Brazil

Since 1995, Brazil has implemented a broad range of large scale assessments at different scales.

In a decentralized country such as Brazil, many regions combine national assessments with their own tests and accountability policies, which often have career and financial implications for schools and teachers.

This is also the case of Minas Gerais, especially since the introduction of the Sistema Mineiro de Avaliação da Educação Pública (SIMAVE) in the year 2000.

Minas gerais

Since 1995, Brazil has implemented a broad range of large scale assessments at different scales.

This is also the case of Minas Gerais, especially since the introduction of the Sistema Mineiro de Avaliação da Educação Pública (SIMAVE) in the year 2000.

TEST-BASED ACCOUNTABILITY WORLD ATLAS
SAWA IN MINAS GERAI - BRAZIL

COUNTRY MINAS GERAIS - BRAZIL
Name of the standardized tests (in primary and low secondary)	Federal level: Prova Brasil, also known as a Avaliação Nacional do Rendimento Escolar (Anresc)	Minas Gerais national test: Sistema Mineiro de Avaliação da Educação Pública (SIMAVE).
Name of the agency in charge of administering the test	Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP) of the Ministry of Education (MEC).	Centro de Alfabetizaçao, Leitura e escrita of UFMG (CAELE/FaE/UFMG) e Centro de Políticas Públicas e Avaliação da Educação da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (CAEd/UFJF).
Grade(s) in which the test is applied	Prova Brasil (census-based): Grade 4 (ISCED 1), Grade 8 (ISCED 2) and Grade 11 (ISCED 3). Applied in all public elementary rural and urban schools that have at least 20 students enrolled in the grade assessed.	SIMAVE (Minas Gerais): On even years: Grade 4 (ISCED 1), Grade 8 (ISCED 2), and Grade 10 (ISCED 3) years are evaluated; On odd years: Grade 6 (ISCED 2), Grade 9 and 11 (ISCED 3). Proalfa test (part of SIMAVE) also evaluates Grade 2 (ISCED 1).
Areas of knowledge covered by the test	Portuguese language, with a focus on reading, and Mathematics with a focus on problem resolution.	Portuguese language, with a focus on reading, and Mathematics with a focus on problem resolution. Proalfa (SIMAVE) evaluates performance and abilities developed in alphabetization, literacy and writing.
Year of adoption	2005	2000

description

The federal test (Prova Brasil) is the result of the restructuring of a previous sample-based assessment. Prova Brasil was adopted in 2005 as a census test with the objective to “evaluate the quality of education offered by the Brazilian educational system on the basis of standardize tests and socio-economic questionnaires” (MEC, 2016).

The Minas Gerais System for the Evaluation of Public Education (SIMAVE) is composed of two different evaluations: Programa de Avaliação da Educação Básica (PROEB) and Programa de Avaliação da Alfabetização (Proalfa). SIMAVE was adopted in Minas Gerais by a center-right (PSDB) government in the context of the so-called “managerial shock”. Indeed, amongst other objectives, the test aims at “developing management processes based on a continuous evaluation of public education policies” (MINAS GERAIS, 2000). In addition, the need of implementing a standardized test at the State level has also emerged from the limitations of Prova Brasil in providing longitudinal data. Indeed, SIMAVE evaluates years which were not tested in Prova Brasil, and therefore enables to generate a continuous diagnosis of the primary and lower secondary education systems. All public schools take both Prova Brasil and SIMAVE evaluations in both rural and urban areas.

The results of Prova Brasil are then aggregated together with other indicators of performance and internal efficiency (approval rate, repetition, drop-out) in an index called Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica (IDEB). With this index, the goal of the country is to reach the average score on PISA in 2021 by creating a baseline for schools compared to their past performance. This is considered to be a major step towards education accountability (OECD, 2010), but with low-stake consequences.

When the SIMAVE results are released, the education secretary categorizes schools according to their performance (low, intermediate and recommended). The results are publicly available but do not generate rankings (Brooke, 2006).

National and state tests have become central in the evaluation and definition of education policies in many Brazilian states. However, the use of their results has evolved during the last decades, passing from diagnostic purposes for the public administration (Augusto, 2012), to the mobilization of school staff and parental and community pressure through the publication of data and pedagogical feedback (Bellamino and Souza, 2012).

SPECIFIC ACCOUNTABILITY POLICIES
AND TOOLS ATTACHED TO THE FEDERAL
AND STATE TESTS (MINAS GERAIS):

NAME OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY	YEAR	PARTICIPATION	PRINCIPAL-AGENT RELATIONSHIP	CONSEQUENCES
IDEB - Index of Basic Education Quality	2007	All but the smallest of Brazil’s 175,000 primary and secondary schools, 5,000-plus municipal school systems, 26 state systems and the federal district system.	Actor: Principal, teachers, and schools. Principal: INEP, Ministry of education.	Publication of results, and creation of rankings published also in media. Municipalities use it to justify the pedagogical interventions of under-performing schools. State and federal administration use it to establish targets and national benchmarks for improvement.

