INTERNATIONALBANK FOR WORLD BANK R E T C N O E N STRUCTION PM AND DEVELO October 2002 No.10 A regular series of notes highlighting recent lessons emerging from the operational and analytical program of the World Bank`s Latin America and Caribbean Region IMPROVING SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLING IN BRAZIL: THE FUNDESCOLA APPROACH Robin Horn The Fundescola approach to improving schooling first phase, extending these to additional schools, and more outcomes, especially for millions of poor children in Brazil, aggressively engaging the education establishment and the is showing considerable success. public sector in the process of school-based development. The third project, Fundescola III, aims at completing the Context and Defining the Problem work involved in the development of the tools and processes and scaling these up within Brazil. Fundescola III will be implemented in two phases: Fundescola IIIA (US$320 mil- Public primary schooling in Brazil is the responsibility of lion), approved on June 13, 2002, and Fundescola IIIB state and municipal governments and not under the direct (planned for July 2006, estimated amount US$450 million). jurisdiction of the federal Ministry of Education. As a consequence, when the federal government wants to im- During the preparation of the Fundescola Program, pre-in- prove the quality of schooling, it has neither the mandate vestment studies by the government and the Bank, including nor the capacity to work directly with the country's 184,800 the 1997 sector study "Call to Action", examined the deter- public schools, serving 44 million children. Instead, the minants of low educational performance of poor children in Ministry has to mobilize the 27 state-level governments and Brazil1. Leading policymakers and key stakeholders in the 5,561 municipal governments to undertake the desired re- education community participated actively and helped inter- forms and improvements. pret the findings (see Box on back page). The School Improvement Program, designed to address Although they noted many causes of student failure, these concerns, consists of three projects. The first, policymakers and stakeholders focused on the factors most Fundescola I (US$125 million), approved in April 1998, amenable to government policy and intervention: was designed to develop an initial set of school-based in- struments and support structures to improve school equity · inequitable school quality--school quality is not guar- and effectiveness and to increase public awareness around anteed for all children, with the poorest children being the issue of school quality.. The second project, Fundescola particularly underserved II (US$400 million) , approved in June 1999, focused on · ineffective schooling--many school staff are not using improving and expanding the set of tools developed in the effective methods of teaching and learning. FUNDESCOLA : Steps for School Improvement · Promote public engagement and parents' sense of ownership of schools by giving school councils financial resources to manage. · Raise the equity of school quality by helping schools attain Minimum Operational Standards. · Help schools to prepare and implement their own strategic "School Development Plan" to improve student achievement. · Provide financing to schools to execute their School Development Plans. · Improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning and raise student achievement by providing integrated instructional models along with technical assistance and training to local secretariats of education. 1 Two underlying reasons for these factors are: schools, which enroll the majority of children in the regions targeted by the project, into effective, high quality · insufficient engagement of parents and the broader institutions where student learning is prioritized and success for all students is increasingly within reach. The public--raising the quality of schools and schooling starting proposition is that school reform takes place when requires that parents and the public hold the schools the school principal and staff are (i) given greater and the responsible government agency accountable. responsibility for school improvement, (ii) offered well- structured guidance in the process of self-diagnosis and · inadequate policy alignment on school quality and ef- strategic planning, and (iii) supported by regular technical fectiveness--all policies, activities, and resources in assistance and follow-up. In addition, the institutional and the school system need to be aligned with the objective local political environment must be restructured to support of raising the quality of schooling for all children and these changes. improving student learning. Fundescola's school-based development strategy was de- The study found that to achieve fundamental reform, broad- signed to be phased in over time for two reasons. First, this based changes were required in education strategies, type of transformation requires fundamental changes in the supporting organizational structures and attitudes among knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of school principals, stakeholders. It was also clear that widespread and teachers and parents, and the staff and management of the sustained school reform in Brazil can neither bubble up education secretariat. It takes time for these stakeholders to from below nor be imposed from above. Local recognize their responsibility and capacity to make school governments must play a key role. On the basis of this reform happen. Second, experience and research demon- analysis, the Ministry of Education and the Bank designed strate that it is not possible to motivate and support school a school improvement strategy built on federal Ministry reform simultaneously in a large number of schools. Conse- assistance and incentives to local