Public Policies and Inequalities in Learning by Socioeconomic Level: How Much Is It Possible to Level the Playing Field?

Author: Samuel Franco e Flavio Riva

Edition: 1st

Published in: October 2025

Education is one of the main determinants of social mobility. And, among the components of quality education, literacy and reading occupy a central place. The Technical Note “Public Policies and Inequalities in Learning by Socioeconomic Level: How Much Is It Possible to Level the Playing Field?” proposes an analysis of how the Brazilian educational system has been able to reduce inequalities in developing reading skills during the early years of elementary school.

To support the research, the authors combined two data sources for the period from 2009 to 2023. The microdata of the Basic Education Evaluation System (Saeb) for the 5th grade, which allow the monitoring of learning levels of the Portuguese language in each year of the test, for students from public schools in Brazil. In addition, data from the socioeconomic index of the schools where these students studied when they took the test allow students to be grouped and ordered in tenths according to their socioeconomic level.

The study documents significant differences in the rate of students who achieve adequate performance in each tenth of the socioeconomic index. When considering the data of students in schools in Ceará, the authors show that there was a process of convergence of learning levels between the tenths of the socioeconomic index, concentrated temporally between 2009 and 2015. Between these years, students affected by an innovative set of state policies to improve learning and literacy reached the 5th grade and took the SAEB tests. The results indicate that effective public policies, especially in literacy, can reduce the impact of socioeconomic factors on educational performance.