Decentralization And Education Performance: A First View To The Brazilian Process

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of the decentralization in educational system that is taking place in Brazil inthe last decade, as a result of several laws that encourage municipalities to invest in fundamental education.The proficiency tests undertaken by the government allows to follow some public schools in two points intime. Therefore we were able to create an experimental group with the schools that were under state system inthe SAEB exam and have migrated to the municipality system by the time of Prova Brasil and a control groupwith the schools that were under the state system between the two exams and compare the difference in theirresults using a fixed effect panel data analysis. The difference in difference estimator indicates that there is nosignificant change in the performance of the students.