governments to support quently, whereas all schools in the region benefited immedi- and implement school reforms. ately from a direct transfer of resources, fewer schools un- dertook a development plan or continued with the strategic Project Objectives and Strategy planning process. The Second Level of Intervention: Institutional Support for The Fundescola Program was developed to help local School Development: governments reduce disparities in educational quality across their primary schools and increase the effectiveness While the major emphasis of Fundescola's design is on of their schools, within their own financial limits. The schools, the approach recognizes that schools do not exist Ministry of Education defined indicators to measure the within an institutional vacuum, but depend on state or effects of the program on educational equity and school municipal secretariats of education for guidance and effectiveness, and the capacity of participating education resources. For the school-based development strategy to be secretariats to bring about, expand, and sustain effective and self-sustaining, local education managers and improvements in their school systems. their institutions need to understand and accept the The Program starts from the premise that children's Figure 1 - The Fundescola Strategy educational performance is largely determined by the quality of their SOCIAL MOBILIZATION,COMMUNICATION AND PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY (Level 3) schooling. The Program uses three levels of intervention to help local INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT FOR SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT (Level 2) governments improve children's learning performance in primary SCHOOL BASED DEVELOPMENT PROCESS (Level 1) schools: the school, the education secretariat and the broader public (Figure 1). Supporting Minimum School Teaching/ School Operational Development Learning Plans & Projects Design School-Based Development ­ the Autonomy Standards First Level of Intervention STEP 1 STEP 2 STEPS 3 & 4 STEP 5 Engagement Equity Alignment Effectiveness Schooling improvement depends on a school-based development strategy. The ultimate objective of this strategy is to transform thousands of poorly performing 2 rationale behind the strategy and know how to support and attention zones were equipped according to Minimum promote it. Consequently, the project includes a program Operating Standards and 12,616 classrooms received of institutional strengthening for secretariats which aims to furniture develop their capacity to support and sustain the school · school development plans (PDEs) were implemented at improvement strategy. This involves the development of 1,724 schools strategic plans by state and municipal authorities which · 1,513 school improvement projects (PME) were imple- align their programs and organizational structures to focus mented on school improvement--promoting equity, effectiveness, · 12,685 key decision makers were trained, including and efficiency within their systems. mayors, secretaries of finance and secretaries of educa- tion. These plans help the secretariats to support schools' efforts to prepare and implement school development plans (PDEs) Research carried out by the National Institute for Education and school improvement projects (PMEs). Secretariats are Research (INEP) on the impact of key interventions of able to access information on revenues and expenditures, Fundescola I and II influenced the design of Fundescola III, allowing them to budget effectively. They acquire the legal which was recently approved2. In 1999, a research sample instruments needed to transfer their own resources to was selected, comprising 158 schools in 6 states distributed schools and develop a Management and Business Plan to across all three of Fundescola's regions (North, Northeast, design and institutionalize career plans for education and Center West), including 55 schools with PDEs and the professionals, emphasizing continuous improvement and remainder without PDEs. INEP contracted incentives for better classroom teacher consultants to survey the schools and collect performance. detailed background information on the stu- dents and their families, teachers and princi- The Third Level of Intervention : Social Mo- pals, and on the characteristics of the schools bilization and Public Accountability: themselves. Achievement tests in Portuguese and Mathematics were also developed by Reorienting education development in Brazil INEP and administered by consultants to all by putting the school rather than the fourth grade students in the sample schools. government in the driver's seat requires a substantial shift in perceptions, attitudes, and Among the numerous variables included in behavior on the part of politicians, the research study are: teacher education administrators, teachers, principals and attainment level and performance on parents. Influencing attitudes, encouraging achievement tests, the percent of students participation, and disseminating the results of who had previously repeated, teacher self- the changes are crucial to Fundescola's reports on curriculum coverage, mother's success and the institutional sustainability and education level, student socioeconomic status, expansion of these new approaches across the and a binary indicator of school participation region. in the PDE intervention. Most of the findings showed a positive and significant difference for students in schools Fundescola supports a major social marketing campaign to implementing a PDE: students in these schools had better ensure that stakeholders have sufficient information to set report card scores and promotion rates, and reflected educational goals and be held accountable for their part in improved performance for boys in mathematics and girls in achieving