Municipal High Schools and Free Teacher-Training Schools

During the First Republic, the collaboration of municipalities to promote public education in the state of São Paulo was not restricted to primary education; it included vocational, secondary, and teacher-training education. For the purposes of this study, it is important to emphasize the actions taken by the municipalities to create high schools and free municipal teacher-training schools.

As stated by ^{Souza (2014)}, in 1911, the City Council of Araraquara, in an extraordinary meeting, approved the construction of a building for a high school, granting 25 contos de réis for this purpose. After the completion of the building, the City Council would contact someone of good repute to implement “at their own risk and with full autonomy, a high school comparable to the National one.” (Minutes of the City Council of Araraquara, apud ^{SOUZA, 2014}).

After the works were finished, in 1913, the City Council signed a contract with the Lane brothers, who took over the direction of the school and organized it along the same lines as the American School of São Paulo, maintained by the Presbyterians. The high school became known as Araraquara Senior High School. In 1919, due to the termination of the contract, the mayor, city council members, and other luminaries of the city’s political and economic elite formed an association to maintain the school. The so-called Mackenzie Association of Araraquara, began negotiations with the Mackenzie College of São Paulo asking the institution to take charge of the pedagogical and technical direction of the educational establishment. The Araraquara Senior High School reopened in 1920 under the name of Mackenzie School of Araraquara, and adopted North-American teaching methods, and offering primary, secondary and commercial courses, on boarding and non-boarding regimes.

In 1926, because the school had difficulty in adapting to the new determinations established by the federal reform of secondary education, Rocha Vaz Reform (Decree No. 16,782/A, of 13 January 1925), the Mackenzie Association of Araraquara, in agreement with the City, transferred the responsibility for the school´s expenses to the municipal authorities. From then on, the school was renamed Mackenzie Municipal High School of Araraquara (^{SOUZA, 2014}).

In Sorocaba, according to a study by ^{Gonçalves (2006)}, the City contributed to the maintenance of secondary education at various times.⁸ Between 1909 and 1911, the Sorocabano High School, subsidized by the City Council, operated on a yearly amount of 27 contos and 600 thousand reis. Later, in the 1920s, rival groups within the Paulista Republican Party (PRP) competed to create a high school in the city. Opponents of Senator Vergueiro (“Antivergueiristas”) supported by the president of the state, Júlio de Albuquerque Prestes, defended the creation of a municipal high school, which was actually created in 1927 by the City Council, proposed by Councilman Gustavo Schreppel (Law no. 204, of October 26, 1927). In the following year, the city Council reneged and the school began its operation as a private institution supported with a grant from the Perseverance III Masonic Lodge and was housed in the same premises as the free night school maintained by the Freemasonry. In January of 1929, the Antivergueirista group took over the Sorocaba City Council and Mayor João Machado de Araújo, the high school principal, proposed a project to reestablish the municipalization of the school (Law No. 209, of January 16).

We cannot say how many municipal high schools were in operation in the state of São Paulo during the First Republic. However, the two institutions mentioned here show how different social groups – political elites, the Catholic and Protestant churches, the Freemasonry, the private sector, among others – were involved in promoting secondary education in the municipalities. The expansion of educational opportunities became a relevant and growing social demand in the state of São Paulo in the early twentieth century. The population wanted public educational establishments like the public elementary school, the vocational school and, especially, the teacher-training schools and high schools, since they meant prestige for the municipality and were considered symbols of modernity and socio-cultural progress. To get such cherished educational institutions, local stakeholders took action to have the City Council to shoulder the cost of high schools and pressured political authorities to request, claim, and negotiate the creation of public schools, providing material compensation, donating the land and building the premises or providing the all the needed facilities.

As it has been shown here, local political groups used different strategies to promote secondary education. It is worth pointing out, in this sense, how at the end of the 1920s, the municipalities became involved in the dissemination of free teacher-training schools which were seen as means of having access to secondary schooling and the expansion of secondary education.

In 1927, the Education Reform commanded by Amadeu Mendes, General Director of Public Instruction of the State of São Paulo (Law No. 2,269, 31 Dec. 1955), equalized the Official Teacher-Training Schools and the Free Teacher-Training Schools.⁹

At the time, São Paulo had 10 official teacher-training schools in the following cities: two in the capital city and eight in the rest of the state: Itapetininga, Piracicaba, Campinas, Pirassununga, Guaratinguetá, Botucatu, São Carlos, and Casa Branca. “Free” teacher-training schools were private or municipal schools, whose graduates could practice only in municipal or private primary schools. Equalization, therefore, gave all teacher-training school graduates equivalent rights, thus expanding work opportunities for properly qualified primary school teachers. As Leila Maria Inoue points out, the aim was to train teachers in the short term to solve the problem of isolated schools, especially in rural areas. In addition, “[...] it was an attempt to force municipalities to create teacher-training schools, because the state claimed that it was not in the position to do so.” (2015, p.56). The new legislation was seen by some municipal leaders as an opportunity to meet the demands of local social groups that craved higher levels of schooling. In fact, between 1928 and 1930, 38 Free teacher-training schools were created in the state of São Paulo, 10 (26%) of which were municipal ones, located in: Taquaritinga, Bauru, Mirassol, Taubaté, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, Lins, Itápolis, Sorocaba, São José dos Campos, and Mogi das Cruzes.

In order for a Free Teacher-Training School to be placed on the same level as an Official one, it had to meet certain pedagogical and material requirements, including:

Article 398. The following conditions are necessary for equalization:

6º - To have a minimum net worth of two hundred contos de reis, consisting of buildings, real state, or public debt securities.

7 º - When the schools are founded by municipalities, the net worth may, in the opinion of the Government, it may be comprised of City Council securities, deposited in the Treasury of the State. (SÃO PAULO, 1929).

In order to understand how the expansion of teacher-training schools contributed to the expansion of secondary education, it is necessary to consider the institutional similarities between these two types of schools, particularly the unfolding and gradual changes that occurred in the complementary course. Considered a preparatory stage for the professional teacher-training course, the complementary course became, in the beginning of the 1930s, the elementary course and the latter the junior high school course. Moreover, in some municipalities, the implementation of the free teacher-training school was the first step in the negotiation with the State to have a high school.

