STREET-LEVEL BUREAUCRACY AND PUBLIC POLICIES: ANALYZING EDUCATIONAL POLICY IMPLEMENTATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS

Abstract

This paper analyzes the implementation of educational policies and the roles of school professionals
considering the street-level bureaucracy theory (LIPSKY, 1980). This study assumes that educational
reforms elect schools as planning and administration centers, making them and the professionals working
there responsible for new attributions which are motivated by improved autonomy, in addition to
administrative and educational decentralization. In these contexts, which are marked by schools’
increasing empowerment, the discretionary power exercised by its professionals (teachers, principals,
coordinators, among others) is a key element to understanding the availability and implementation of
programs and their ability to either influence or change the design of educational policies on a local level.
This perspective emphasizes the importance of considering those closer to actions deriving from such
policies, that is, the actors who see the bottom-up process because they are in the lower end. According
to Lipsky (1980), these are the so-called local policy agents or street-level public agents. As for schools,
we understand that to enforce a certain policy, factors such as interpersonal influence, commitments, and
informal negotiations are as important as formal processes and regulations. Finally, this study attempts
to prove the impacts and contours assumed by changes in school dynamics in terms of translating local
educational policies.