As tensões e contradições das políticas educacionais brasileiras dos governos de Lula e Dilma Rousseff: o Ideb e o Programa Mais Educação

Abstract

During the governments of Lula and Dilma Rousseff, Brazil underwent remarkable economic and social transformation, which directly affected the well-being of the population, especially the poorest. It was possible to observe some considerable changes in the sense of promoting a new concept of social justice based on equity in recognition of the diversity in the Brazilian population, and its unequal socioeconomic conditions. However, educational policies implemented during the above-mentioned governments caused tension, and even contradictions as to their objectives and conceptions of justice. Considering that Education in Brazil had remained oriented by efficiency principles of the New Public Management (just like it used to be in the neoliberal government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso), we may affirm it was based upon the idea of justice as a principle supported by equality in results of standardized tests, also going against a broader and more collective conception of rights. Thus, this thesis aimed to carry out the analysis of two distinct measures in educational policies that were instituted during the government of Lula - and then sequenced in the government of Dilma Rousseff - seeking to verify their conceptions of justice, identify both their elaboration and implementation processes, as well as actors or social groups that had participated in the formulation of such policies, and finally analyze the effects of these disparate logics of justice upon the organization of school management work. For this reason, we have opted to analyze the Basic Education Development Index (IDEB), which was created in 2007 to assess the quality of Brazilian education as from observing academic achievement (pass rate and fail rate), to assess students’ performance in Prova Brasil (standardized assessment) and also to assess the More Education Program (PME), which was meant to promote the extension of the school day - especially for those students who were socially vulnerable - and was based on an all-day education perspective. Therefore, three methodological steps were taken: a bibliographic review, a documentary survey, and an analysis of semi-structured interviews with school managers in Belo Horizonte. As a result, it was possible to observe a recurring movement of permanence and rupture between educational policies that were implemented in the governments of Lula and Dilma Rousseff and those implemented in the government of FHC, exposing, to a certain extent, the existence of different political alliances that had been created by self-styled democratic-popular governments - popular with distinct social groups. It was possible to verify that IDEB was developed in a context where the transnational reform of education prioritized the efficacy and performance of the education system, which was under international organizations’ guidance, such as the OCDE. It was also possible to notice that while Brazilian business groups - such as Todos Pela Educação - had an influence on the formulation of the IDEB, the PME was born inside the Department of Continuing Education, Literacy, and Diversity (SECADI/MEC), which in turn was created as a positive policy of coping with poverty and valuing Brazilian cultural diversity, in response to pressure from Social Movements. In this sense, distinct - and even contradictory - notions of justice would be established, and they would coexist in tension within schools, according to reports from schools’ principals.