In Sorocaba, the creation of the free teacher-training school occurred together with the creation of the municipal high school, as stated by ^{Sandano (2009)} and ^{Almeida (2015)}. In other municipalities, even though they did not maintain the schools, some City Councils supported the private initiative, like in Araraquara, where the free teacher-training school was implemented in 1928, at the Mackenzie Municipal High School (^{ANTÔNIO, SOUZA, 2014}). In Franca, Wagner da Silva ^{Teixeira (2000)} found stories in city newspapers demanding a teacher-training school as early as 1913. As soon as the Public Instruction Reform of 1927 was introduced, teachers and municipal authorities joined forces, in early 1928, to create the free teacher-training school. In the noble hall of the City Council were the president of the City Council, Colonel Francisco de Andrade Junqueira, “Major Torquato Caleiro, Mayor, Amaro Cruz teaching inspector, doctors Walfrido Maciel, João Marciano de Almeida, Ricardo Pinho, Roberto Tedesco, physicians, professors Agenor Aquino and Olívio Peixoto, and lawyers Luiz de Lima and Antônio Constantino.” (^{TEIXEIRA, 2000}, page 72). According to the author, the City Council of Franca allocated 200 thousand reis required for the operation of the school and for the construction of the building.

The examples given here show the investment made by the municipalities in high schools, free teacher-training schools, and complementary schools aimed at increasing the schooling level of the population, especially of portions of the middle class and local elites. Notwithstanding public education (primary education), targeting the lower classes, it was the secondary schools that positioned schooling as a political dividend, that is, as a relevant currency in disputes among regional oligarchies over power.

The Expansion of Official High Schools and the Material Compensation Provided by the Municipalities (1932-1947)

In March 1932, the federal intervener, Colonel Manoel Rabello, began the expansion process of official high schools in the state of São Paulo, creating four new schools in the municipalities of Araraquara, Itu, Taubaté, and Catanduva.¹⁰ What could have motivated the intervener to make that decision and why did he privilege these towns? Only detailed regional analyses could shed light on the political game involving the expansion of state high schools between 1930 and 1947. Within the scope of this article, we will point out traces of the cooperation on the part of the municipalities and the way the local elites operated.

Maria do Carmo Campello de ^{Souza (2006)} states that the period between 1930 and 1945 should be considered a turning point in Brazilian federalism, that is, in the relationships between the State´s central power and the federative units, in view of the State´s centralization process. As pointed out by Codato, this political period is contemporaneous with three simultaneous processes: “the limitation of the prerogatives of state oligarchies, the concentration of decision-making at the federal level, and the diffusion of a typically national ideology.” (2013, p.190).

In São Paulo, political instability was clearly demonstrated by the countless succession of state administrations – 16 interveners from 1930 to April 1938 and 6 more by March 1947. Groups of the São Paulo oligarchy were in permanent dispute to participate in the government. As explained in ^{Codato's (2008)} fine analysis, the various groups of the São Paulo oligarchy in contention for political hegemony in the state in the 1930s and 1940s faced four distinct situations vis-à-vis the Old Republic. Initially, the Democratic Party (DP) joined the lieutenants against the traditional oligarchies represented by the PRP – Paulista Republican Party – in support of the Revolution of 1930 that raised Getúlio Dornelles Vargas to power. However, this alliance was short-lived, since six months after the revolution, the Democratic Party opposed the lieutenants in defense of “constitutional order”, state “autonomy”, and of the armed insurrection against the Union in July 1932.

With the defeat of the Paulistas in the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932, the Single Slate for a United São Paulo maintained, in 1933, the alliance between the oligarchic parties. Soon, however, during the race for the state Constitutional Assembly, the PRP would again oppose the democrats that supported Armando de Sales Oliveira, and merged with the Constitutionalist Party that absorbed the extinct DP.

With the establishment of the Estado Novo (New State), in 1937, the “armandistas” lost the power and the command of the state returned to the perrepistas, who appointed Adhemar de Barros, a member of the young wing of the Paulista Republican Party. With regard to the municipal power, it should not be overlooked that the political centralization in effect during Getúlio Vargas´s administration (1930-1945) also affected the municipalities, since the City Councils were closed and the interveners had the prerogative to appoint the mayors.

As several authors have pointed out (^{Souza, 2006}, ^{Carone, 1976}, ^{Codato, 2008}, 2010). The political and institutional centralization of this period did not eliminate the internal disputes among the oligarchies. On the contrary, bosses, clientelism, and conflicts continued to prevail in the municipalities among the most powerful families. Without the intermediation of the City Council, the struggle for schools became a personal commitment on the part of the mayor and the municipal political leaders.

As Barbosa Lima Sobrinho observed in the preface to the pioneer and now classic “Coronelism, Hoe, and Ballot”, by Victor Nunes Leal, “To maintain leadership, the ‘Coronel’ feels the need to present himself as a champion of local improvements, if not to content his friends, at least to silence the opponents. It is the political prestige he enjoys that empowers him as an advocate of local interests.” (1986, p. XV).

Through the Municipal Mackenzie High Shcool of Araraquara officialization, in 1932, one can observe the meanderings of the political negotiation between local leaderships and state governments. In its edition of 2 February 1932, O Imparcial newspaper heralded the paths taken to transform the municipal high school into a state high school, extolling the performance of the mayor and other municipal leaders:

[...] we cannot end this news report without highlighting, once again, the public esteem, the names of our illustrious citizens Dr. Mario Arantes de Almeida, city mayor, and José Maria Paixão and Dr. Christiano Infante Vieira, luminaries currently in charge of governing Araraquara, who, through the intelligence and perseverance of their combined efforts, succeeded in achieving this inestimable accomplishment for our city. Above all, Mr. Jose Maria Paixão, a most worthy gentleman, highly esteemed in our city, has been the great advocate of the official high school of Araraquara, since it was he, as is widely known, who travelled to the capital of São Paulo, for long periods of time, with the declared intention of striving for the creation of the first educational establishment in our municipality, having had the pleasure of seeing his own efforts crowned with success. (PELA CRIAÇÃO DO GYMNASIO OFFICIAL..., 1932 apud ^{SOUZA, 2014}).

