New Public Management in Mato Grosso Educational Policy: Networks of Influence and Reconfiguration in the State Public School System

Abstract

The article discusses New Public Management in the educational policy of the state of Mato Grosso and investigates the networks of influence and the reconfigurations of the state public education system, which are constituted through public-private partnerships in which the State acts as a partner. The state public education system of Mato Grosso was influenced by Falconi – Results Consultants – and by the Center for Public Policy and Education Evaluation of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, which, supported by the State, influenced the establishment of Ordinance No. 161/2016 of the Mato Grosso State Department of Education, through the Pedagogical Studies and Intervention Project and the Diagnostic Evaluation of Public Education in the State of Mato Grosso. The research aimed to identify the influences of these public-private partnerships through Ordinance No. 161/2016/SEDUC/MT, which established the two State-supported policies, while problematizing the reconfigurations identified in management, curriculum, and teaching work. The methodology was based on network ethnography, using Gephi, an open-source software that, through graph analysis, enabled the identification of reconfigurations present in management, curriculum, and teaching work, based on the Pedagogical Studies and Intervention Project. The results indicated that the educational policy of Mato Grosso underwent reconfigurations in the forms of intervention, control, monitoring, and accountability, affecting management, curriculum, and teaching work. In the final considerations, the study is situated within the discussions surrounding the neoliberal State, which has been transforming educational policies through the influence of public-private partnerships, leading to the privatization of management, curriculum, teacher education, and teaching work.