A pseudorrevolução da Reforma do Ensino Médio e suas implicações na rede pública do Distrito Federal

Abstract

The objective of this research is to investigate the implications of the High School Reform (Law nº 13,415/2017) for public schools in the Federal Distrito (Brazil) educational network, based on the expressed diagnosis and intentions presented to justify it. To this end, both a documental and an empirical study were conducted in schools within the DF education system. The documentary research involved the analysis and comparison of the Statement of Justification nº 084/2016 and Law nº 13,417/2017. During the empirical research, in the second half of 2023, 14 questionnaires – comprising open and closed questions – were administered to principals of public high schools, with one school chosen per Regional Education Coordination (CRE). The research is oriented by dialectical historical materialism, with analyses advanced through the theoretical contributions of Gramsci. Stemming from an opportunistic move by hegemonic groups to maintain educational inequalities, the Reform imposes earlier professionalization and a retention function on the formal education of the poorest youth, while promoting the advance of privatization, thus operating a kind of hybridization in the administrative nature of public education. The documentary analysis highlights that the Secondary Education Reform of the Temer administration presents a partial diagnosis of this educational level in Brazil, while offering propositions that oscillate between incongruent and insufficient, failing to address concrete structural problems but reinforcing duality and deepening inequalities. Among the results of the empirical research in the Federal Distrito education network, the devastating impact on general basic education, compromising the education of the poorest youth, is evident. Further findings include the precarious and insufficient offering of professional training pathways, despite the fetishism promoted around them, and the lack of critical discussion about the Reform's privatization among the surveyed principals. None of the principals believed that the New Secondary Education was the best version for their students' needs, while 3 (21%) thought the previous model was better. However, 11 (79%) of these principals recognize the need for a new model, one that goes beyond the last two. While 6 of them signaled satisfaction with a model that would merely "reform the Reform," 5 expressed a longing for a model marked by qualities that point toward the unitary school: 1) guided by the political decision to genuinely prioritize education; 2) with sufficient investment; 3) offering equal conditions and opportunities for all; 4) developed through the effective participation of teachers; and 5) willing to address concrete needs. It is, therefore, imperative that a new policy be implemented, one grounded in the concrete needs of young people, wich moves towards unitary education, providing a broad and humanista formation for all students, in order to overcome the historical duality and foster, among others things, the democratization of the training of future leaders.