O IDEB e a construção de um modelo de accountability na educação básica brasileira

The objective of this study is analyzing the Indice de Desenvolvimento daEducacao Basica (IDEB) – Index of Basic Education Development – as a measure of the Brazilian government to raise the educational performance of students. The analysis takes as reference the concept of educational accountability and seeks to identify which variables that are part of a complete system are more present in the politics defended through IDEB. It also seeks to identify how these variables relate and to what extent the index, which was created in 2007 to assess the quality of Brazilian education, allows going further in comparison to prevailing conceptions of accountability, namely the one that integrates external assessments, account and responsibility as part of a quality educational policy. Based on the tension between the variables that take part in a comprehensive and complex system, it points out IDEB’spotentialities considering the conditions of overcoming conservative and reductionist views of educational accountability.KeywordsIDEB; Educational accountability; Brazilian basic education; Education quality