This study analyzes the implementation process of the School Development Plan (PDE-Escola) program in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in view of the more recent context of the federal government s policies with the prospect of accountability, in its different levels of negotiation, namely: i) the macro-political level: the steps of structuring, negotiation, and implementation of the program, from the Ministry of Education (MEC) and from international development agencies; ii) the meso-political level: the structure of the program and its development in the municipal school network of Rio de Janeiro, through its bodies of mediations (SME-Rio / CREs-RJ); iii) the micro-institutional level: the school units that implement the technical-menagerial and political-financial processes of the PDE-Escola. The analyzes at the macro level involve two stages: at first, it focuses on the discussion of the introduction of accountability mechanisms in the implementation of PDE-Escola, related to the PDE-Escola / Goals Plan. For this, we consider the historical context that favored the entrance of this type of policy in the Brazilian educational scenario and identify which elements of the accountability are found in the documents about the program hand out by MEC. In a second stage, we examine the changes that have shaped the design of PDE-Escola over the last few years, highlighting that these changes reflect the political situation of each period, as well as the interests and ideals of the agents responsible for its formulation. The analysis at the meso-political level focuses on how the program is being implemented in the city of Rio de Janeiro since 2007, examining the involvement of the social characters in the mediation instances of the program in the city (SME-Rio / CREs-RJ) in this process, as well as investigating the perceptions of those characters on the program and its revisions. Finally, the analysis at the micro-institutional level focuses on the schools participating in the program, identifying who these schools are and their institutional processes. Schools belonging to the first two lists of priority schools in the city of Rio de Janeiro are investigated, in other words, the first schools assessed as in need of improvements in the most recent context of government policies with accountability perspective (concerning the 2008-2012 period). For the study operationalization, we performed a documental review and conducted semi-structured interviews with representatives of SME-Rio / CREs-RJ. The results indicate that there was a gradual and systematic change of focus in the program after its vinculation to the PDE / Goals Plan, taking on the assumptions of accountability by results, in consonance with the broader policy of the federal government, and entailing elements of accountability and account disclosure in its technical and operational dynamics.