After his father's death and a frustrated attempt to be elected for Congress for the state of Bahia, Anísio moved to Rio de Janeiro, in 1931. In this same year, he accepted the invitation by mayor Pedro Ernesto Batista to become head of the Federal District Public Education Division. Also, he engaged Emília Telles Ferreira, to whom he married the following year, in São Paulo.

In 1932, Anísio would subscribe the New Education Pioneers Manifesto, which publicised to the people and the government, the main elements of a national education reconstruction programme by a group of educators, some of whom had already been in charge of public instruction reforms in the country, such as Lourenço Filho (Ceará, 1922/1923) and Fernando de Azevedo (Federal District, 1927/1930).