The article makes it possible for one to infer that the request came from members of the local elite and that it was negotiated in São Paulo with the intervener Manoel Rabello or perhaps with the Consultative Council. With the exception of the Araraquara high school, it is not known whether the other high schools created by Manoel Rabello already operated as municipal schools. The exact terms of this negotiation are unknown, but it is likely that among the many demands and public works requested of the intervener by the mayors, the high school figured as a great necessity. In the decrees that created the first official high schools, material compensation provided by the municipalities was a requirement: buildings, furniture and offices, in addition to the payment of facility maintenance expenses for two years. Also in 1932, another official high school was created by the intervener José da Silva Gordo, in São José do Rio Preto¹¹ with the same material compensation required by the City. All these high schools were created according to the reform instituted by Francisco Campos, in 1931, which extended the duration of secondary education to seven years, divided into two cycles: the fundamental, with the duration of five years, and the complementary, of two years. The reform also instituted compulsory attendance to classes and a strict student evaluation system, as well as rigorous inspection and equalization criteria (^{SOUZA, 2008}).

The material compensation, therefore, may well have been a two-way alternative since, on the one hand, it enabled the expansion of the public secondary education demanded by the population, and on the other hand, enforced the collaboration of the Municipalities with the enterprise. The cooperation of the municipalities of São Paulo in the dissemination of secondary education was standardized in 1933 by the São Paulo State Education Code, Decree No. 5,884 of April 21, developed during the administration of Fernando de Azevedo as head of the Education Board. The Code, based on the principles of the New School, laid down the general rules that would guide the São Paulo education system until the 1960s. Regarding secondary education, he instituted the newly established standards by the Francisco Campos Reform, introducing in the state high schools the fundamental and complementary courses to be progressively organized, “according to the demands of the social milieu and as far as the economic conditions would allow” (^{SOUZA, 2011}).¹² The Code also established fundamental five-year high school courses, linked to the teacher-training and trade schools, favoring the dissemination of the secondary school´s first cycle and prescribing operating standards for the municipal high schools, encouraging the municipalities to create this type of school by offering them subsidies:

Art. 594. - The Government may subsidize, for a period not exceeding 5 years, the municipalities of the State that shoulder the costs of high schools, provided the following conditions are observed:

a) – schools must operate in a municipal building provided with necessary sanitary and pedagogical conditions;

b) – be provided with furniture and sufficient teaching material suitable for teaching;

c) – have a board of directors and faculty of good repute;

d) – obey the official high school legislation as applicable;

e) – operate regularly for a period of at least two years (SÃO PAULO, 1933, p. 151). (SÃO PAULO, 1933).

The subsidy was, therefore, a bet on the part of the state government regarding the contribution of municipalities to the expansion of public secondary education by bearing the costs of maintaining the municipal high schools. However, the precarious revenue of the municipalities was an obstacle to the local authorities to do just that. Therefore, it is easy to understand the great pressure put upon the executive branch by the municipal leaderships to take on the expansion of the public secondary school system.

Consequently, the mayors saw the creation of municipal high schools as a provisional alternative to fulfill the local demands and as a useful expedient to negotiate the transfer of the high school system to the responsibility of the state government later on. Therefore, what was really in operation was the material compensation expedient.

Between 1932 and 1947, 58 official high schools were created by law in the state of São Paulo. Most of these schools were created by Armando de Salles Oliveira (15 high schools) followed by Fernando de Souza Costa (10 high schools), and José Carlos de Macedo Soares (20 high schools), as shown in Table 1.

Unquestionably, the expansion of the official high schools boosted the political capital of Armando de Sales Oliveira. It is worth remembering that he was appointed by Getúlio Vargas as federal intervener of São Paulo in 1933 and was later elected governor by the City Council, becoming a presidential candidate in 1937 (^{CODATO, 2008}). Fernando Costa was part of the “authentic” wing of the Paulista Republican Party and José Carlos de Macedo Soares was a member of the Constitutionalist Party and gave his support to the fall of the Estado Novo.

In the 1930s, despite the expansion of official high schools, private secondary schools still prevailed in the state of São Paulo. In 1935, São Paulo had 115 private and municipal high schools supervised by the federal government, 40 in the capital city and 75 in the rest of the state (^{SÃO PAULO, [1937]}, 260). In 1936, there were 34 junior high courses maintained by the State: 24 in high schools, 9 in the official teacher-training schools, and one in the Education Institute. Enrollment in these courses totaled 9,412 students. (SÃO PAULO, [1938], 423). The state boasted 43 free teacher-training schools, being 17 municipal and 26 private. On the intrinsic relation between high schools and teacher-training schools, the Head of the Secondary and Teacher-training Education Service, professor Euzébio de Paula Marcondes, in a report published in the State of São Paulo Teaching Yearbook of 1936-1937 stated that:

Secondary education is taught, in Sao Paulo, according to federal law, in two types of school: high schools, which offer only secondary education, and teacher-training schools, which, in addition to providing secondary education, also train teachers in two-year pedagogical studies programs, as an extension to the five years of secondary schooling. (SÃO PAULO, [1938], 423).

The systematic material compensation requirement from the municipalities for the creation of official high schools was a political shared action measure between the state executive branch and the municipal authorities. By adopting this measure, the State forced the municipalities into collaborating in the expansion of public education at great expense, considering the high costs of implementing the educational establishments. In most of the official high schools established by the State of São Paulo´s administrations in the period from 1932 to 1947, one finds that some kind of material compensation was imposed on the municipalities. Only three high schools were created in that period without any compensation requirement: Pinhal, Barretos, and Batatais (Respectively, SÃO PAULO, 1946, 1947 a and b). For high schools created between 1932 and 1937, the municipal government was required to donate the building, furniture, the offices necessary for running the school and two years’ worth of maintenance expenses. Starting in 1938, the major requirement was to donate 100 square meters of land for the construction of a building to house the school created by the State and the transfer of the building and the necessary facilities from the City to the State, at no cost to the State, on a loan basis. Special demands were made from the Municipality of Itapira indicating that there were nuances in the negotiations between the interveners and the municipal mayors for creating the high schools.

Article 5 - All the expenses required for maintaining the Gymnasium [high school] in 1940 shall be borne by the Municipal Government of Itapira.

Sole Paragraph - From 1941, the said Municipality will contribute annually with the amount of five hundred contos de reis (50:000$000) to cover the operation expenses of the school. (SÃO PAULO, 1933).