NAME OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY	YEAR	PARTICIPATION	PRINCIPAL-AGENT RELATIONSHIP	CONSEQUENCES
Productivity Award	2008 - 2014	Minas Gerais public schools	Actor: Schools, teachers. Principal: Minas Gerais Secretary of Education	Incentives and awards linked to performance evaluation (Simave). Sanctions and rewards for schools (autonomy, resources) and teachers (career development, salary, in negative case lose public office).

NAME OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY	YEAR	PARTICIPATION	PRINCIPAL-AGENT RELATIONSHIP	CONSEQUENCES
Pedagogic Bulletin	2006	Minas Gerais public schools	Actor: Schools. Principal: Minas Gerais Secretary of Education	Schools’ pedagogical feedback, on the basis of their results (relative to other schools' results), in order to promote schools’ self-evaluation.

NAME OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY	YEAR	PARTICIPATION	PRINCIPAL-AGENT RELATIONSHIP	CONSEQUENCES
Results Agreement	2007	Minas Gerais public schools	Actor: Teachers, principals and members of school management team Principal: Minas Gerais Secretary of Education	Results Agreement established between the schools and the central institutes of education in the State. This agreement is aimed at fulfillment of goals seeking the alignment of educational policies to government policies, based on the results obtained in the evaluation systems of the State and national levels, and to pay a financial prize in case of achievement of these targets.

NAME OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY	YEAR	PARTICIPATION	PRINCIPAL-AGENT RELATIONSHIP	CONSEQUENCES
Plan of Pedagogic Intervention (PIP).	2008	Minas Gerais public schools	Actor: School Principal: Minas Gerais Secretary of Education	Test results need to be used to establish continuous school improvement strategies.

NAME OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY	YEAR	PARTICIPATION	PRINCIPAL-AGENT RELATIONSHIP	CONSEQUENCES
Evaluation of Individual Performance (ADI)	2009	Minas Gerais public schools	Actor: Teachers. Principal: Minas Gerais Secretary of Education	Test results as component of annual teacher evaluation. Test results discipline teacher’s progression in the carreer and the right to the productivity award

NAME OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY	YEAR	PARTICIPATION	PRINCIPAL-AGENT RELATIONSHIP	CONSEQUENCES
Reference School Project	2004	200 Minas Gerais public schools	Actor: Schools, teachers and education specialists Principal: Supraentendecia regional de Ensino (SRE) de Minas Gerais	Test results to decide on investments for educational excellence schools (professional development, pedagogical orientations); the beneficiary schools will “adopt” low performing schools

NAME OF THE ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY	YEAR	PARTICIPATION	PRINCIPAL-AGENT RELATIONSHIP	CONSEQUENCES
Evaluation of Institutional Performance /School Management Award	2008	200 Minas Gerais public schools	Actor: Schools Principal: Minas Gerais Secretary of Education	Autonomy and school management directives based on final performance in SIMAVE/PROEB. Top performing schools benefit from a budget bonus.

INDEX OF SCHOOL AUTONOMY

(OECD, PISA 2015 Database)

*In this case, PISA data is only available at the national level with no disaggregation of regional units for adjudicated regions.c

BRAZIL

49.5%

OCED average

71.3%

Source: (OECD, 2015)

PEDAGOGICAL AND MANAGERIAL
SCHOOL AUTONOMY

Managerial autonomy (financial), School autonomy over resource allocation, % of responses
“only principals and teachers” (OECD, PISA 2015, Database)

	Selecting teachers for hire	Firing teachers	Establishing teachers’ starting salaries	Determining teachers’salaries increases	Formulating the school budget	Deciding on budget allocations within the school
Brazil (principals) OCED average	26,6 70,3	23,8 57,4	9,4 20,1	7,9 23,4	18,9 56,3	19,0 75,9
Brazil (teachers) OCED average	0,9 9,8	0,0 1,3	0,1 0,7	0,1 1,4	2,5 6,3	6,0 14,8

Source: (OECD, 2015)

PEDAGOGICAL AUTONOMY OVER
CURRICULA AND ASSESSMENTS

% of students in schools whose principals responded that only “principals and/or teachers” are responsible of the following tasks (OECD, PISA 2015 Database).

	Establishing student assessment policies	Choosing which textbooks are used	Determining course content	Deciding which courses are offered
Brazil (principals) OCED average	34,1 61,4	12,9 31,9	15,3 27,1	28,2 63,9
Brazil (teachers) OCED average	42,2 66	88,9 81,8	44,4 67,8	15,6 41,7

Source: (OECD, 2015)