Measure of gap and inequalities in basic education students proficiencies - IDeA (Indicador de Aprendizagens e Desigualdade)
This study uses students performance on standardized tests as evidence of the quality of education and introduces a methodology based on the comparison of performance distributions to produce indicators for both the level achieved by the students and the learning gap between social groups, two inseparable dimensions of quality of education. In the first case, the study compares the distribution of the group observed with a reference distribution, which represents an ideal situation of where students should be. In the second, it compares the performance distribution of students belonging to social groups defined by socioeconomic characteristics. This article uses the Kullback-Leibler divergence to characterize the differences between the distributions. This measure takes into account types of differences not considered by other measures and have solid conceptual justifications. The proposed methodology is used to describe the quality of Brazilian basic education using the test results applied biannually to all Brazilian students of basic education. The results are analyzed in the level of municipalities and the changes that occurred in Brazil from 2007 until 2017 will be presented.
Erica Castilho Rodrigues is currently an adjunct professor of Statistics at Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP). Coordinator of the Evaluation Center of Ferderal University of Ouro Preto. Researcher at the Educational Evaluation Center at Federal Universisty of Ouro Preto. Ad hoc consultant in data analysis at Fundação Tide Setubal. Co-responsible for the development of IDeA (Indicator of Inequalities and Learning) https://portalidea.org.br/
