The impact of school management practices on educational performance: Evidence from public schools in São Paulo

•I examine the impacts of a school management program on educational outcomes.•Monitoring, targets and incentives have positive impacts on math scores.•The impacts are primarily observed in students with major learning disabilities.•Results are driven by changes to managerial practices.•Results are not associated with student or staff selection.

This study examines the causal impacts of a school management program on educational outcomes in São Paulo/Brazil, estimated with the use of a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. I conclude that specific management practices such as performance monitoring, targets setting and incentive schemes have significant positive impacts on 8th-graders' math scores, especially on low performance students. I was unable to obtain similar results for language. I further investigated whether these results were associated with student or staff selection and infrastructure investments or whether they were actually driven by changes to pedagogical and managerial practices. My findings suggest that the latter explanation is more plausible.