PACÍFICO; TAMBORIL, 2020).

^{Paro (2017)} argues that participating is an act that does not occur in the implementation of policies, but decision-making. However, this sense of participation was not achieved by the school community. In the context of the fragility of Brazilian democracy, it is convenient that the concept of participation is limited to the right to vote, as it is not possible to serve the interests of the majority when the interests of capital prevail. Therefore, the consolidating democracy determines the State’s control over the subjects’ actions, implying false or insufficient autonomy.

In this research, we aimed to investigate the last stage of the process of municipalization of education in the city of Porto Velho, Rondônia, considering the context of implementation of the changes resulting from the distribution of responsibilities for the management of educational systems after the Constitution of 1988, through the approval of the Fund for Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and Valorization of Teaching Professionals - Fundef (BRASIL, 1996a) and the new Law of Directives and Basis for National Education - LDBEN (BRASIL, 1996b).

The state education system in Rondônia was instituted after the creation of the State in 1981, since, as a Territory, public management was the responsibility of the Union. The division of responsibilities in the educational field, provided for in the Federal Constitution, was gradually implemented and is still in progress. Due to the transition from Territory to State, this process was carried out in a particular way in each municipality, so that all stages of schooling continued to be offered by the State. According to data presented in the State Education Plan prepared for the period from 2014 to 2024, the state school system still served, in 2013, 2% of enrollments in early childhood education, 33% in the initial years, and 66% in the final years of elementary school. (RONDÔNIA, 2014a).

These data stimulated the proposal for reordering, analyzed in this research. It started with State Decree No. 19.077 (RONDÔNIA, 2014b), which instituted the State-Municipal Education Action and Partnership Program to attend Basic Education. Then, it was effected by the Educational Technical Cooperation Term No. 36/2015 (RONDÔNIA, 2015a) and Decree No. 20,070 (RONDÔNIA, 2015b), which regulate, throughout the State, the restructuring of the education system.

The municipalization of education was established under the collaboration regime between the State and Municipal Governments, which considered the provisions of Articles No. 211 and 214 of the Federal Constitution (^{BRASIL, 1988}) and Articles No. 188 and 192 of the State Constitution (^{RONDÔNIA, 1989}). These articles reinforce the guarantee of basic education as prioritary and compulsory, and the applicability of the available resources for their education systems, with the guarantee of the rights and advantages for the teaching professionals, in a collaborative regime between the administrative spheres. The municipalization process also complies with Article No. 11, item V, of LDBEN (BRASIL, 1996b, np), which assigns municipalities the task of “offering early childhood education in daycare centers and preschools, and, with priority, elementary education”.

In Porto Velho, the agreement between State and Municipality is supported by Decree 21,405 (^{RONDÔNIA, 2016}). Article 18, paragraph 4, of the same Decree, authorizes the signing of agreements between the administrative spheres. In addition to school buildings, equipment, and furniture, the full transfer of schools also includes human resources. Thus, state employees were assigned to work under the municipal administration and the costs covered by the state, without loss of rights, salaries, and advantages. This research addresses this aspect of municipalization, with a special focus on the perception of teachers involved in the process.

In a survey on the theses and dissertations database of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), we found nine research carried out in postgraduate programs in education in different regions of Brazil in the period from 2009 to 2019, that analyzed the participation of teaching professionals in the implementation of the teaching municipalization process. Two of them concluded that there was no teacher’s participation during its implementation, either due to the teachers’ lack of knowledge regarding their rights, or because they were not included in the discussions and preparation of agreements and covenants between secretariats (^{BUZAIM, 2009}; ^{NUNES, 2010}). Six works showed that there was partial participation of teaching professionals, through teacher representation in councils or unions (^{CARAVINA, 2009}; ^{BARROS, 2009}; ^{GUTIERRES, 2010}; ^{ALVES, 2011}; ^{SARMENTO, 2012}; ^{RAMOS, 2013}), and only the research by ^{Jampani (2012)} considers that there was direct participation of teachers in the decisions.

Research has shown that, although democratic rhetoric considers the participation of teachers to be fundamental, in practice, there are still many obstacles to making this participation effective, as evidenced by the data presented in this text. According to ^{Tomanik (2009)}, Psychology as a science studies the individual in its complexity and the contradictions of historical constitutions. Considering that the teacher’s work as a result of the historical movement of educational policies, we based our analysis on the Historical-Cultural Psychology theoretical framework.

