Education (English)

[2L10] Case studies of a positive outlier and a negative outlier municipal education departments in supporting primary schools in Brazil

*Danilo LEITE DALMON¹ (1. Kobe University)

Keywords:Education policy, Learning achievement, Middle-tier government

Local governments can significantly influence how schools are run, therefore how students learn. However, the literature was not able yet to consistently connect the policy practices at the local government level to student learning achievement in low- and middle-income countries. This research compares the internal processes and practices of two municipal governments in Brazil related to improving student learning achievement. Using learning data from 2019, one municipality was selected as a positive outlier and a second one as a negative outlier. Both municipalities are from the same state and have similar socioeconomic conditions. Key stakeholders were interviewed in each case: the head of the municipal education department, the leader of school support at the municipal level, and at least one school principal. The District Effectiveness Framework was used to describe the internal processes and practices from the municipal government in the context of learning recovery, and the Social Learning Theory was used to analyze the level of maturity of those practices. The findings show similarities and differences between the two case studies. Both municipal education departments implement initiatives to improve literacy, most internal processes and practices are characterized by their high degree of informality, and the schools have high buy-in from the support provided by the municipality. On the other hand, the positive outlier case applies more resources to collect and analyze student learning data and has more mature internal processes for supporting the schools.