Bolsonarista Governors Tank São Paulo's Schools. The State Fell From 1st to 10th

From 1st to 10th Place

In September 2016, Governor Geraldo Alckmin announced at the Bandeirantes Palace, the governor's seat, that São Paulo's state school system had placed 1st in all three stages of the Ideb, the index from Inep, the federal education research agency, that combines pass rates and performance on the Saeb national exam. In high school, the score was 3.9, shared with Pernambuco. Ten years later, in the 2025 assessment, released in August 2026, the same system ranks 10th among the 27 state systems, with 4.3.

The numbers come from Inep's official spreadsheet by state, which Abestadão downloaded and checked. Inep does not publish a ranking; the position was calculated by counting how many systems have a higher score than São Paulo's. By that criterion, the trajectory of regular high school is this: 1st in 2015, 4th in 2017, 5th in 2019, 3rd in 2021, 8th in 2023 and 10th in 2025. The score rose from 3.9 to 4.3 over the period. The rest of the country rose more.

What Belongs to Each Administration

The sequence covers five governors: Geraldo Alckmin and Márcio França, of the PSDB and the PSB respectively; João Doria, elected with the PSDB in 2018 on the “BolsoDoria” ticket, which encouraged voting for him and Jair Bolsonaro together, with T-shirts and stickers in the runoff, according to Folhapress; Rodrigo Garcia, of the PSDB; and Tarcísio de Freitas, of the Republicanos party, a former Bolsonaro minister. In 2021, Doria said: “I made a serious mistake supporting Bolsonaro in the election against the PT, against Fernando Haddad”. Under Alckmin, the system went from 1st to 4th place between 2015 and 2017, and the score fell from 3.9 to 3.8. Márcio França governed from April to December 2018, with no Ideb assessment in that period. Under João Doria, the score rose to 4.3 in 2019, which did not prevent a 5th-place finish; in 2021, with 4.4, the system returned to 3rd place, tied with Ceará, Pernambuco and Espírito Santo. Rodrigo Garcia governed from April to December 2022, also with no assessment. Under Tarcísio de Freitas, of the Republicanos party, the system fell to 8th place in 2023, with 4.2, and to 10th in 2025, with 4.3.

The 3rd place in 2021 deserves a caveat, and it comes from Inep itself: the assessment was administered during the pandemic, with an informational note on the comparability of results. We did not omit it for that reason. Leaving out the year the system went up would be exactly the kind of cherry-picking this publication exists to point out.

The Score That Didn't Move

São Paulo's state system scored 4.3 in 2019 and 4.3 in 2025. The same score, six years later, was worth 5th place and is now worth 10th. What changed was the rest of the country: in 2019, four systems were ahead of São Paulo, led by Goiás with 4.7; in 2025, there are nine, led by Paraná with 5.1, and Piauí, Espírito Santo and Goiás with 4.9. The target Inep had projected for the São Paulo system in 2021 was 5.1, according to Diário do Grande ABC.

Between 2023 and 2025, São Paulo's score rose one tenth of a point, from 4.2 to 4.3. That was enough for Folha to classify the result as stagnant and to note, in its subhead, that the Tarcísio government, of the Republicanos party, “failed to raise math and Portuguese scores”. The same subhead reports that, counting vocational education, São Paulo ranks 8th. This piece uses regular high school, the comparable series since 2015.

What the Table Doesn't Say

Rank in a table is a relative measure: São Paulo can fall because it got worse or because others got better, and the period shows both at different moments. The table also doesn't explain cause. This analysis does not attribute the decline to any specific policy of any of the five administrations, because the sources consulted do not allow it. What they do allow us to say is simpler: the system that was 1st in the country in high school in 2015 is now 10th, and in the last two years it lost two spots.

In 2020, the Doria government promised, according to Folha, to “put the state back at the top of the list in 2021”. The promise was logged in the Museum of Predictions, with the result beside it: 3rd place.