In other municipalities, the loan fell on the facilities of other schools, like in Mogi Mirim, whose material compensation for creating the high school was that it would operate in the premises of the city´s existing commercial school (SÃO PAULO, 1945d). The same happened in the creation of the Teacher-Training School and State High School of Cruzeiro, whose implementation was conditioned “by the obligation of the Municipality, to donate a plot of land measuring 100 (one hundred) meters x 100 (one hundred) meters to the State, for the construction of the premises, and school and didactic materials, currently in the Mantiqueira School and Cruzeiro Teacher-Training School, including a library, a physics laboratory, a chemistry bureau and a natural history museum, according to Process No. 14,001/46 of the of State Education and Public Health Secretariat (Decree-Law No. 16,076, of 12 September 1946)¹⁴.

The implementation and maintenance of municipal high schools may have been an expedient used by some mayors with a view to their transfer to the State in the short and medium terms. Analyzing the legislation governing the 58 high schools created between 1932 and 1947, we find the registries of six municipal high schools: São João da Boa Vista, Caçapava, São José dos Campos, Jacareí, Pindamonhangaba, and Matão.¹⁵ For example, in the legislation that created the São João da Boa Vista High School (Decree 7,051, 3 April 1935), the justification for creating the school was based on the pre-existence of the municipal junior high school:

Considering that the City of São João da Bôa Vista already maintains a Gymnasium [high school] under federal inspection, thus fulfilling the indispensable requirements of art. 51, of Federal Decree No. 21,241, of April 4, 1932;

Whereas it is advisable to transfer this Gymnasium to the State; The city decrees:

Art. 1 - An Official Gymnasium is created in São João da Bôa Vista. § 1º - The State Government, under the responsibility of the respective City, shall donate the premises, facilities, and educational material, in accordance with art. 3 paragraph 4, paragraph 1, of federal decree No. 21,241, of April 4, 1932.

Paragraph 2 - This Municipality shall additionally be responsible for the expenses incurred by the Gymnasio, including the payment of personnel, until December 31 of the current year. (SÃO PAULO, 1935a)

The donation of the land, premises and facilities of the existing Matão Municipal High School was a prerequisite for the creation of the State High School (Decree-Law No. 16,871, dated February 10, 1947¹⁶). Regarding the creation of this school, ^{Diniz (2012)} pointed out that the role played by the mayor of that municipality vis-à-vis the Federal Intervener, Adhemar de Barros, occurred as early as the creation of the Municipal High School, which was widely reported by the A Comarca¹⁷ weekly newspaper that circulates until the present day in Matão and that was used as a primary source in this study in our search for evidences to prove the Union-State-Municipality relationship that took place from then on, and how that reality was presented to the population through the written press:

In a hearing that was granted a few days ago to the Municipal Mayor of Mattão by the eminent Mr. Dr. Adhemar de Barros, the foundations were laid for the creation of our Municipal Gymnasium [high school]. This fact demonstrates the prestige enjoyed by the governor of Mattão, and especially the interest shown by the illustrious Intervener of São Paulo in the problems of the populations of the hinterland, not bearing them down with elusive promises but by giving them a promising and satisfactory solution.

Mr. Adhemar de Barros was further instructed to provide the Matthias Gymnasium, on behalf of the State, with all the necessary material.

Were he not the great head of the bandeirante executive, the modelstatesman who has revealed himself laborious, popular, and devoted to his governed friends, this magnanimous and spontaneous gesture alone would have sufficed to win the sympathy of the Mattonians. In this deed by Dr. Adhemar de Barros, we see the characteristic facet of the new institutions that govern us: a system of unity, collaboration, and congregation of cells of the great Brazilian community.

In this comforting environment of understanding and mutual sympathies, we can expect everything from Mayor José Bartholomeu Ferreira, who knows how to understand and fulfill the aspirations of his people. (GYMNASIO, 1940a apud ^{DINIZ, 2012}, page 58).

In his work, ^{Diniz (2012)} also highlighted that, having created the ‘Dr. Adhemar de Barros’ Municipal High School, the state government began to subsidize it, thus confirming the educational policy advocated in the Education Code of 1933, thus revealing a close relationship between the Municipal and State Executive branches, according to the following newspaper excerpt:

[...] obtained from the great governor of São Paulo the valuable subsidy of $50,000 annually.

It was thus confirmed the high esteem enjoyed by the Mayor in the highest governmental spheres, and special attention and sympathy that Dr. Adhemar de Barros dedicates to the cause of instruction. (GINÁSIO MUNICIPAL, 1941 apud ^{DINIZ, 2012}, page 60).

Along these same lines, for ^{Diniz (2012}, p. 62):

Everything suggests that the Mayor had negotiated with the Federal Intervener the building of the premises with a view to transforming it into a State Gymnasium [high school] in the very near future. However, the maintenance of the Gymnasium was an onerous expense for the municipal coffers, even if partially subsidized by the State. The strategy used to overcome this obstacle culminated in Decree-Law No. 76¹⁸ of April 18, 1944, authorizing the Municipal Gymnasium to be lease to the private sector for a period of 10 years, through public tender [...]

It seems that the transfer of the Municipal High School´s management to the private sector would be a way for the Municipal Executive branch to ensure the operation of the educational establishment. According to this hypothesis, we must consider the short period of 2 years and 7 months elapsed from the beginning of the operation of the Anglo-Latino High School, after the lease of the Municipal High School for 10 years, until the enactment, on 10 February 1947, of State Decree-Law No. 16,871, which incorporated the Municipal High School to the State.

It can be said, therefore, that the conditions imposed on the municipalities by the state executive branch was an individual negotiation, case by case. The implementation of the Igarapava State High School was conditioned to the Municipal Government's obligation to “donate to the State, the premises, teaching facilities and respective land, with about 11,000.00 m² (eleven thousand square meters), where the São Sebastião High School operates, in that municipality, having been completed the adjustments deemed necessary by the Department of Education. (Decree-Law No. 16,668 of December 31, 1946¹⁹).

The strategies adopted by the municipalities with a view to disseminate secondary education were various. In Itápolis, as Pavini points out (2017), the City Council created the free teacher-training school in a day-school regime in 1929. Later, in 1934, the City authorized the adaptation of the school into a high school, in the molds of the Pedro II High School and started to maintain the school with resources from the municipality´s annual budget and fees charged from the students. In 1935, the high school was made official by the State (Decree No. 7,105, April 10, 1695), which required the City to donate the premises, facilities and didactic material, and to pay the personnel until December 31, 1936.²⁰

In Sorocaba, the Mayor supported the initiative to create the Science and Letters High School, in 1935, paying for the premises in which to set up the school that would provide secondary education for workers. However, as ^{Michel (2013)} points out, this school had an ephemeral trajectory.