Therefore, our analysis considers the historical, social, and cultural movements in which the research subjects were constituted. Our objective is to understand the feelings provoked by the actions that shapes the teacher’s subjectivities. Subjectivity is considered as the sum of personal achievements, life stories, experiences, feelings, ideologies, and the expectations that establishes the subjects as beings constituted by their relations and in their relations, here represented by the context of the teaching work.

Teaching work and alienation

The educational policies that regulated the teaching career changed the pedagogical guidelines on the performance and professionalization of education, determining stability and rights that were not previously guaranteed. These changes occurred mainly after the implementation of Fundef (BRASIL, 1996a), which was replaced and had its scope expanded by the Fund for Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and Valorization of Education Professionals - Fundeb. The latter was instituted by Constitutional Amendment No. 53 (^{BRASIL, 2006}) and regulated by Law No. 11,494 (^{BRASIL, 2007}).

According to ^{Martins (2010)}, the decentralizing political reforms implemented in the 1990s changed the profile of the teaching professionals, since, in addition to organizing the career and valuing the profession, they also changed their identity.

According to ^{Oliveira (2010}, p. 19):

[...] the professionalization of teaching work can be understood as a process of historical construction that varies with the socio-economic context that it is subjected to, but that, above all, has been defining types of training and career specialization and remuneration for a given social group that has been growing and consolidating.

In another work (OLIVEIRA, 2013), the author states that the intensification of teaching work over an extensive working day, plus related activities and control activities, changed the concept of teaching work. The teaching activity, after losing its meaning, is no longer a conscious and autonomous activity linked to the ontological concept of work and becomes just a mere occupation. When it ceases to be a conscious occupation, it becomes an alienated activity.

^{Martins (2015}, p. 26) states that, due to the new demands of the world of work, “[...] individuals are not the subjects of their own achievements and only execute orders received [...]”. The personal sense and the meaning attributed to the activities that the subject performs are lost. The author adds that “[...] in these conditions, the capacities of men, as well as the possibilities for their full development, are repressed and deformed since they compromise the effective use of all their creative forces” (^{MARTINS, 2015}, p. 116). The naturalness of these situations causes the depersonalization of teaching work and leads to alienation, passivity, demotivation, or illness.

In Brazilian education, according to ^{Martins (2015)}, educational policies are distanced from what is essential for the human formation and are increasingly closer to the desires of capital. At the same time, they yield to conservative, ideological and meritocratic biases, increasing the devaluation of teaching and teaching work.

This phenomenon could be linked to the intellectual and cultural exhaustion, and to the alienation process caused by individualism, resulting from the conditions of life under capitalism. The alternatives to overcome this condition imply promoting public spaces for the construction of a critical, conscious, inclusive society, and humanly committed to the common good, that includes education (^{MARTINS, 2010}).

According to ^{Tomanik (2009)}, the superficial freedom offered by capitalist forces apparently improves living conditions while massifying activity. In addition, the loss of control and autonomy over work generates the wear and tear that results in the alienation process. Thus, the excessive demand for tasks, while it defines the teaching essence, leads to alienation; the individual starts to live from work, and to work, distancing himself from the reasons why it performs the tasks. An activity that does not contribute to the formation and transformation of the subject becomes a technical and alienating activity, failing to contribute to the construction of a democratic society.

The foundation of democracy is a conception of politics based on equality and justice, which leads to an end to all forms of domination and exclusion (^{BRASIL, 1988}). But, under the capitalist regime, it is not realized. Thus, in contexts of economic inequality, democracy is illusory. The presence of alienated subjects in the world of work results from the absence of participation in decisive contexts, such as those used in the vertical implementation of policies in the Brazilian educational system. Therefore, when it comes to participation, it is necessary to investigate the forms and spaces in which it takes place. Likewise, it is necessary to explain the type of democracy that is defended in educational political spaces and what is understood by the democratic participation of the subjects.

Research method and procedures

In this field research, we investigated, from the perspective of elementary school teachers, how the education professionals experienced the final stage of the process of municipalization of teaching in Porto Velho and how the changes affected the teaching work.

According to ^{Martins and Lavoura (2018}, p. 226):

[...] the phenomenal, immediate, and empirical appearance of reality is relevant and cannot be ruled out, since it is the starting point of the knowledge process - therefore, necessarily where knowledge begins. However, starting from the appearance, it is necessary to reach the essence of the object of study, to capture its internal logic of functioning that corresponds to the structure and the essential dynamics.