them. National assessment results are disseminated Portuguese. It is important to point out that this research to schools and school systems; school performance indicators focused on only one of Fundescola's interventions. are reported to each school system in the same year; standardized criteria--referenced test packages--are A Stanford University study of the Fundescola program developed and made available to school systems, and the (the PDE study), using the INEP data base and additional results of Fundescola implementation and impact studies are data, shows substantial improvements in school disseminated. management, and positive and significant improvement in student achievement, controlling for family background, Results and Lessons Learned school characteristics, type of municipality, self selection, and other factors. Many initial project targets have been exceeded by over 100 Other Fundescola interventions, such as the Minimum percent, particularly with respect to Minimum Operating Stan- Operating Standards, Escola Ativa, Proformação, and dards and school development plans. Fundescola I and II Gestar are being examined separately. Since the PDE is the achieved the following results: core intervention of Fundescola, the results from the studies cited above give strong support to the Fundescola School · 4,164 schools (100%) were surveyed Improvement Strategy. · 10,975 primary school classrooms in the priority 3 The design of Fundescola III benefits from the implementation providing a framework through which the reforms can be experience of its sister projects, Fundescola I and II. Lessons sustained by local governments, and scaled up in Brazil, include the need to give higher priority to social mobilization requires that large numbers of education secretariats commit and communication efforts in promoting the school-based de- themselves to the school improvement effort. For velopment approach; the benefits of funding a second and Fundescola to take root and expand, be successful and third round of school improvement projects, providing an in- sustained over the long term, the principles--equity and centive for schools to stay focused on quality improvement quality--and strategies--public engagement and and to practice the planning skills they have learned; and pro- alignment--of Fundescola's school improvement program viding incentives for municipalities to expand the school- will need to be integrated into the mindsets and daily based development approach to additional schools. practices of education secretariat staff, and into the operating procedures of the institutions themselves. The Program's Moving Forward success will be measured not by the number of schools implementing Fundescola interventions, but by the number of local governments operating effective and equitable Bringing the Fundescola school improvement strategy to school systems. schools attended by the poorest children in Brazil, and ******* A Call to Action, Combating School Failure in the Northeast of Brazil A 1995 study1, developed with the support of the Federal Ministry of Education, the World Bank, and UNICEF, examined classroom practices and behavior of first-grade teachers in the public schools in two states in the north-east of Brazil - Bahia and Ceará. The study covered 140 first-grade classes totaling 1,650 children in 94 municipal and state schools. The objec- tives of the study were to observe how teachers and students interact in the classroom and to identify the teaching methods that contribute most to students' academic achievement. The study confirmed many of the criticisms that had been made of schooling in the Region for some years. The researchers found that the amount of time spent on teaching was less than expected, classroom activities focused on the teacher rather than on the students, teachers did not use classroom materials and teaching aids, and relied on outdated techniques based on dictation and students copying lessons in notebooks, and there was almost no interactive learning. On the other hand, the study noted that the teachers had little support from parents or the local community and had no incentives to change their pedagogical practices. In addition, the teachers had no adequate guidelines about how to do their jobs and had few materials or textbooks. On the positive side, the researchers concluded that children learned better in classrooms that had their artwork and written work hung on the walls. Students also learned significantly more when teachers executed sequenced programs of discrete in- structional activities each day, which proves that well-organized teachers are an essential ingredient for effective instruction. The children also learned more when they were actively engaged in classroom activities, attentive to the learning task, and informed about homework assignments. Teachers were more effective when a wide variety of instructional materials was available for use in the classroom. Finally, the verbal ability of teachers is critical. Teachers who are effective communicators are more successful in enabling students to learn. Notes About the Author 1- Brazil: A Call to Action, Combating School Failure in the Robin Horn is a Senior Education Economist in the Education Northeast of Brazil. Brasília: Projecto Nordeste/World Bank/ Sector of the Human Development Department of the Latin UNICEF, 1995. America and the Caribbean Region of the World Bank 2- see Avaliação de Desempenho: Fatores Associados, mimeo., July 2001, 59 pps To Subscribe to "en breve" please send an email to Useful Links "en_breve@worldbank.org" or write to: Learn more about Fundescola (Portuguese) Editor, En breve http://www.fundescola.org.br/ MSN I6-604 ..our work in Brazil The World Bank http://www.worldbank.org/br 1818 H Street NW ..and on Education Washington D.C. http://www.worldbank.org/education 4