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This article analyzes the development of a new modality of public-private partnership in Brazilian education, the so-called Social Impact Bond (SIB), known in Brazil as “Contrato de Impacto Social”, whose pilot project, sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), is in its initial stage of implementation in the State of São Paulo. Unlike traditional philanthropy, which legitimizes itself in the alleged non-profit nature of its actions, SIB assumes the possibility of obtaining return rates with “social investments,” leading to the creation of a new ecosystem of social finances, which, into this context of privatization of education, incorporates agents interested in capitalizing on the provision of public services to vulnerable populations, in this case, to secondary students from public schools in the State of São Paulo. This kind of contract, or bond—paid by means of “delivery” of results—raises a series of ethical, legal, and political-pedagogical issues related to the accomplishment of “social experiments” with students in a vulnerable condition. From the analysis of internal documents of the Department of Education in the State of São Paulo, in comparison with documentary sources from public schools, we conclude that, from the very beginning of its implementation, the SIB of São Paulo education not only breaks with standards of scientific ethics, but also violates the principle of democratic school management included in the Brazilian constitution.

In recent decades, the New Public Management has achieved a central role. This centrality, among other things, is translated by the incorporation and implementation of the business rationale and private management in public institutions and organizations. Many sectorial reforms have followed these principles, some of which have been implemented in the redefinition of the role of the State and in changes in the procedures of public administration. Also, it induced other changes in the modes of social regulation in the context of the increasing internationalization of capitalism. Following these changes, the obsession (often more rhetorical than real) with the effectiveness and efficiency of the State is now understood in the framework of a post-bureaucratic rationality. However, the new rationality was little mobilized in the following texts, as happened with hyper bureaucracy—contrary to the wish this dossier’s editors. This observation does not fail to reveal that the ideology of the New Public Management is still the hegemonic reference in the field of research and reflection in the field of social and education sciences. Nevertheless, from our point of view what comes as most striking in the contributions that follow is that many of the promises of the different versions of the New Public Management ideology have either not been fulfilled or were only partially achieved, representing the compelling criticism to the ideology summarized in the idea that managing is very different than governing. In conclusion, this dossier aims, among other aspects and in different Lusophony national contexts, to analyze reforms and public education policies (with a predominance of administration and management, evaluation and accountability, privatization and marketization), that implicit or explicitly, assume, to varying degrees of critical deepening and/ or theoretical-conceptual and empirical support, some of the assumptions mentioned above, which the authors chose to prioritize.

This article seeks to analyze the setup of the New Public Management in the educational field in Angola and Brazil between 1988 and 2017. The study that grounds this paper was carried out through bibliographic and archival research. Aiming to understand the phenomenon researched beyond a unilateral perceptive, we decided to ground this analysis on the comparative paradigm. We understood that the guidelines and prescriptions of the economic field, and the political changes are environments to be taken into account in the current educational reforms in Brazil and Angola, since those environments have a straightforward impact on the public spheres management patterns. Abstracting from this reality dimension in the context of both lusophones countries; enables us to identify the closeness and distances between them, as well as, uncover the convergences and divergences of the political, social and economical context, which reality claims more research.