The article analyses what determines efficiency concerning with educational management in Brazilian municipalities, as a result of decentralization process which happened in 90s. The pieces of information were extracted from Censo Escolar, Prova Brasil Finbra and STN dataset for the 2005-year. We employ a methodology with three stages of which the first stage consists of using the SBM (slacks based measure) models in the efficiency estimation for the use of the discretionary inputs. In addition to this, non-discretionary inputs were controlled of which the result is a new efficiency index. Finally, we use the finite mixture models to analyse the heterogeneity among the municipalities. The results showed that there is no uniformity in the demographic and political effects on the efficiency of the quality of education on offer among the diversity of the Brazilian municipalities groups. If there is more democracy and funds such as Fundef, in general, it will increase the efficiency of municipal school administration.
efficiency; municipalities; education; finite mixture model
