Evaluating the Effectiveness of Interventions: Practices and Outcomes from Rural Development to Educational Support

[2J202] How school support is provided by positive and negative outliers municipal governments in Brazil

*Danilo LEITE DALMON¹ (1. Kobe University)

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

Low- and middle-income countries currently face an important challenge of improving student achievement because their rates of minimum proficiency are low. One way of enhancing the quality of teaching in a large number of schools is by improving the support middle-tier governments (e.g., school districts or municipalities) provide them. The literature from high-income countries provides several practices implemented by middle-tier governments related to higher student achievement, such as providing teacher professional development. Brazil is an interesting context for exploring that because of the number and autonomy of municipalities in managing their education systems. This research was conducted in two steps. First, it analyzed the influence of prioritizing teacher professional development on primary education student achievement using a hierarchical linear regression model. Second, it selected eight municipalities considering their student achievement, with four positive and four negative outliers, to interview key stakeholders about their teacher professional development support provided to schools. Regression analysis shows that prioritizing teacher professional development is significantly and positively related to several measures of student achievement, including mathematics test scores and the percentage of proficient students. The interviews show that positive outliers do not implement several aspects defined by the literature as high-quality professional development. Particularly, municipal education departments do not have targets or a strategy, nor do they collect or cover the specific needs of schools, teachers, or students. Still, positive outliers provide consistently better professional development than negative outliers. The professional development offered by negative outliers is shorter throughout the academic year, is less coherent when considering standards, textbooks, and assessments, and is less focused on teaching practices. In summary, providing high-quality professional development support to schools is positively related to student achievement, and it is one of the mechanisms that make positive outlier municipalities in Brazil stand out.