The objective of this is to contribute to the discussion about educational accountability policies through the evaluation of the program Prêmio Escola Nota Dez in the Brazilian state of Ceará. Therefore, our references como from Democratic Theory and Public Management, in the perspective of Coleman s Social Theory. Our aim is building an analytical approach able to consider the policies objectives and results, as well as its context and types of bonus, focusing on an action model that considers the agents, the resources they have and the actions they implement in a micro perspective that turns into a macro social change. There are two rewarding systems in the program Alfabetização na Idade Certa (PAIC in portuguese), and Escola Nota Dez Award is oneof them. It aims on increasing the performance of the school system by promoting competition among schools for an award given to the first 150 ones according to ranking. In order to control possible damages coming from this competition that could affect system equity, the program also provides a support, as a way of compensation, to the 150 worst-off schools in the ranking. Therefore, it tries to integrate the benefited schools into cooperative relations, in which the awarded schools must help the supported ones to fulfill their goals. Using dta from Prova Brasil and from the Basic Education Permanent Evaluation System of Ceará State (SPAECE in portuguese), we have conducted a time series analysis focusing on the impacts of this award in relation to other actions of PAIC. Even preliminary, the results indicate impacts on portuguese outcomes in SPAECE, but they do not show up in mathematics or on Prova Brasil. It was also observed that the stabilization of equity indicators of the educational system coincided with the time when the award was established. We have also measured the impacts of the prize paid to schools through the analysis of regression discontinuity, and we have observed that the benefits for the awarded schools focused on the evaluation of the competition for the prize, while the supported schools focused on assessing the goals achievement. Concerning equity, the achiavements of the awarded schools in SPAECE were accomplished in inequality inside the schools, while the achievements of the supported schools indicate an improvement in equity and an increase in the percentage of students at the satisfactory level. The positive effects for the supported schools continue to occur throughout the period of the award, while the benefits for the awarded schools seem to be temporary and restricted to the time of the competition. Finally, we conclud that the greatest lesson that Ceará state shows us is that a program of bonuses or resources distribution is not enough - an integrated vision that focuses on coordinating action among agents at different institutional levels and federative entities may be one of decisive factors for the succes of Ceará s policies.