In the 1940s, the reforms made to secondary and teacher-training education laid the foundations for the expansion of secondary education in the country. The Organic Law on Secondary Education (Decree-Law No. 4,244, 9 April 1942-1959), known as the Capanema Reform, divided secondary education into two cycles: the first one, called junior high school, was a four-year course; the second one, the three-year senior high school course, which encompassed two parallel courses – the scientific and the classical. The Reform also regulated the types of secondary schools: the junior high school that was designed to teach the first cycle (junior high school) and the senior high school, which in addition to the junior high school, included the second cycle courses (classical and/or scientific). With respect to the curriculum, prominence was given to general humanistic training. The admission examination into junior high school, a strict evaluation system was kept, as well as the equalizing system. ²¹

In the state of São Paulo, as a result of the 1942 reform, new recommendations for secondary education were established in 1945 (Decree-Law No. 15,235 of dated November 28²²) and the denomination for public secondary and teacher-training schools were thus defined: State High Schools and Teacher-Training Schools, Caetano de Campos School and State Capital High School and Teacher-training Schools and State High Schools.²³ The links between secondary and teacher-training education established in the public education network in São Paulo since the late 1920s were strengthened in the 1930s and 1940s and became the hallmark of the expansion of secondary education until the end of the 20th century.

The Role of Municipalities in the Expansion of Official High Schools in the Redemocratization Period

Between March 14, 1947 and January 31, 1963, spanning four state government administrations in the state of São Paulo, 474 public high schools were created, indicating a considerable quantitative growth unheard of in the history of Brazilian education. This was due mostly to the incisive action of state representatives, since the system adopted for creating schools introduced in the late 1940s was, once again, based on the enactment of a law passed by the House of Representatives of the State of São Paulo (ALESP). As ^{Beisiegel (1964}, pp. 152-153) points out:

After the fall of the Estado Novo, the creation of a state high school came to depend on the enactment of the law passed in the State House of Representatives. The measures related to the creation of a school, from the first local requests to the beginning of the educational activities of the establishment, imply a set of initiatives that involves numerous political and school administration agents. The state legislator occupies central stage in this set of initiatives.

It is worth pointing out that several types of institutions, besides junior and senior high schools, teacher-training schools and Education Institutes, participated in the expansion of public secondary education in São Paulo. Another characteristic of this growth in number of establishments and enrollments was the prevalence of an expansion of the first cycle, that is, junior high school courses. In 1962, there were 949 secondary education schools in the state of São Paulo, of which 722 were junior high schools and 227 senior high schools. There were 246,392 students enrolled in junior high schools, 122,260 of whom were female. The public school network served 54% of these students, that is, 133,262 students. In senior high school, the total enrollment was 37,937 of which 12.20 were female (31% of students). Most of these students, 22,215 (58.5%), attended schools of the public school network. There were 267 teacher-training education schools with a total of 19,481 students, 10,515 enrolled in establishments maintained by the State, which providing education to 9,444 female students (90% of the teacher-training students of the public school network). With regard to higher education, in 1962 the state had 249 schools with a total enrollment of 29,071 students (^{BRASIL, 1964}, p.24). The expansion of the Education Institutes was also very significant in the state of São Paulo, especially in the 1950s. According to ^{Labegalini (2009)}, between 1933 and 1967, 120 these schools were created or transformed from preexisting schools.

Still regarding the expansion of high schools, ^{Diniz (2017)} tried to map out the geopolitics inherent to the creation and implementation of these official teaching establishments in the State of São Paulo. He believed this aspect was a clarifying element for a better and broader understanding of the action of the state representatives on the expansion of secondary education in the São Paulo area between 1947 and 1963. In his view, the location of these public secondary schools revealed interesting aspects of the political articulations of the local elites with the leaders of the executive branch and of the state´s legislative branch, thus constituting a political field under the Bourdieusian perspective, in which the political leaderships at the municipal level also played an important role in this expansion. According to him,

When the demands for a junior high school stemmed from the population, especially from the hinterland municipalities and without the interference of the state representatives, they were usually submitted to the mayor and city councilors who, in turn, passed them on to the state legislature, especially state representatives of their own political parties. In other cases, the demand for schools was directed straight to the state governor. After all, the creation of the high school would benefit the population, but also the local leaders and state representatives or governor who had presented the proposal to ALESP; and their political parties would, supposedly, gain more and more prestige, strengthening and extending their constituencies. (^{DINIZ, 2017}, pp. 58-59).

In this political game, the state´s executive branch played an essential role since it had the prerogative to enact laws that would affect the creation of junior high schools, benefiting from them, while favoring their political allies. Concomitantly, it also vetoed bills that were not of political interest, seeking to minimize the influence of their opponents. In the legislative sphere, ALESP's Constitution, Justice, Education, Finance and Drafting Committees played a prominent role, as they were responsible for analyzing and issuing opinions on bills to create public high schools.

The expansion of public high schools in the State of São Paulo that occurred in an accelerated pace without a well-defined educational policy and based on the absence of a permanent dialogue with the educational area, was not just a response to the demand of the middle and lower classes, but also a way for these political actors to remain in power. Thus, the creation of official high schools in the State of São Paulo took on growing proportions, as indicated in Graph 1, which compiles all 474 high schools created²⁴ between March 14, 1947 and January 31, 1963:

Source: DINIZ, 2017, pp. 58-59.

Graph 1 High Schools Created in the State of São Paulo (1930-1947) 

Given that the widespread growth of high schools was not a product of an executive or legislative branch policy, but instead a product of a ‘clientelist’ game, the number of high schools created increased quite irregularly, peaking in the 1950s (the last year of Adhemar de Barros´s administration), 1957 (next to last year of Jânio Quadros´s administration), and 1962 (last year of Carvalho Pinto´s administration), that is, always near elections, thus demonstrating the important role that schools played in the eyes of the general population as a means of access to better living conditions. Politically speaking, schools were an effort rewarded with significant return at the polls.

Conversely, in the first year of each new administration, it is possible to see the absence of or a very small number of high schools created: in 1947, no high schools; in 1951, three high schools; in 1955, 2 high schools; and 3 high schools in 1959²⁵. This leads to the question: Were these low numbers a result of the need for the new administration to know the State´s (financial) status left by their predecessor? Or had the newly-elected governor understood that it would be more interesting to make investments near the end of his administration?

