From quality to excellence? Hermeneutical-critical analysis of the concept of educational quality in the New Mexican School

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyze the transformation of the concept of educational quality in Mexico, from the paradigm of standardized measurement to the notion of excellence promoted by the New Mexican School (NEM), in order to understand its foundations, tensions, and implications for academic management and institutional evaluation. Qualitative research of a documentary nature was developed, with a theoretical-argumentative design and hermeneutical-critical orientation, made up of normative documents, international declarations and academic literature on quality, excellence, professional autonomy of teachers, School Technical Councils and institutional self-evaluation. The categorical analysis made it possible to identify continuities, ruptures and gaps in the transition from quality to excellence. According to the results, the standardized quality provided useful information to diagnose gaps and guide educational policy decisions; however, it also reduced the complexity of the school experience to performance indicators. In addition, educational excellence broadened the training horizon towards social justice, inclusion and curricular contextualization, although it showed limits when it did not specify clear mechanisms to assess the progress of learning. Likewise, the professional autonomy of teachers and the School Technical Councils were recognized as relevant conditions, as long as they were articulated with evidence, collegial deliberation and institutional follow-up. It was concluded that the NEM partially exceeded the standardized paradigm, but did not solve the underlying evaluation problem by itself. Institutional self-evaluation emerged as a critical mediation between social justice and evaluative rigor, by allowing educational excellence to demonstrate what improved, for whom it improved, and under what institutional conditions that improvement occurred.