A autonomia das escolas: uma ficção necessária

Abstract

In the first section of this article, a retrospective policy analysis is provided, concerning three specific moments when the rhetoric on school autonomy became a key issue in Portugal. This was built in a broader strategy of school administration reform, which its advocates claimed was intended to improve school management as well as the quality and effectiveness of its results. The second section presents an alternative view of the "legal fiction" which embodied the previous policies. This view is based on principles I advanced in the policy study requested by the Minister of Education Marçal Grilo, developed within a social and community perspective about the regulation of educational policy and practice.