The purpose of the present study was to identify which characteristics of students and schools affect proficiency in Portuguese Language, as well as to verify the existence of differences between Brazilian regions in this respect. The data were analyzed of 33,962 third grade students nessed in 1,661 secondary schools who participated in the 2001 assessment of the SAEB. Among the control variables, socioeconomic status of the school had the strongest contribution to the final model. At least 41% of the school level variance and 14% of the student level variance were explained in the final multilevel model. It can be concluded that the inequality between Brazilian regions in relation to the performance of schools in Portuguese Language is strongly related to the socioeconomic status of the students of the schools.
School performance; Regression; Multilevel analysis; Geographic region
