Medidas de eficácia escolar no contexto das políticas brasileiras de responsabilização educacional: o caso do Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica, o IDEB, em Minas Gerais

Abstract

This study aims to analyze some specific mechanisms of educational quality measurement which have been proposed by several education systems in Brazil and more specifically in Minas Gerais State public schools, as well as propose some alternatives for their improvement. In this sense, some questions about school effectiveness are proposed, along with some considerations about the way how this topic has acquired an increasing relevance in educational reform agendas both inside and outside Brazil. The specific case of the Brazilian Index of Basic Education Development – originally the Índice Brasileiro de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica, or Ideb – is also presented, together with some considerations about its development methodology and interpretation. Later some specific conclusions about the Ideb and Minas Gerais State public schools are also discussed, related to the undesirable effect that has been detected on their respective Ideb targets, partly caused by a certain instability of educational results, by which it is possible to detect and gauge some deviations or fluctuations of the results in relation to a growth trend model at each year of the historical evaluation series, according to a longitudinal hierarchical model. The latter methodology is also employed in order to propose a new model of Ideb target setting, which is accomplished by their respective periodic correction based on updated results obtained by the same schools in other state standardized tests, such as the case, in Minas Gerais, of those related to the Sistema Mineiro de Avaliação da Educação Básica – or Minas Gerais Basic Education Evaluation Sistem, the SIMAVE –, for the 9th year or 8th grade of Fundamental Level. Finally, the text presents and discusses some specific cases of occurrence of a significant quality improvement related to decisions that can be made about the educational performance of the same educational institutions evaluated according to this model.