O projeto Procentro e as Escolas Charter: investigação de um modelo educacional defendido pela Fundação Itaú Social

Abstract

The dissertation investigates an experience of application the of the charter school’s model in Brazil: the pilo t project in Pernambuco, named Procentro (2005 - 2007). Charter schools were diffused in the U.S. by the program No Child Left Behind . In Brazil, its expansion is carried out mainly by the Itaú Social Foundation. It justifies the model as an alternative to basic education schools that present performances of the Development of Basic Education Index (IDEB) below the targets developed within the scope of the movement Todos Pela Educação ("Everybody for Education"). According to this movement, the engage ment of the so - called "non - profit foundations" in schools associated to the Procentro program is sustained by the Public Private Partnerships bill (BRAZIL, 2004). However, this modality of privatization was originated in Brazil by the Plano Diretor da Refo rma do Estado (Director Plan of State Reform) developed by Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira (BRAZIL, 1995) and legitimated through the local legislation of the state of Pernambuco. The present work analyzes the counter reforms aris ing from the State Reform, as the market - oriented reforms became known (BRESSER PEREIRA, 1996, p. 21), also covering the process of publicization (Transfer to nonstate public sector) (BHERING, 2008) that grounds the Pernambuco school model. The research ar gues that the actions of these private organisms in the public school redefines its universalizing social function and gives voice to the interests of hegemonic fractions of civil society. The Public - Private Partnerships became a strategic priority in the construction of the hegemony of financial market’s class fractions within the through a systematic intervention within the public school system. The research includes the study of U. S. educational reforms characterized by neoliberal ideology, in which ch arter schools are inserted. It also examines the publications of private organisms that set the agenda of the Everybody for Education program – in particular the Itaú - Social – analyzing studies and documents about the Procentro experience. The research concludes that the privatizing actions in Brazilian public schools diffuse an ethos contrasting with the bases of public, secular and universal education, earned by education workers and by society as a whole in a long process of democracy building. The application of this model in the entire country represents a dramatic throwback which deepens Brazil’s condition of dependent capitalism