Based on the contributions of teaching professionals and the study of the documents that supported this context of ongoing changes, we carried out analyzes to understand the subjective experiences of those involved and how the teaching work was affected by it. With this analysis we intend to go beyond the appearance, considering the object of study in its historical context, that is, as part of the educational policies produced in Brazil after the Constitution of 1988.

The research was carried out in six schools that exclusively serve the initial years of Elementary Education and Early Childhood Education, included in the cooperation agreement between the state and municipal spheres. This part of the research was carried out from August to December 2018. The project that guides this research was presented to the principals of municipal schools and after they accepted to participate, was submitted, and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Rondônia (CAAE No. 87349918.3.0000.5300).

We interviewed 15 female teachers from the State School System (Rede Estadual de Ensino), who experienced the changes through the transfer of the schools where they worked to the Municipal School System (Rede Municipal de Ensino). The names of the teachers were omitted and replaced by the identification as Maria followed by a distinct letter of the alphabet. Schools were identified with ordinal numbers in full, from First School to Sixth School. This order was chosen according to the sequence of the interviews.

The participants were aged between 41 and 65 years old. The highest incidence was between 40 (9 interviewees) and 50 years (5 interviewees). All teaching professionals are graduated and only two did not have a lato sensu postgraduate course. The career time of the teachers ranged between 7 and 35 years, representing a very experienced group, with some professionals close to retirement. Among them, 14 teachers worked in two shifts, and some teachers had two contracts, one for the State Department of Education and another for the Municipal Department.

None of the teachers interviewed referred to policy advocacy activities or participation in the category’s union, although the Union of Education Workers of the State of Rondônia (SINTERO) includes both state and municipal teachers.

The data were produced through semi-structured interviews, recorded, and transcribed, and complemented by notes from the field diary. We also analyzed the documents that regulate the municipalization of education. They served as complementary data for the understanding of the legal aspects that involve the teaching work in the context of the research.

^{Netto (2011)} argues that the data itself has no meaning, they just show the expressions of the investigated object - they are the description of the phenomenon. To perceive the phenomenon, from the perspective of historical-dialectical materialism, it is not enough to describe the facts, it is also necessary to perceive subjectification beyond what is apparent. To achieve this reality in its materiality, it is necessary to move abstract thinking, fabricated by social and cultural relations that are in constant movement and, therefore, are contradictory.

The analysis was developed to comprehend the participants’ perception, based on their subjectivities, which involve the sum of the appropriate personal achievements based on the contents of a historical, social, and cultural nature. The achievements contribute to the development of the subject as a being constituted by the relations and in the relations, here represented by the context of the teaching work.

Results and discussion

The results and discussions are organized into three categories, named for excerpts taken from the teachers’ statements: a) “Sold with everything inside”: the process from the perspective of the teachers; b) “Who cares about the teacher?” Feelings and impacts shown by the teachers; and c) “We have nowhere to run”: reactions to the impacts caused by the municipalization process.

a) “Sold with everything inside”: the process from the perspective of the teachers

The contributions of the participants allow us to state that they did not perceive themselves as subjects in the change processes underway in the school institutions where they work. On the contrary, they felt they were the object of government actions, such as buildings or furniture inserted in the same transfer processes.

Among the actions planned for the implementation of municipalization, Decree No. 20,070 (RONDÔNIA, 2015b, n.p.), which instituted the partnership program for the transfer of elementary schools in Porto Velho, provides for “[...] meetings with schools that will be reassigned, school councils, guardianship council, parents of students and other actors involved in the process”. However, the interviewees indicated that there was no communication or early consultation with teachers about the process of municipalization of schools. In addition, there is no report that the school was involved in the process, either through the School Council or even the Education Workers Union.

The teachers were unanimous in stating that they were on vacation and, when they returned, received the information directly from the principals of their schools.

[...] It was a top-down decision. When we found out, the process was already underway... we were not consulted... the school was the last to know... that is how we felt, as when it is sold with everything inside, everything that was inside the school could not get out. There was a lack of information, a document for us to read. So, we felt a little lost at first, very lost. (Maria C, Second School, emphasis added).

