A Question of Education: Rafael Martinez, Ed.M.'05

Question everything. That is one of the lasting lessons that Rafael Martinez, Ed.M.'05, took away from Professor Fernando Reimers, Ed.M.'84, Ed.D.'88, while he was a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. And it has served him well in his native Brazil, where he returned after graduation to work on improving the country's education system.

"We should especially question data," Martinez told a group of students last fall while at Harvard to give a series of talks. Martinez, who at the time was serving as undersecretary of education for the state of Rio de Janeiro, talked at length about the country's controversial Education for All campaign, fueled in part several years ago by businesses demanding a more educated population. The goal of the campaign was to dramatically increase the number of students in school. Martinez said that despite an increase, the numbers are not telling the whole story.

"The official discourse says we've already achieved universal enrollment in Brazil, but in reality, that's not true," he said. "We cannot consider our goal done if 94 percent enter but only 54 percent complete school. That's a big fat lie, and it's my goal to wake people up."

Martinez also questioned the quality of schooling in Brazil, which historically has not been good. "A national evaluation in 2005 found that 30 percent of fourth-graders had grades below 150 out of 500. They were functionally illiterate," he said.

In order to turn things around, Martinez said the country first needs to acknowledge the problem and then to "research it relentlessly." He also suggested heavily monitoring students that repeat grades and drop out, increase professional development for principals, and help some teachers find new careers.

"The bottom 10 percent of the sector in Brazil tends to go into teaching," he said, shaking his head.

Martinez didn't start out in education. An engineering undergraduate who went on to study business, he initially worked for Shell Brazil before moving onto a string of sales and marketing jobs in smaller companies. Although he liked his work, he felt he should be making a more meaningful contribution to society.

"I decided I was going to work in education," he said in a subsequent interview. It took a few years to make the transition, which included a year in the Ed School's International Education Policy Program. When he returned to Brazil, he became superintendent of a school district of 15,000 students and 54 schools. A few years later he became undersecretary of education for the state of Rio de Janeiro, where he was responsible for developing policy, creating new curriculum, and evaluating practices. He also created an ombudsperson to listen to outside complaints and a resource database for teachers.

His ideas were well received, he said, but he had to move slowly at first with his "Harvard ideas." "People think you're trying to force foreign ideas," he said, "but in truth, most of the ideas that I brought back were my own."

In December, Martinez moved back to the private sector but with a public service twist. Under his guidance, BR Investments, a Brazilian equity fund, will invest $400 million in education projects in its first year. Before leaving government, however, he turned back to his Ed School roots. "I was pleased to see that as he left the position of undersecretary of education," says Reimers, "he was succeeded by Teresa Pontual, Ed.M.'08, whom he had encouraged to apply to the program and hired to work with him in the ministry."

This is a clear example of Martinez's commitment to education, says Reimers. "As a student, Rafael displayed clear leadership qualities, a strong intellect, drive, and passion to improve education in the two courses he took with me," he says. "There was no question in my mind that he had all the qualities to make a significant impact in the field of education in Brazil."