The research investigates the operations of school councils as a strategy of democratic administration committed to promoting quality of teaching. The study considered changes in the law in their political context, the management of the school system, the processes of school management and data collected from four Rio de Janeiro public schools with good performance in national assessments. In the case study, we observe the procedures for choosing school counselors, their profiles and perceptions of the operation and organization of the councils. We also had analyzed the perceptions of parents, teachers, staff and students of these schools with documents obtained through questionnaires and interviews. We also had showed the profiles of the principals, their perceptions about the processes of participation in schools, and how they operate with autonomy in school management. The analysis sought to establish important dialogue with the recent academic staff in the field of educational policy and sociology of education. Data analysis showed that the democratic management and related functional of participation is not fully actualized and school councils, in particular, constitute a mostly predominant instrument. Students and staff are the segment with lower visibility in management. The principals, express different styles of leading, and have operating policies of decentralization and school autonomy, to promote quality education, that these schools are ironclad in the commitment of parents, teachers and principals of learning, although it is not reflected in the democratization of management.