This paper is a critical appreciation of the overall schooling rate, school flow, student performance, truancy, repeat years and other indicators used as parameters for assessing the quality of Brazilian education. This is essay material about the fact that the cost of making school enrollment universal led to a perceptible drop in student performance. Nevertheless, the work shows that quality must be considered in terms that are represented by the social gains achieved as a result of the universilization of education and not only from the marks obtained in tests. Conceptual problems are revealed, such as those relating to the new Basic Education Development Index (primary and secondary education), which is used in Brazil for formulating public policies in order to improve its position in the international education ranking.
curse evaluation; educational policies; teaching quality; statistical data
