Byron Auguste on Education Lessons from Brazil :Minas Gerais

GUEST BLOG:/May. 20, 2011   NBC/News

We often hear that education in the United States is falling behind that of other countries, and that is indeed a cause for great concern. On the other hand, the rapid progress some other education systems have made is also cause for hope - proof that ambitious changes can result in major improvements in a relatively short time. The state of Minas Gerais in Brazil is just such an inspiring example.

Drawing Lessons from Brazil

In 2006, the governor of Minas Gerais, Brazil’s third largest state, articulated a bold vision for its education system - by 2010, all children in the state would read by the age of eight.

The results were remarkable. Between 2006 and 2010, the percentage of eight-year-olds reading at grade level increased from 49 to 86 percent. During the same period, the number of students in the lowest band of performance dropped from 31 to 6 percent. By 2009 - only three years into the reforms -Minas Gerais had risen four places among Brazilian states to the top of Brazil’s National Education Index of student outcomes.

We can learn a lot from what happened in Minas Gerais. Their success proves that a system that dares to think big can make dramatic strides in a short amount of time - the span of a single American gubernatorial or presidential term.

How They Did It

This vision was truly ambitious given the system’s sheer size and starting point. Nearly three thousand individual schools would be involved, and many would need to make huge leaps of improvement consistently from year to year. These could be generated only through the direct efforts and sustained commitment of 15,000 teachers and system personnel dispersed throughout vastly different and socioeconomically disparate regions across the state.

So, how did this diverse and dispersed state of 20 million people accomplish such a remarkable journey?

The governor, in partnership with the education department, businesses and communities, launched an innovative program focused on improving teaching conditions and practices at the “frontline,” getting the right incentives and supports in place for every teacher in every classroom across the state. The program came in three steps.

Vision: An Overarching Goal Focused on Success of All Students

The transformation was rooted in a bold and clear vision of what the system must achieve for all students. Because the system is complex - work needed to be done at multiple levels including the state, regional departments, individual schools, and surrounding communities - the first step was to raise awareness and build momentum for change. With careful and indefatigable communications efforts, they were able to mobilize more than a million supporters before the program was even officially launched.

Targets and Accountability: Relentless Focus on (and Recognition for) Results

Next, every school received its own set of improvement targets, the product of collaboration between the school’s leaders and system officials. Each principal signed a performance contract based on these targets, and teachers in schools that met their targets received up to one month’s extra salary. A “results book,” including baseline student achievement data, was created for each school so that teachers and principals could see their starting point and evaluate their progress.

The state also put all results online, so that experts could analyze data across the state to learn from places where things were working well and target help where it was most needed. In the same vein, more direct guidance and tighter accountability were targeted at schools with the largest performance gaps, higher performing schools - relative to their starting points - enjoyed greater autonomy as long as they continued to meet targets. This required the state to build up its own ability to intervene directly with schools needing attention, something they had not done before.

Supports: Building Capacity at all Levels of the System

The state also focused on giving teachers what they needed to actually carry out the work. For example, the Department of Education developed new teaching materials for each lesson, and gave each teacher a set of new books and materials that replaced old, worn out, or missing textbooks. The instructional guides in these sets proved so effective that many private schools and other school systems adopted them. The Department also acted as a barometer and gathered feedback from schools regarding their needs, challenges and progress in implementing the literacy program.

Why is This Important for California?

A natural question is whether the lessons from a place many of us have never heard of apply here in California. In truth, it’s not such a different place. Minas Gerais is a place of widely varying races, cultures and languages, just like California. It is also a large state in a large country, just like California.

Furthermore, only 44 percent of California’s third graders scored proficient or advanced on the state’s language arts exam last year, compared to Minas Gerais’ 49 percent in 2006. While that number is shocking, we can draw hope from the incredible improvements achieved in the Brazilian state.

To see these improvements, California has to become great at all three steps taken by Minas Gerais. It needs to marshal the incredible energy and talent in the system towards a unified goal - to improve education for all young people in the state. It needs to ensure that all of its educators - especially teachers - are fully equipped with the best tools and guidance available to make a difference for students. With these steps in place, we should expect similarly impressive results in just a few years for young people throughout the state, who surely deserve nothing less.

Byron Auguste is the director of McKinsey & Company's Social Sector office, which works in more than 50 countries to develop solutions to societal problems.