The Cooperation Agreement provides for shared management between the administrative spheres. However, the lack of initial information caused several mismatches, since the teachers did not understand which rules were in force in schools, whether those in the municipality or those in the state.

Maria A describes that in the beginning, it was very hard to adapt:

[...] we are like the son with two mothers. Some rules and obligations came from the State and others that came from the Municipality: calendar, legislation, in addition to two managers (one from the State and the other from the Municipality) and we did not know which mother to obey. (Maria A, First School).

The democratic principles of public education management establish the right of choice for professionals and the possibility to express an opinion or disagree with the decisions that affect them. When asked if they felt included in the school’s municipalization process, Maria M replies: “No! Not at all! Decisions are all top-down. From the very top to the bottom! We have no participation or choices. We accept what is decided”. The teacher believes that municipalization occurred without planning, without community participation, and without risk assessment.

Democratic participation consists of ensuring voice and visibility for school subjects, which happens through participatory planning and valuing the opinion of the teacher in the political changes that affect the school. It is necessary to listen to anxieties, to value aspirations and desires, to reorient professionals towards new policies - including those related to teaching work. These procedures could contribute to the professionals, knowledgeable about the educational reality, to contribute to the changes and to feel part of this process, giving meaning to the teaching work. (^{MARTINS, 2015}).

Maria E believes that if the municipalization had the intention of bringing the Secretariat and the school closer to each other, the opposite occurred - the Municipality is more absent than the State. Although when managed by the State the education service was already lacking, in the Municipality the conditions for maintaining schools were even worse.

To guarantee the teaching material, the teachers “[...] either spend out of their own pocket, or the principal provides, often with their own resource as well” (Maria E).

Although the workload and work organization did not change, in the beginning, it was difficult to adapt to management since the school has two principals and two deputy principals. The administration of the schools was shared during the year 2016. From the academic year of 2017, the financial and pedagogical management and the infrastructure of the schools were under the responsibility of the Municipality administration; however, human resources (teachers, secretaries, and general service workers) remained under the State responsibility.

The interviews with the participants showed that not all of them were aware that the process of transferring schools between school systems is part of the policy of municipalization of education, which has been implemented in the country since the separation of functions between federated entities established by the Constitution of 1988. Some of the interviewees understand these changes as a complex and confusing practice, which serves party and electoral interests. Maria D stated: “[...] I think that everything is just politics. If it were to change anything, they would focus on the problems [...]. The biggest problem that I see is the lack of information and the lack of collaboration. They just come and throw things at us”. Corroborating data from other studies (^{BUZAIM, 2009}; ^{NUNES, 2010}), municipalization in stages, without extensive discussion with society, also contributed to the fact that many professionals were unaware that the changes underway were due to the municipalization policy.

Maria J regrets the changes related to the management of Third School, as the principal had been chosen by vote, following the determinations of democratic management in force in the State school system. However, the person was replaced by a principal appointed by the municipal school system: “[...] I still don’t understand why they remove something that we have achieved; [...] I worked hard for a democratic management... then, they bring someone from outside, who is unaware of the school’s situation”. She adds that, in her understanding, “[...] the changes may be positive, but in this case, democracy has been betrayed”.

According to ^{Freire (2001}, p. 79), “[...] democracy demands structures that are democratizing and not structures that inhibit the participatory presence of civil society in command of public representation”. Although Brazilian legislation, after the political opening of the 1980s, printed a participatory and democratic character to public management, the democratic experience is a long process that needs to be built historically to be appropriated by the subjects as a value to be defended. For participation to be effective, democratic instances in the educational context, such as school councils, need to be truly deliberative, not just consultative, as highlighted by the research by ^{Jampani (2012)}.

Discussions after the Constitution of 1988 recommended that, by joining the municipalization program for Education, the municipality should elect a municipal education council or commission by popular vote. According to ^{Gadotti (1989)}, it would be the duty of this body to guide the actors directly involved in the process regarding changes and the likely impacts that could occur during its implementation. However, according to ^{Saviani (2014)}, Brazilian education has historically been crossed by political interests and, although the guarantee of democratic participation is in the official documents, their experience is not part of the school routine, as it has not yet been carried out within the society. As highlighted by ^{Martins (2015}, p. 42):

[...] man’s sociality also bears his historicity, and, in this sense, society is not only the means to which man submits to adapt under the circumstances, but, rather, the means that have created the human himself. From this man-society relationship, sustained by the processes of appropriation and objectification, we learn that this is not a passive object of social influences and determinations, but, above all, the subject of its creation, being at the same time the product of the society that produces it.

