The article covers the rise of policies of accountability in which the school and its managers are held responsible for the attainment levels of their students and describes the probable consequences of the first examples of this type of policy in Brazil. The context in which the best known examples of the policy in England and the United States were created is the subject of discussion with the purpose of elucidating whether the first examples of accountability in Brazil show signs that the policy is likely to become a central element in the management of state education systems. The examples studied are the Education Prize New Millennium School - Basic Education of Quality in Ceará, the New School Program of the State Secretariat of Education of Rio de Janeiro and the School Bulletin of the State Secretariat of Education of Paraná. The analysis dwells principally on the use of the state education assessment systems in the calculation of outcomes for school personnel and reaches the conclusion that current political conditions in most states represent an impediment to the widespread adoption of accountability in the near future.
EDUCATIONAL POLICIES; LEARNING EVALUATION; COURSE EVALUATION