Abstract
This text discusses democratic management in the Municipal Councils of Education of the municipalities of Paraná that constituted their own education systems and aims to demonstrate how the normative organs are composed and what the possibilities and limits of democratic participation in the local contexts are. In order to do so, having as a theoretical and methodological assumption the historical and dialectical materialism, this paper discusses the municipal autonomy to conduct the education under its responsibility and analyzes the composition of the Municipal Councils of Education of the municipalities that have already instituted their own education systems. The analyses show that the composition of the Municipal Councils of Education is characterized as a possibility of democratic exercise, but the limits are also present, indicating links with the hegemonic interests that guide local policies.
Municipal Education System; Municipal Councils of Education; Democratic management; Education policies