Abstract
The article discusses elements that contribute to the constitution and functioning of public schools democratic administration and constructs an indicator to measure the development of this important constitutional principle. The work uses data from 2003 and 2015 of the National Education Evaluation System, focusing on issues related to democratic administration, and gives a statistical treatment to them. The analysis indicates that the North and Northeast regions still have the worst indicators while the Center-South ones have the best. However, in general, Brazil has grown in the conditions of democratization of school administration, especially in terms of a democratic school environment. On the other hand, the forms of schools principals’ recruitment seem to lose strength, since the emphasis is on the use of less democratic models, which emphasize the technical face or the political and electoral tie of the school principals with the government. It seems to be a resumption of the most traditional models of public administration in Brazil.
Democratic administration; School administration; Educational policy; Democratic condition