Invisible schools: inequalities in the conditions of facilities and limits of public policy instruments

Abstract

This article discusses how the design of the Basic Education Assessment System (Saeb by the Brazilian acronym) can result in exclusion of elementary schools not participating in educational public policies and invisibility as to their learning outcomes. The analysis was based on studies on public action that conceive policy instruments as a particular type of institution in the form of a technical and political device that stabilizes modes of regulation. The methodology consisted of exploring the School Census and the Saeb in dialogue with the literature of the area. As a result, it was possible to point out the limits of this instrument as a public policy for evaluating the country’s education systems. It was found that the schools not evaluated, mostly, were municipal, rural schools, located in the less developed regions of Brazil and those with the worst indicators of infrastructure and adequate teacher training.