The creation of a few high schools at the beginning of each administration was due to the combination of the two aspects pointed out, combined with other facts that imprinted their individual mark at the beginning of every administration. This statement is based on the fact, for example, that former governor Carvalho Pinto was Secretary of Finance in the previous administration, that is, in the government of Jânio Quadros, which leads to the conclusion that the former, when succeeding the latter, had enough information to keep the pace of the secondary education expansion uninterrupted.

Why did Carvalho Pinto create 46 official high schools in 1960, when they could have been created in 1959? Most likely, due to the support he gave to the candidacy of Jânio Quadros in the presidential elections held in October 1960. One needs but to remember that of the 2,885,441 nominal votes of the Paulistas – corresponding to approximately 25% of the country´s nominal votes – 1,588,593 votes went to Jânio Quadros, that is, 55% of the votes²⁶.

Presumably, Adhemar de Barros's performance was no different, since he promulgated the creation of 59 high schools in the 1950 election year, with the purpose of promoting the election of his successor, Lucas Nogueira Garcez – little known in the São Paulo political scenario – to the command of the state executive branch.

As for the legislative branch, the frequent changes in party membership, which in turn can be seen as one of the variables responsible for reducing, maintaining or shrinking the size of party representation in the plenary, indicate that it was during an electoral interregnum that the political forces settled down and rearranged themselves with a view to the upcoming elections, a time when the parties prevail, capitalizing on the value of the political agent as its own (the party's) and, according to the dividends brought to the party, it excludes it, maintains it or promotes it²⁷. It should be noted, however, that in Brazil,

[...] legislation encouraged party life, but at the same time, it encouraged the development of strong individual leaderships, creating a space conducive to confrontation between parties and leaders, which would lead to a weakening of the former vis-à-vis the great leaders. (LIMA, Jr. 1983, 40).

We call attention to this aspect, because, in the São Paulo context, Diniz points out that,

[...] it is possible to infer that during their mandates, in relation to the drafting of bills to create official high schools, state representatives (and even governors) were more closely associated with agreements made with the local political leaders of their constituencies and, to a lesser extent, with the party platform, since there was no well-defined educational policy in place, but instead, a political game of interests. In other words, although the political party could be seen as a reservoir of political capital, state representatives were relatively free to negotiate with local forces, regardless of party dictates, especially in the period between elections. (2017, pp. 82-83).

Therefore, at the municipal level, local political leaders used different strategies, in alignment with the State Executive and Legislative Branches, so that public secondary education, in greater demand by the population, would be effective, as it will be shown below.

The first of these strategies refers to the explanations contained in the bills presented in the ALESP plenary. Produced within a State logic by political agents who used an argumentative rhetoric inherent to the political game, state representatives (and the executive branch) resorted to many and diverse situations found in municipalities to justify the need for creating public high schools in various places in the state of São Paulo – besides the representation of the official high school as a symbol of modernity and possibility of social ascension – notably:

a) fast population growth, especially in the capital city, exemplified by bills No. 478/1951 and 436/1952²⁸, submitted by State Representative João Mendonça Falcão:

Thus, setting up a State High School in the industrious neighborhood of Parí is an act of justice towards its residents and an imperative to which we cannot and should not escape.

The district of Parí has about 45,000 inhabitants. It is a neighborhood whose inhabitants, for the most part, live off their daily work and to whom private high schools are prohibitive. Indeed, no one is unaware, of course, that the establishment of a State High School entails expenses, but it will be a rewarding expense and anything done on behalf of the education of our people will never be too much, because we will be planting the seeds for a magnificent future for our State.

(SÃO PAULO, 1951a).

[...]

Thus, setting up a State High School in the industrious District of Itaquera is an act of justice towards its residents and an imperative to which we cannot and should not escape.

The district of Itaquera is essentially proletarian and has no secondary schools. Its residents, represented by Mr. Sho Yoshioka, Mr. Matajiro Yamagushi, and Dr. Oscar Americano, are willing to collaborate, even financially, for the construction and implementation of the High School in that neighborhood. Thus, with the spontaneous support and collaboration of the people of Itaquera, I hope to obtain from the competent authorities the necessary support to see to the fulfillment of this goal of the laboring people of Itaquera. (SÃO PAULO, 1952a).

b) difficulty to transport students to other nearby municipalities that had secondary

schools, was a justification presented in the bill to create a high school in Urupês:

The municipality of Urupês is 40 kilometers away from the cities of Catanduva and Novo Horizonte, municipalities that serve their young people so that they can continue their studies.

To attend high school in these cities, the students are obliged to leave Urupês at 4 o'clock in the morning for classes that start at 7 and return home for lunch at 1 o'clock.

The creation of the Urupês high school is justified, since that municipality has a large number of students attending high school at the neighboring cities, mentioned above, with two public elementary schools with enough students to support the implementation of this measure. (SÃO PAULO, 1952d).

c) newly created municipalities, which until then had been districts of other municipalities or, in other cases, districts in the process of becoming politically emancipated, exemplified by the law on the creation of high schools in the municipalities of Auriflama and Vinhedo:

Auriflama is a new municipality, since it was created by Law No. 2,456 of September 30, 1953. However, its growing development will ensure it a promising future.

In view of its progress, therefore, the municipality of Auriflama deserves to be contemplated with a 1^st-cycle high school. This is the purpose of this project, whose approval will fulfill the aspirations of the studious youth of the city. (SÃO PAULO, 1956a).

With less than ten years of autonomous life, the Municipality of Vinhedo demonstrates the progress achieved in this brief period, thanks to the industriousness of its population and the zeal of its authorities,

[...].

There are almost 200 youths of both sexes who, for lack of a local high school, attend secondary school in neighboring locations.

These data, in addition to the urban conditions of Vinhedo, which are the best, in any perspective, justify the creation of an official high school in that city, a fair aspiration of its population, which this bill supports and that its author offers to the high consideration of this illustrious Assembly. (SÃO PAULO, 1956b).

d) “restitution” of the contributions and/or taxes paid by the municipalities to the State in the form of improvements, or the development “surge” enjoyed by the hinterland municipalities, as indicated by the justifications listed in the proposals for the creation of high schools in Taijuva, São José da Bela Vista, and Juquiá:

The opportunity of the proposed measure is a fact that cannot be doubted, because the municipality of Taiúva is among those with the greatest peak of progress in the hinterland of our State.

