O valor agregado em leitura como indicador de qualidade das escolas municipais de Belo Horizonte

Abstract

External assessments have shown to be useful in the standardized evaluation of pupil performance in the city schools of Belo Horizonte. However, as the results of these assessments do not take out of school factors that influence learning into consideration, they can lead to erroneous conclusions when used my education managers to evaluate schools and teachers. The disclosure of the results of these assessments for the purpose of classifying schools regarding their quality requires a fairer and more exact measure that makes schools accountable only for that part of student learning for which they are responsible. A value added model is applied to longitudinal data collected for a significant sample of elementary school children frommunicipal schools in Belo Horizonte. The results obtained show that with this type of information it is possible to carry out a more exact diagnosis of schools with positive or negative value added and thereby design more effective public policies in support of schools. The study falls under the School Effectiveness research tradition and is an attempt to understand the specificity and pertinence of a value added approach to appraising the quality of municipal schools in Belo Horizonte. The study shows that under certain circumstances the value added indicator could become a valuable contribution to the municipal school monitoring system