Thus, the understanding presented by the research participants about the municipalization process stems from the experiences in which they were involved. Apparently, the objective conditions contributed to the lack of a broader understanding of the transformations that have been occurring and of the mobilization of these professionals towards the organization and collective participation in the process, highlighting the alienation produced in this context. However, as teaching professionals, they could also raise questions about this process, if the training they have received and the context in which they have worked had contributed to this.

b) “Who cares about the teachers”? Feelings and impacts shown by the teachers

According to ^{Martins (2015)}, the teaching work directly affects the personality of the teachers. Human praxis, represented here by teaching work, is constituted by social and cultural transformations, pervaded by feelings and emotions experienced in everyday relationships.

Among the various feelings perceived in the speeches of the participants, the fear caused by the lack of information and the low expectations regarding the future of the career stand out. Teachers do not seem to understand widely the instances in which policies are decided. This lack of knowledge suggests the detachment experienced in the school context, in which they execute decisions thought in other instances.

Maria B reports that the greatest concern is how the teachers’ opinion is simply disregarded:

[...] We were neither informed nor consulted... in other municipalities, the teachers did not even accept that municipalization occurred, here we were not even informed. Not even the union has answers or information about municipalization... we are working a little lost.

Maria C shares the same perception:

I feel lost... I think that in the future we will be in the same situation as when we started... where are we going? There are so many unanswered questions... so I will just let things flow, if I worry about it now, I will not be able to do what I must do... nobody has any information about what will happen to us when the agreement is over...

Maria F believes that the need for the municipality to take responsibility for the education of the early years “is part of the law” but fails to attribute advantages to the changes: “We do not have assistance. At least so far we haven’t had it”. The teacher shows the same anxieties as the other participants: she does not know if they will be fired and how their work will be when the Cooperation Agreement ends: “[...] we have no information or union, neither Semed3 nor Seduc4, I don’t see anyone here... who cares about the teacher?”

Maria G understands that the biggest disadvantage of municipalization is the lack of information and not knowing where they are going next year. These factors generate fear and insecurity about the future. In Maria L’s perception, the most advantageous aspect of the municipalization of education is knowing who is responsible for elementary education. According to her, the municipal administration should allow a closer relationship with the community, but in practice, she did not notice any difference, as none of the school systems assumed the responsibility for the school. The biggest disadvantage is exactly not having information about the teacher’s future. She states the following:

It is this lack of definition that afflicts us. If the State does not have more schools from 1st to 5th grade... And then what? What am I going to do? So, this doubt that remains... it messes with us. I think that there must be a way, they are going to do something for us. But it is this lack of information that discourages us. This is my concern, I will remain at the mercy of the State until they decide what they are going to do with me. (Maria L, Fifth School).

Fifth School is in the region farthest from the city center, being the one that offers the most precarious operating conditions. Thus, in addition to the lack of information about the future, Maria L feels that the school is abandoned by both state and municipal management:

The school is abandoned, we barely have working conditions [...] there is no one here to find out about our situation. There is a lack of security at school. Most of our students stay here only until their parents find another place at another school; there is a lot of student turnover and this hinders the continuity of the work. We don’t even know how long the school will last. Our situation is the one that you are seeing now: heat, lack of space for tuition... sometimes we go under the trees to bear it.

The feeling of abandonment manifested by the teachers is evident. However, the lack of information about the future of their career seems to be the issue that most afflicts them. Teachers are guided by unofficial information that arrives at the school. Based on this informality, Maria G states: “[...] I learned that teachers can be assigned as technicians within the secretariats when the Cooperation Agreement ends”. Faced with this possibility, teachers fear losing benefits or even fear being forced to teach subjects or classes for which they are not qualified. This fear denotes that in the same proportion that there is a lack of information about the process in which they are currently inserted, there is still a lack of knowledge about their work and career rights.

The quality of education depends, among several factors, on the teaching performance. For policies to take effect within the school, actions that enable teachers to have physical, material, and intellectual conditions are required. In addition to wage appreciation, it is important to consider the subjectivities involved (^{ANGELUCCI, 2011}).

