Uso dos resultados de avaliação externa em escolas públicas de Sabará/MG

Abstract

This work is part of a broader research called "Styles and modes of teaching organization" and it aims to understand how public schools in a municipal education system use the results of external evaluation. Although the discussion around external evaluation is still not common in pedagogy courses, the debate around that tool as a strategy for obtaining information about students' learning has been broadened. The present discussion is guided by the understanding that although the results of external evaluation can often be used as school accountability policies, they can also be used for teaching improvement. In this research, we conducted a case study with two schools in the municipality of Sabará/MG, with high performance indexes and distinct socioeconomic income levels. The identification of these schools was based on the analysis of the results of the Literacy Assessment Program of the State of Minas Gerais (Proalfa), in Portuguese Language, in the period from 2015 to 2018, of all schools in the Sabará network. To this aim, the data from each school were compared with each other, observing, initially, the proficiency rates of the schools and the presence of some stability in performances over time. The choice of this variable was anchored on the hypothesis that the existence of regularity and/or progression in student performance in at least three editions of the evaluation would indicate the presence, in that context, of discussions and/or more recurrent practices of using the results of external evaluations. In parallel, we tried to articulate the results with socioeconomic indicators. The empirical work involved visits, direct observations, and interviews of 16 school workers, namely, principals, specialists in basic education, and teachers of the second and third grades of elementary school. With the aim of obtaining a more reliable characterization of the Municipal Network and to verify our hypothesis about the use of evaluation results, we also applied an online questionnaire to school managers of the 27 schools in the educational network that offer the first segment of elementary education. Although the schools are located in very different contexts and have different socioeconomic profiles, in both schools there is a pedagogical work committed to student learning, with analysis of assessment results initially in the management context and then in the pedagogical context, with a view to interventions with students. In addition, it was verified that some teachers demonstrate a certain lack of knowledge about the methodology adopted by the evaluations. Finally, based on the data obtained in the open-ended questionnaire and in the interviews, an educational product was developed, called an e-booklet with Key Ideas on external evaluation, which discusses aspects related to evaluation in the context of teaching and school.