We had the honor of being lecture by Claudia Costin, the Senior Director of Global Education at the World Bank and the previous Secretary of Education of the city of Rio de Janeiro. The talk was on “Enhancing Education – Challenges and opportunities in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro’s case)” and the discussant was Martin Carnoy.

It was scary to see the level of Brazilian’s education compared to the rest of the world. Particularly interesting was the fact that even the best performing students in Brazil are doing worse than most.

Another interesting fact is that private schools are NOT producing better students… the reason being that the teachers are being trained in the same manner, or by the same institutions that teach teachers in the public education system.

Teacher PD has to be improved…