A POLÍTICA DE BONIFICAÇÃO NOS ANOS INICIAIS DAS ESCOLAS DA REDE PÚBLICA MUNICIPAL DE TERESINA: Percepção dos docentes sobre o programa de valorização do mérito

Abstract

From the 1990s onwards, many changes took place in education, related to the evaluation and management processes of educational systems and in relation to public policies in the area in Brazil. The educational reform designed in this decade brought ideas and expressions from the business area to the educational environment, such as: efficiency, productivity and quality. Such expressions are related to neoliberal ideas that brought a new conception of education and society that correspond to the process of historical, social, economic and political changes. Neoliberal policy at the national level was reflected in local politics in Teresina and in accordance with the mobilization of educational accountability that was being put into practice in Brazil, as well as in other countries, from 2002 onwards, Teresina associated educational assessments with a policy of bonus paid to professionals who performed school functions. Given this scenario, Teresina has been leveraging results and gaining national prominence since 2015, which may be due to the implementation of the bonus policy entitled “Merit Valorization Program” through law nº 4,999 of December 13, 2013, which rewards teaching professionals based on the Ideb score. Based on the latest Ideb results released in September 2022, the municipality of Teresina reached the position of Brazilian capital with the best performance in Ideb for the third consecutive time. This fact leads us to reflect on the repercussion of this index. Year after year, media devices use this index to rank and compare schools and municipalities. Without critical care regarding this content, a common sense view of the quality of education and the teacher's responsibility is reinforced. In this sense, the general objective of this study is to analyze the repercussions of the Merit Valorization Program that rewards teaching professionals from Ideb in light of the perception of teachers in the initial years of elementary education in the municipal network of Teresina. And as specific objectives: identify the concept of bonus contemplated in the normative legal instruments that legitimize the implementation of the bonus policy in the municipal network of Teresina; evaluate how the bonus policy has had an impact on the working conditions of the schools surveyed; understand teachers’ perception of the bonus policy and the repercussions on their practice; compare the Ideb results of the schools researched. In terms of reference, it is based on Afonso (2000, 2005, 2013, 2015), Freitas (2007), Horta Neto et al. (2016), among others. The research used a qualitative approach with field research, in which 6 teachers working in classes from the 1st to 5th year of Elementary School, 3 school directors and the current secretary of education of the municipality of Teresina participated. For data collection, a semi- structured interview script was used. The data obtained through the interviews were subjected to content analysis, according to Bardin (1977) and Franco (2008). The results of the analysis are in the process of being constructed.