Large-scale systems of educational assessment in some developed countries have facilitated the adoption of accountability policies that ascribe schools with responsibility for their results. The article offers a preliminary answer as to whether accountability policies of this type are also following the expansion of educational assessment in Latin America by looking at the case of Brazil. This country is chosen for the diversity and sophistication of its assessment procedures at all levels of the educational system. The small number of state and municipal accountability systems that can be identified are classified as either high-stakes, when prizes or teacher pay supplements are involved, and low-stakes in the case of report-card systems where no monetary incentives are attached. The high-stakes examples studied are those of the states of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Ceará and the municipality of Sobral. The cases of Paraná state and the municipality of Belo Horizonte are the two low-stakes, report card systems included in the study. The analysis dwells on some of the technical shortcomings of the accountability programs, the resistance of the teachers unions, the limited popular awareness and support for these policies and the possibility of change in the shape of new Federal Government incentives for local education improvement.

Evaluation, systems of educational assessment, educational accountability, Brazil.