In this paper we analyse the impact of continuous learning progression on schools. We emphasize the pathologizacion arguments that support the current explanations around the school failure, in the core of this policy. For this purpose, we start presenting a brief history of the concept of eradicating the school failure in Brazilian Public schools. Then we reveal aspects of the official discourse about the continuous progression, using as example the model adopted by the city of São Paulo. Thereafter we present an ethnographic research conducted in a public school, giving emphasis on the speeches of teachers and students, as well as on the classroom dynamics. Finally, we display considerations on school failure in the scope of continuous progression, connecting such phenomenon to the medicalization of education.With this study we expect to broaden the analysis of the continuing progression and its impacts on the daily life in São Paulo public school system. We intent to move towards an effective solution of the problems experienced within the school walls.
Academic achievement; academic failure; pathologizacion