The number of students in this municipality, qualified to attend secondary school, is significant.

There is nothing more just than having the aspirations of the industrious workers of the city of Taiji fulfilled, and the project in question be approved. (SÃO PAULO, 1957a).

São José da Bela Vista is a municipality that, due to its high degree of development, perfectly justifies the creation of a 1^st-cycle secondary school. [...]

However, it is not fair that a municipality, which contributes permanently to the State with large sums, be left to watch its youth sacrificing themselves culturally for lack of adequate schools. The State must come to their aid. (SÃO PAULO, 1957b).

The municipality of Juquiá presents an index of relevant importance because in the past five years the primary course has reached no less than 904 students, establishing an annual average of 180 students graduating from the primary courses in the municipality, whose population is currently estimated at 7,000 inhabitants. (SÃO PAULO, 1957e).

It should be noted here that the justifications contained in several bills were accompanied by petitions filed by citizens, an important instrument that expressed the popular will, as contained in the documentation of bill No. 1,081/1952 that aimed to create a high school in the municipality of Colina:

The undersigned, residents of this city, farmers, cattle raisers, and agriculturalists in this Municipality, hereby present Your Excellency with the present representation, through the Mayor of this Municipality, [...], appealing to your high spirit of government with a view to the creation and implementation in this city of a state high school. We take the liberty of expressing to Your Excellency that our city, whose environment is perfectly conducive to the implementation and operation of an establishment of this kind, has long resented this lack and now we appeal to Your Excellency, sure that you will satisfy the just aspiration of the people of Colina that will be extremely grateful to you. (SÃO PAULO, 1952c).

On the other hand, this document may have been drawn upon suggestion of the state representative that authored the project, in agreement with the local political leaders, to highlight the importance of such a claim at the municipal level, since “the small cities of the hinterland found in the state representative, an agent in a privileged position to refer their claims to in the field of secondary education “(Beissel, 1964, 157). Moreover, it must be stated that the population valued the improvements made in infrastructure in the municipalities where they resided and, therefore, pressured the local power (mayor and/or councilmen) to act in favor of the interests of the population. These, in turn, were compelled to seek support at the state level, from the state representatives, creating and/or strengthening political alliances with a view to securing political prestige for both.

In addition to petitions, other bills analyzed by ^{Diniz (2017)} were accompanied by justifications presented by the offices of local political leaders, reports containing statistical data on the municipalities, photographs and building plans, with the specific aim of showing the capacity of the municipalities, especially those in the hinterland, to provide the material compensation required by the State for such requests to be granted, but also to indicate the innumerable benefits that the implementation of the junior high schools would provide to such communities.

Regarding the material compensation provided by the hinterland municipalities, which we have identified as the second strategy adopted in this period, and which is decisively the most important one in the process of secondary education expansion in the State of São Paulo, thus evidencing the maintenance of the matching funds mechanism adopted at the time of the federal interveners by the municipalities in the process of transferring secondary education to the state, even if applied in an unequal way, it was imposed only on the hinterland municipalities as a condition for obtaining a public high school.

Along these lines, it is important to point out that the material compensation was almost compulsory for the hinterland municipalities, to the point of being indicated as early as the moment when the bill was presented, in a single paragraph, exemplified in the bill that implemented a high school in Jales:

Bill No. 1,366 of 1951.

Creates a state high school in Jales.

Article 1 - A state high school is created at the seat of the municipality of Jales.

Single Paragraph - The implementation of the high school now created is conditioned to the donation of the premises by the municipality of Jales.

[...]

Assembly Room, December 13, 1951. (SÃO PAULO, 1951c).

When the material compensation was not announced, it often resulted in the governor's veto, as in the case of Colina:

Mr. President,

With regard to Bill No. 1,081 of 1952, which addresses the creation of a state high school in the city of Colina, I have the honor to inform you that the technical agencies of the State Secretariat for Education, having been heard on the matter, decided to postpone, for a more suitable time, the effectiveness of this legislative measure.

There are countless proposals to create junior and senior high schools and teacher-training schools in the City Council. The State, overwhelmed by so many commitments of a material and technical nature in the secondary education sector, cannot take on the burden of all these new propositions, which is why, although recognizing the high public spirit that dictated them, the Executive is obliged to limit to the minimum possible number the bills that should be accepted, in the interest of education.

As a result, having looked at, both in the Capital and in the hinterland, the nuclei that should have their of secondary education problems solved, preferably; the Executive Branch suggests to the noble City Council to postpone to a more suitable time, the creation of what is addressed in this bill. [...]

LUCAS NOGUEIRA GARCEZ - State Governor (SÃO PAULO, 1952c).

However, in the following year (1953), Governor Lucas Nogueira Garcez went back on his decision, conditioning the creation of the high school in Colina to material compensations provided by the municipality:

In an amendment to my letter No. 19449 of 26 November 1952, I have the honor to inform Your Excellency, for the knowledge of this august City Council, that the Executive Branch is in full agreement with Bill N. 1,081/52, authored by State Representative Amaral Furlan, provided that the Municipality, or the proper authority, donates to the State adequate land and premises for the operation of the new high school, to be set up only in the 1955. (SÃO PAULO, 1952c).

However, material compensation was not required from some municipalities in the hinterland of the state of São Paulo at the act of creation of their high schools. However, it was necessary for the school to be actually implemented, that is, for the creation law to be enforced, as exemplified by the bill that created the state high school in the municipality of Mairinque (Bill No. 018/1958, authored by state representatives Francisco Scalamandré Sobrinho and Derville Alegretti). In his study, ^{Arruda (2012)} presents two compensations offered by the municipality:

[...] on 7/19/62, through Municipal Law No. 92/62, the executive branch was authorized to apply the budget, in the maximum value of Cr$ 5,000,000.00 (five million cruzeiros) for the construction of a high school building, on State Government land, in the city of Mairinque, according to the guidelines of the State Department of Education. (^{ARRUDA, 2012}, page 59).

Municipal Law No. 312/68, enacted by then mayor, Mr. João Chesine, authorized the celebration of an Agreement between the Mairinque City and the State Secretariat for Education Affairs regarding the construction of a building for the ‘Prof. Altina Júlia de Oliveira’ state high school, with the contribution of NC$ 120,000.00 (one hundred and twenty thousand new cruzeiros) from the municipality while the difference should be covered by the State Fund for School Building. (^{ARRUDA, 2012}, page 74).

