This article presents the methodology and the results of a new index of socioeconomic status of the schools of basic education in Brazil. The data used are from the contextual questionnaires filled by students at the time they answer the cognitive tests of several educational assessments organized by the federal government. Valid responses from 20,806,062 students in 21 databases were considered. In order to estimate the index, items related to the dimensions of education and occupation of student's parents and family income were aggregated using a model of Item Response Theory. The results were validated showing to be quite reliable. Correlations of the index introduced in this paper with similar indices, especially the per capita income of municipalities are positive and high This shows that the reality described by the national economic indicator and an indicator obtained by students responses to a questionnaire in an educational evaluation, at the macro level, are basically the same. The assessment of socioeconomic status of schools as perceive by educational specialists in different localities of the country coincides with the one depicted by the indicator.
Socioeconomic status of schools; Basic education; Educational inequalities
