(Non)democratic management in the São Paulo state educational policy – 1995-2018

Abstract

In this article we analyse programmes and projects of the São Paulo State Secretary of Education (SEE-SP), in the period from 1995 to 2018, with the aim of comprehending educational management and its configurations in regard to the spaces and forms of participation of school communities. The methodology adopted was the documentary study supported by theoretical frameworks of public policy analysis and dialogue with literature on educational management. Among our analyses and interpretations we highlight that the management in the São Paulo school system was guided by a certain distancing from the constitutional principle of democratic management of public schools and approximation to managerialist assumptions. In the relations between the SEE-SP and the intermediate instances and schools practical orientations predominated, with a focus on results in detriment to community participation in the debate about the purposes and conceptions of school education. Backed by neoliberal rationality, the SEE-SP has appropriated the re-reading of terms such as democracy, participation and autonomy, re-signifying their historical content, engendered in a context of struggle for rights and democratization of society and school, in order to legitimize forms of management based on control for greater efficiency, in terms of the New Public Management (NPM).