A comparison of policy practices in primary education between positive and negative outliers municipal education departments in Brazil

• In Event: Quality education for all: Critical issues in higher education, pre-service teachers, and student learning outcomes in Brazil, China, and Finland

Proposal

Local governments can significantly influence how schools are run, therefore how students learn. Effective school districts, which achieve higher student outcomes than are expected by their socioeconomic conditions, were studied to find what makes them different from the regular school districts. In general, they implement a set of practices that are related to the expectations, teacher support, organization of the school district, among others (Leithwood, 2010). However, the literature was not able yet to consistently connect the policy practices at the local government level to student learning achievement in low- and middle-income countries. In those settings, the studies about the practices of local governments are either related to the implementation of national policies of decentralization or the internal processes and conflicts that are not related to improved student achievement (Asim et al., 2023).
This research compares the internal processes and practices of four municipal governments in Brazil related to improving student learning achievement. Using learning data from 2019, two municipalities were selected as positive outliers and two as negative outliers. Because states may influence municipal policies (Segatto and Abrucio, 2018), each pair of positive-negative outlier municipalities are from the same state and have similar socioeconomic conditions. Key stakeholders were interviewed in each case: the head of the municipal education department, the leader of school support at the municipal level, and at least one school principal. In total, 14 interviews were conducted.
The District Effectiveness Framework (Anderson and Young, 2018) was used to describe the internal processes and practices from the municipal governments with the goal of improving learning achievement. The considered practices were: Implement professional development for leaders and teachers; have a district-wide focus on student learning and instruction; use proven approaches to curriculum and instruction; invest in instructional leadership capacity; facilitate alignment of the infrastructure; use evidence for planning, organizational learning and accountability; interpret and initiate policy to align with change agenda; and build and maintain good communications, relationships and district culture. The Social Learning Theory (Honig et al., 2017) was used to analyze the level of maturity of those practices, based on triangulated data from the interviews and document analysis. For each practice, municipalities were classified in levels of implementation: below basic, basic, intermediate, and advanced.
The findings show similarities and differences between the case studies. Municipalities from state A were significantly influenced by state-level policies and technical support, their professional development, use of evidence and focus on student achievement practices had very similar structure. However, municipality A-positive had more resources applied to those practices when compared to A-negative: it had more people to prepare materials and provide professional development sessions, it had more resources to print standardized tests and more people to analyze the results and return them to the teachers quicker. Moreover, A-positive was more focused on improving student achievement, as part of the discourse of its leadership and other stakeholders.
On the other hand, municipalities from state B were not significantly influenced by state-level policies, and thus they varied significantly on the structure and processes, for example, of professional development and use of evidence. In these two municipalities, the education department did not provide much support to the schools in addition to financing, there were no strong professional development or municipal exam to support teaching practices. The main difference between B-positive and B-negative was the relationship between the school staff and teachers with the municipal education department, as in B-negative, there were significant attrition and disputes about low teacher pay, lack of supporting staff on the schools, among other demands.
Overall, municipalities that were positive outliers had better levels of implementation of the practices from the District Effectiveness Framework when compared to the negative outliers. Also, municipalities from state A had overall better levels than those from state B. This is in line with the literature about the influence of local governments on student achievement, particularly the evidence from the United States and Canada that were used to create the District Effectiveness Framework. However, some practices from the rich countries’ literature did not translate well to the Brazilian context. For instance, to interpret and initiate policy to align with change agenda was trivial for the municipal departments staff, because they implemented policies from the national or state governments, and the quality of implementation was dependent on the provider’s side and on other practices by the municipalities, such as professional development. Another example, to facilitate the alignment of the infrastructure had much more focus on physical infrastructure and on improving teacher careers, instead of specific infrastructure to improve teaching practices, because most schools lack adequate buildings, and most teachers work in two schools and have short-term contracts, which significantly affect their dedication.

Anderson, E., and Young, M. D. (2018). If They Knew Then What We Know Now, Why Haven’t Things Changed? An Examination of District Effectiveness Research. Frontiers in Education, 3(October), 1-20.
Asim, M., Mundy, K., Manion, C., & Tahir, I. (2023). The “Missing Middle” of Education Service Delivery in Low-and Middle-Income Countries. Comparative Education Review, 67(2), 353-378.
Honig, M. I., Venkateswaran, N., and McNeil, P. (2017). Research Use as Learning: The Case of Fundamental Change in School District Central Offices. American Educational Research Journal, 54(5), 938–971.
Leithwood, K. (2010). Characteristics of school districts that are exceptionally effective in closing the achievement gap. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 9(3), 245-291.
Segatto, C. I., and Abrucio, F. L. (2018). Multiple roles of state governments in the Brazilian education policy: the cases of Ceará, Mato Grosso do Sul, São Paulo and Pará. Revista de Administração Pública, 52(6), 1179-1193.

Author

• Leite Dalmon Danilo, Kobe University