Qualidade nas Políticas de Avaliação da Educação Básica: a experiência da Rede Municipal de São Gonçalo – RJ

Abstract

The research was carried out in the municipality of São Gonçalo. The municipality of São Gonçalo is part of the metropolitan region of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Currently, it is the second largest municipality in the state in terms of population − more than one million inhabitants, according to IBGE, and divided into five districts. This study covered the analysis of documents from five schools in the 1st district, three schools in the 2nd district, one school in the 3rd district, four schools in the 4th district and two schools in the 5th district. In studies carried out in the master's degree and in the research group, I came across a concept (quality) that is imbued with a range of meanings, along with attempts to define itself, and also with the great challenge that we, education professionals/administrators, face when we interpret and translate policies. Different political entities and bodies (national and international) try to impose/establish a sense of quality − whether through politics, economics, society, education. And, in this study, I sought to evaluate these disputed meanings. For the study, then, the following initial questions were asked: What meanings of quality are in dispute in the educational area of São Gonçalo? and How is the educational policy for quality being enacted by the different political actors in the municipality? The general objective of the study was to understand how the evaluation policies for quality are articulated in the execution of São Gonçalo's policies. And as specific objectives, I tried to analyze the quality indicators and the delivery chain in the context of policies in São Gonçalo, to identify in the documents of the evaluation meetings the meanings of quality in dispute and to analyze the contexts that demand attention and that in the view of the actors , make it impossible to achieve educational quality. This is a documentary research in which a set of documents prepared in the municipal education network of São Gonçalo between the years 2015 to 2019 were analyzed. These documents were drafted by teachers and managers during three different periods: Evaluation, Performance and Monitoring − ADM 2015; Municipal Education Forum of São Gonçalo in 2017 and a Self-Assessment Questionnaire for school management teams in 2019. As a basis for the research, there were two issues I considered important: on the one hand, understanding the political implementation of policies and, on the other, documentary analysis. In order to deal with these two issues, I based my theoretical work on Ball's discussions, especially his book “How schools make politics: acting in secondary schools” (2016) to understand the political performance of the São Paulo network and schools in São Gonçalo. I relied on Babbie for the documentary analysis, who states that categories are theoretical and are not predetermined. The analysis of the documents allowed me to raise aspects that, in the view of those who work in public education in São Gonçalo, make it difficult to achieve educational quality. Among these, the following stand out: difficulties in communicating with families, teacher absenteeism, student truancy, evasion, external violence, lack of technological resources, among others.