Public education: the challenge of quality

Abstract

This research aims to examine the teaching quality in public schools, taking as reference the experience in Porto Alegre from 1989 to 2006. It analyses the quality conception considering the points of view of two antagonistic changing movements in the means of the traditional public school: re-conversion to the market, market-school, introducing to school the logics of a company, centered in competition, productivity, efficiency and efficacy values and in a selective and classificatory evaluation, based on measurement, quantification and the final product; and the re-conversion to citizenship, citizen school, emphasizing solidarity, cooperation, moral and intellectual autonomy, life defense, emancipation, humanization and evaluation with emphasis on the processes, the timing and the rhythm related to the learner.