Over the last three decades, Brazil has gone through a series of social transformations in which new frontiers have been established between the State and Civil Society. Part of these transformations encompasses a heterogeneous group of entities, organizations, associations, businesses, and business foundations that have all brought about new routines within public schools as well as new educational policies in general. The question inspiring this paper is: are these nongovernmental organizations Argonauts heroically navigating against the neoliberal tide or, on the contrary, do they represent liberal thought, privatizing responsibilities and minimizing the role of the State? With this question in mind, a study was held among non-governmental partners of Rio de Janeiro’s municipal educational system and an ethnographically based analysis carried out on how different actors in these groups participated (NGOs, civil movements and business foundations) in the First National Educational Conference. Far from generalizing NGOs as those responsible for neoliberal policies destined to control poverty or as fundamental players in an ever triumphant civil society, the research results suggest the need for a more in-depth debate on the subject. The data gathered indicates a complex scenario in which policy makers, schools, NGO directors, whether these represent business foundations or unions, all perceive privatepublic partnerships differently. These organizations play an ambiguous role in the educational field: representing a place where professionals who strive for quality education as a fundamental public right resist at the same time as they contribute towards the State being perceived as working better when it delegates responsibilities to private organizations, who, for their turn, act as providers or by selling their educational packages to schools. The field work also suggests how a market logic has made itself increasingly present in policy making as well as in the daily life of Brazilian primary schools.