The present study focuses on the financing scheme of education underlining the analysis of FUNDEF from a comparative perspective with its successor, FUNDEB. The main objective is to identify the main limitations and potentialities of the first one and investigating whether the limitations of FUNDEF will hypothetically be overcome or not with the creation of FUNDEB. The analysis is organized in three themes: the attributions and responsibilities of the three government spheres, the financing scheme per se which is brought with the implementation of FUNDEF, and the incentives and punishment system brought by the introduction of the fund. Among the main conclusions, it is relevant to highlight that the creation of FUNDEF has contributed to the improvement of flow and enrollment rate indicators. However, when the performance of students is analyzed, an unsatisfactory result appears which places Brazil at a position of extreme disadvantage if compared to other analyzed countries. Even if only the data of Brazilian students is compared with each other, the obtained results have experienced a decrease. Therefore, one can affirm that the FUNDEF has prioritized inclusion in detriment of the quality of education, expanding the educational offer. This is one of the main challenges of FUNDEB, as well as the expansion of the coverage of secondary and garden education. In this sense, an important progress would be the creation of monitoring mechanisms that makes the flow and achievement compatible. The Ministry of Education has shown signs of this progress with the recent launch of the IDEB, which makes flow and quality indicators compatible. Probably, the use of IDEB as one of the criterion for the distribution of resources would be an additional and effective incentive to the prioritization of the quality of basic education.