The school abandoned to assessments and standards, confined to managerialism

Abstract

The New Public Management (NMP) educational policies promote decentralization and privatization, installing performance assessment instruments based on standards and results as a form of government. With this, educational action is defined and guided by indicators. Chile has been considered an emblematic case of these politics. This article analyzes the installation and strengthening of the logic of accountability based on standards as the axis of the State's educational action and how this type of policy responds to critical contexts. We carried out a pragmatic analysis of the five most relevant legal bodies promulgated between 2008 and 2020 in Chile and a descriptive analysis of the main educational policies implemented in the critical context of the COVID19 pandemic, considering the period between March 14 and May 10, 2020. The results show the consolidation of an educational policy that governs through evaluations and consequences, including the threat of school closure. The School is responsible for achieving results, regardless of social and economic conditions. In a context of crisis, the action of the State is reduced to weak supports, claiming the relevance of the evaluation with consequences as a form of government.