This paper examines the apparent consensus on the bad quality of Brazilian Elementary and Secondary Education. It emphasizes five indispensable aspects of the subject that one should keep in mind in order to plan concrete actions to face the problems. They are: the existence of "educational islands" of good quality, usually neglected by public policies; the inefficacy of the multiple assessment tools, whose results are mainly used as an inspiration for fantastic newspapers’ headlines; the inexistence of a more effective articulation among the different levels of education; the lack of autonomy of the schools as fundamental unities in the structure of the public education organization; and the need of explicit actions to improve the work conditions of teachers. An old and seminal article (Anísio Teixeira, 1953) is evoked by the author, in order to corroborate some of the aspects presented in the paper.
Education; Quality; Assessment; School; Teachers