Maria F defines her feeling as “[...] abandonment... in fact, I’m kind of frustrated. Frustration, that’s the feeling”. The teachers feel unrecognized, without support, and their speeches reflect anguish, tiredness, and lack of motivation. They find themselves in an administrative limbo. While they are managed by the two administration spheres, there is a clear feeling of not belonging anywhere. Maria N also reports that “[...] there are many unanswered questions”.

The lack of information and the passivity position on events that directly affect the careers of these professionals indicate the alienation constituted in the process of training and insertion in the work of teachers. According to ^{Paro (2017)}, training processes are necessary to allow a broader reading of the political and economic system (which conditions the historical constitution of the educational system), as well as the implementation of mechanisms that ensure conscious participation in the processes that directly impact the school environment. As for the subjects’ awareness of the political dimension that involves teaching work, they need to take ownership of their places as citizens.

The context of teaching work is defined by political, historical, and economic transformations, further marked by the alienating capitalist relations. Thus, it is important to understand who is interested in the passivity of teachers and the alienation from information and their rights. The teaching work must be a space that allows the confrontation with the determinations of capitalism, which alienates the worker from his essence as a historical, social, and singular subject. Hence the need for critical training that allows understanding the place of education in the construction of new possibilities for understanding reality.

c) “We have nowhere to run”: reactions to the impacts caused by the municipalization process

The teaching work is part of the set of actions necessary for the school to act as an organized institution. From a more human perspective, ^{Martins (2015)} understands that the teaching work directly influences the personality and that the action exerted by the work shapes the individual’s subjectivity, which in turn is reflected in its actions and reactions before conflicts. These actions, materialized by the subjects’ statements, serve as subsidies for the researcher to understand beyond what is apparent and, through them, to identify the possible actions and reactions that the municipalization process causes in the participants.

As Maria J states: “[...] I am not worried, because the [Cooperation] Agreement ends now, it only lasted three years, and I am also close to retiring”. To further instigate them, we reminded the teachers that, according to the Cooperation Agreement, the permanent donation referred only to material goods, and, at some point, the teachers would return to the State. Maria K replies: “Yes, that is true. But they will have to find a way”.

Maria D reports that her greatest concern is that “[...] we don’t know where we are going or what will happen to us. Will I have to look for a new school? Will the State remain at our side? I don’t know what they’re going to do... there’s nowhere to run”. Maria H talks about taking late seniority leave and waiting at home for retirement. Maria I also replies that she is preparing to retire. Maria G, however, is not old enough to retire and explains that, for her, all she can do is wait for the solutions from the Department of Education: “I imagine that I will be available to SEDUC, but I don’t know what I’d be doing [...], all I can do is wait, I can’t make any plans”.

Maria I says that, to leave school, she should have a guaranteed place for relocation, but she knows that in the State there are no more job offers for teaches in the initial grades. She also understands that “[...] the Municipality does not have the capacity to allocate all these teachers into the education system...” According to Maria A, the Municipality “[...] has no structure to absorb all this demand, nor does it have enough employees to serve these students”.

Maria F is self-critical when answering about her situation: “Look, maybe I have settled down, maybe I want to stay here because of the location”. Maria O expresses concern about the municipalization process:

[...] to tell you the truth I didn’t think much about my career. My concern is what will happen. Are they going to extend that agreement? Until when are we going to work for the Municipality? Is the school going back to the State? there are several unanswered questions. [...] the bodies responsible for these policies could think a little more about teachers [...] because, in fact, the teacher is the one who carries the whole education on it shoulders.

For Maria G, the lack of information about the procedures adopted in the municipalization of Education has had a big impact on teachers. However, she believes that the greatest impact will occur when they are informed that the Agreement has ended and they must leave school, especially since many employees at Third School are elderly, have worked there for many years, and are just waiting for retirement. Starting at a different school at this point in your life can trigger many negative feelings. But, for her, the worst thing is not having information: “[...] in fact, I would like to know if at some point they will talk to us”.

This contradiction appears in several statements by the teachers: while they would like to know what is going to happen, they prefer to wait. The expectation of postponing actions or delegating the responsibility for solving problems to others appears in many speeches: “we hear about it”, “this is what they say”, “there is nothing official” - the information from “someone who told me that”, as Maria G. called it. We then questioned whether they went to the Department of Education in search of more accurate information. Maria G believes that this action would cause concern ahead of time, so it is better to wait. Maria I demonstrates the insecurity she feels, as she states that “[...] the principal informed that everything is right, that Seduc will not mess with anyone”, but reinforces that it is verbal information, and there is nothing official.

