Decentralization of local education: the experience of cooperative school at Maringá (state of Paraná - PR)

Abstract

This article condenses a research for assessment of an experience with cooperative schools (Programa de Escolas Cooperativas), in a program implemented at Maringá (PR), starting in 1991 and interrupted in January, 1993, as decided the new mayor, then taking office. The program may be considered a process of decentralization of precisely the municipal educational network and the study is presented in three parts: the first one describes the system of cooperative schools; the second explains and analyzes the methodology for the assessment; the third points out the foremost conclusions of the comparative assessment between the new system and the non-cooperative schools that had continued coexisting in the local educational network, during the two-year experience. Said assessment had its conclusions limited because the cooperative schools had been established in the peripheric urban zone of the municipality, while the non-cooperative continued to render their services in the rural area.