The Public Schools for Poorer Brazilians: Unequal Educational Policies in Brazil

In the course of the last governments, public policies have been implemented, which have resulted in the reduction of the social inequality in Brazil. Nevertheless, the literature available on the subject shows that the public policies developed in the country lack equity. This paper discusses the relationship between the federative organization of Brazil and the offer of unequal opportunities in education in the different states of the country. More specifically, it analyzes how the difference in the investment capacity in education of each state affects the infrastructure conditions of its schools. It also investigates the hypothesis that in the states with a lower budget for education, students have worse school opportunities, assessed from the infrastructure conditions of the public schools. In methodological terms, this paper uses information related to the public budget in education to compare the investment capacity of the federated entities or states in the year 2013. On the other hand, the characterization of the school infrastructure is based on data from the 2013 School Census, submitted to a latent class analysis. The results of this study show that there is an association between the unequal investment capacity in education existing among the states in Brazil and the infrastructure conditions of their schools. Overall, in the states with the lowest financial resources, schools have worse material conditions, confirming the hypothesis presented in this research. Thus, the reduction of the inequality in Brazil also requires federative changes that enable more equitable public policies and the provision of more similar educational opportunities among states.