Doubts and lack of information make teachers anguished, with insecurity about the future. However, the passive reactions lead us to two worrying perspectives: the first concerns the group of teachers who are close to retirement, and therefore do not show concern about their professional future; the second group refers to a feeling of security due to career stability, which makes teachers believe that the Department of Education “will find a way”.

It is important to analyze the essence of these behaviors in addition to appearance, as there was an absence of self-organizing initiatives to understand the changes, which can affect the guarantee of rights both for the group of teachers involved and for the children and their families, served by the schools being transferred to the Municipal school system.

The theoretical framework from the authors who based this research contributed contributed to our understanding that the subjectivity expressed in the speech of the interviewed teachers was constituted by the senses and meanings produced in the social contexts in which they graduated and work. The political process that alienated them from the social function of education, objectifying them in the implementation of public policies, may have contributed to this attitude of alienation in the face of the decisions that are infringed upon them.

Final considerations

The municipalization of education is part of the historical process experienced by Brazilian society in the search for the division of responsibilities between the Union, the States, and the municipalities, aiming at greater local participation in political decisions. Teaching work, as a constituent element of the educational system, was directly impacted by these changes. The analyzes made in this research, therefore, considered municipalization as a national policy, analyzing how it is being implemented in the Municipality of Porto Velho, RO, as the final stage of this process at the local level.

The data indicate that, although official speeches attribute to teachers the role of protagonists in educational processes, there is no involvement of the teacher in the design and implementation of policies; spaces for participation in school have not become contexts capable of contributing to democratic formation. This reality was highlighted by the teachers interviewed when they demonstrate that they feel excluded from decision-making processes and that they have a limited understanding of the scope and origin of the changes resulting from municipalization.

When questioned about how the process of transferring administration from the schools of the State School System in which they work to the Municipal School System took place, the teachers unanimously stated that they did not participate in any dialogue between the schools and the education departments. The professionals were informed about the changes at the beginning of the school year when the management of the schools started to be shared by the principals of the two departments.

It was a process that was not exclusive to the state of Rondônia, as pointed out by the researches of ^{Buzaim (2009)} and ^{Nunes (2010)}.

The rights of the career and working hours were maintained, but the process implied situations of instability and lack of information regarding teacher training and the functioning of schools. The feelings expressed by the teachers about the changes and the professional future were of insecurity and anguish, although these feelings did not result in the actions of those involved in search of information or changes in the reality in which they find themselves.

The constitution of teacher’s subjectivity, according to the contributions of Historical-Cultural Psychology, takes us back to the contexts in which teacher training and performance are established. The absence of spaces for discussion and training, of participatory planning as an opportunity to develop critical awareness, in which teachers are unable to appropriate the social function of their work within the limits of capitalist society, leads to alienation. In theory, the teaching work consists of educating, training, and transforming knowledge; however, when executed in an alienated and alienating way, it loses its meaning and becomes a mere survival activity.

According to Historical-Cultural Psychology, the mere execution of the activity does not constitute the conscience of the worker, but rather requires an understanding of the context in which human relations are produced in the society in which we operate and the appropriation of the forms of their organization. For this, training processes and performance spaces are needed that develop and require tools and knowledge that guarantee a critical reading of reality.

As ^{Martins (2015}, p. 133) points out, based on Marx’s statements, in the III Thesis on Feuerbach, the educator himself needs to be educated. For the author:

[...] this thesis is an invitation to reflect that educators are not born educated, being themselves subjects or objects of a historical, biographical development, which embodies a social class, of the objective conditions of life, a development mediated by the very relationships they establish with systematized knowledge.

In addition to the quality of initial training, school spaces must be constituted in contexts for expanding the understanding of the forces at play in the production of life in society, so that knowledge, even under the contradictions of capitalism, can be at the service of humanization. In this sense, school collectives need to be strengthened so that educators collectively educate themselves in the struggle to overcome educational policies in the service of the alienation of those who teach and, consequently, of those who learn, directly implying in the quality of teaching, as indicated by the research by ^{Jampani (2012)}.

New investigations regarding the appropriation of educational policies by school subjects, whether they are students or teachers, can contribute so that we can better understand the consequences of these changes in the constitution of the schools we have, especially regarding the processes of municipalization of teaching.