Educational management in times of platformization: implications of digital governance for public schools

Abstract

The intensification of the use of digital technologies in education, driven by public policies of innovation and modernization of education systems, has profoundly reconfigured the forms of educational and school management. This article critically analyzes the process of platformization of education and its implications for the management of public schools, considering the transformations in the modes of planning, decision-making, control, evaluation, and organization of pedagogical work. This is a theoretical study, based on a critical review of the literature on educational policies, school management, digital governance, and platform capitalism. It argues that the uncritical incorporation of digital platforms into educational policies tends to displace the centrality of democratic management, expanding processes of algorithmic regulation, standardization, and surveillance of teaching and learning work. At the same time, the article problematizes the contradictions of this movement, recognizing its operational potential, but emphasizing the need for digital policies guided by ethical, democratic, and socially referenced principles. It concludes that educational management, in the face of platformization, faces the challenge of reaffirming its public, participatory, and emancipatory character, resisting the mercantile and technocratic logic that permeates much of contemporary digital policy.