The municipalities that were able to afford the material compensation imposed by the State were served more quickly, while the municipalities that lacked financial resources would have to obtain them if they were to benefit from the junior high school.

Still using the case of the of the Mairinque High School as an example, we point to a third strategy used by the State and the Municipalities for implementing a state high school: teaching high schools courses in elementary school premises:

The school began its operations on March 6, 1963. At the time of its creation there was no proper building for the school to operate in, therefore, from 1962 to 1969 it operated in the premises of Grupo Escolar Prof. Manoel Martins Villaça, at Av. Dr. Gaspar Ricardo Júnior, 172, Centro, in Mairinque, under the name Mairinque State High School. Classes were concentrated in the afternoon, while the primary school classes were taught in the morning.

[...]

Initially, some local teachers were hired on an emergency basis, so that classes could begin, until more teachers were enrolled. (^{ARRUDA, 2012}, page 70).

This mechanism was widely used during the Jânio Quadros administration in the Capital, since setting up sessions for the existing official high schools, which would start operating at night in the premises of elementary schools in the city of São Paulo, was a quick solution to meet popular demand. Such a move did not require analysis and/or approval by ALESP, and it was up to the Education Department to indicate which districts would be served.

Of course, this measure, coupled with the official high schools created in this period, tripled the offer of junior high schools in the city of São Paulo (see table below). However, it is worth noting the precariousness of such expansion, pointed out by ^{Spósito (2002)}.

Therefore, the dispute over high schools in the political arena is of the greatest importance, be it in the eyes of councilmen and mayors or state representatives and the state´s executive branch, who faced pressures from the local populations and loss of political prestige vis-à-vis their voters. For Beisiegel: “Placed in decisive positions to carry out the duties of the Public Education Administration, the political agent uses the action possibilities that these positions confer on him: in response to the demands, he consolidates relationships of commitment, promoting his canvassers in the municipalities and wins votes.” (1964: 192).

Far from being sensitized, the political actors in this field share, in fact, a single common interest: that of staying in power. To do so, being attentive to the demands of the population and responding to them effectively becomes a vital condition of survival in this arena. Under these circumstances, the disputes between the political actors were intense, as they were all actively seeking to enjoy the political dividends of improvements made in the municipalities, or better, strengthen political cliques, through which they negotiated with ALESP and the state executive branch.

Especially in gubernatorial elections and for the City Council of the State of São Paulo during the redemocratization period, the political agents' ability to act in favor of the expansion of the high schools network was decisive, since in these elections the creation of secondary schools, especially the official ones, emerged as a necessary means for staying in power.

Final Considerations

As we tried to argue in this article, there were several strategies used by the municipalities to disseminate secondary education in the State of São Paulo between 1930 and 1964.

During the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship, the Federal Interveners in São Paulo played an important role in increasing the number of official high schools. However, this expansion was only possible thanks to the financial and/or material compensation provided by the municipalities, which pressured by popular demand, met the requirements imposed by the state government. [...] of the 58 official high schools created between 1930 and 1947, 55 counted on the participation of the municipalities in order to implement them, that is, 95% of the total number of schools created, thus translating the effectiveness of the educational policy proposed, combined with the desire of the municipalities that saw in secondary education a pressing need, either for their local socioeconomic development or for the privileging of the local public authorities to meet the demands of a restricted social group and thus use the school as an instrument of social differentiation. However, this action on the part of municipalities can also be interpreted as a political strategy to force the state government to take on the responsibility of disseminating secondary education. In our understanding, this hypothesis is confirmed, considering the prestige that the local Executive branch accumulated as a result of the inauguration of great works of public interest, to a large extent subsidized by the State Executive Branch, among which we highlight the official high schools. Therefore, this study revealed the importance of the municipalities in the expansion of secondary education in the State of São Paulo and the need for a review of the historiography on the subject.

Likewise, what attracted our attention was the implementation of official high schools in municipalities that had (and still have) little socioeconomic representation vis-à-vis the State, to the detriment of other municipalities of greater relevance and which, in turn, were not contemplated at the time with a high school. We noticed, then, that in this period there were no specific criteria to guide preliminary studies to determine the real need for creating (or not) an official high school in a given municipality; on the contrary, what became evident is that the expansion of official high schools during the Vargas dictatorship was primarily a matter of political interest, to ensure that a certain political group – allied to the Estado Novo – would remain in power at the municipal level.

In the redemocratization period, we found that in the State of São Paulo, the expansion of the secondary schools network was strongly driven by the action of state representatives, who saw in the growing demand for this type of education a great political opportunity. Once again, the adoption of a preliminary analysis to indicate the real needs of the municipalities of São Paulo for official high schools gave way to an absence of criteria, or better, it was left to the sole discretion of the state representatives who bargained for improvements in the cities, among them the creation of schools in exchange for the maintenance and/or expansion of their constituencies.

Moreover, in this period, the maintenance of the mechanism adopted by the federal interveners concerning material compensation offered by the municipalities in the secondary education process becomes evident. In this respect, it is worth mentioning that this methodology was applied in an unequal way, since it was imposed only on the hinterland municipalities as a condition for obtaining their public high schools.

The participation of municipalities in the expansion of public education in the period from 1930 to 1964 requires further investigation, particularly regarding the forms of political articulation established between municipal mayors and local leaderships, and interveners and governors. In the period from 1930 to 1945 the Advisory Council, the Administrative Department, and the Municipalities Departments deserve to be examined.

As for the following period, ALESP and the Education Secretariat are two institutions whose archives can be consulted if we are to have a better grasp of the conversation between mayors, councilmen, and other local political leaders with the state representatives and governors who favored the accelerated expansion of official high schools that took place between 1947 and 1963.

From this perspective, we understand that given the diversity of ways the municipalities adopted to provide public secondary education in their municipalities, the local press is a primary source that provides a broader understanding of the unequivocal participation of municipalities and their political actors in the political game played around the expansion of secondary education in São Paulo.

Indeed, there is no doubt that studies on the expansion of secondary education in the State of São Paulo in the mid-twentieth century is a potential resource for understanding the role that this secondary education modality played in society in general and how the growing demand for it was translated by the executive and legislative branches at both state and municipal levels. The theme analyzed from the political history perspective raises questions about the disputes for schools, the strategies used by the political actors for creating and implementing those schools, and the multiple dimensions of power implicated in the democratization of public education.