Clam educatiu or speculative ploy?

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Joan Nonell

On 22 January, the newspaper Ara published an article signed by two members of the collective Clam Educatiu, a group bringing together a number of teachers who are habitually aligned with the educational and pedagogical measures promoted by the Department of Education and other related institutions, such as Escola Nova 21 or the Fundació Bofill. These measures include, among others, the defence of school autonomy, the limitation of teacher mobility, and the endorsement of headteachers’ authority to select members of the teaching staff. This was, indeed, the issue addressed by the authors of the article, who presented it as a taboo: a prohibition rooted in outdated traditions that, in their view, prevents the modernisation of teaching teams and the improvement of educational quality in state education, since the inability to choose teachers freely prevents them from “forming teams consistent with their needs”.

I will not dwell on the concealed selection practices already permitted by the administration to the management teams of state schools, through mechanisms such as the reservation of posts with tailor-made criteria or interviews with potential candidates in the annual teacher appointment processes, practices which run counter to more transparent and equitable selection principles such as those governing the official teacher transfer scheme. In the view of the collective that claims—or rather clamours—these are insufficient measures. What they seek is total freedom for school management teams in choosing the staff that make up each school’s teaching body, in much the same way as state-funded private schools operate.

Having presented the so-called miraculous measure that would, as if by turning state schooling on its head, remedy its ills—since it would allow committed teachers aligned with each school’s specific ethos to be separated from those who take a critical stance, sidelining and ultimately expelling those who do not subscribe to the single pedagogical doctrine promoted by those who wish to silence and eradicate dissenting opinions, turning staffrooms into silent spaces and schools into graveyards for critical thought and constructive debate, where proposals might be challenged and accepted solutions without demonstrable evidence questioned —the discordant voice becomes an inconvenience. As do the trade unions that oppose such measures, denouncing clear cases of cronyism, nepotism and clientelism in the staff selection practices that this mechanism both allows and encourages.

The argument put forward by the authors to discredit trade union activity in this matter is particularly misleading, attempting to limit and confine the role of unions to the defence of civil servants’ labour rights, while presenting their critical stance on pedagogical practices as an intrusion, as though such practices did not directly affect the professional rights of teachers, undermining fundamental principles such as academic freedom. Do these self-styled educators forget that teachers’ unions are made up of the very people who share the same staffrooms that their proposed measures seek to purge? More likely, they are well aware of it, which is precisely why discrediting unions forms part of the same strategy of silencing concealed behind the supposedly modern and European measure of granting full selective powers to school leadership.

Let us turn, then, to the central premise underpinning their argument in favour of granting headteachers carte blanche to select staff. Their primary claim is that this practice distinguishes state-funded private schooling. One may infer that hidden behind this assertion lies the implicit premise of the educational success of the state-funded model, set against the supposed inefficiency of state schooling. Hence the need to align state and state-funded schools, at least in terms of staff selection procedures. Since the premise that state-funded schools function better than state schools is never explicitly stated, it conveniently requires no proof. The authors thus spare themselves the details of a comparison that would necessarily extend beyond teacher appointment processes to aspects far broader in scope. For such a comparison to be honest, it would need to make clear the divergent purposes underlying each model. State-funded schools, it should not be forgotten, are businesses, regardless of the educational vocation or spirit of service that may inspire their founding principles. State schooling, by contrast, is an instrument of equal opportunity, sustaining the principle of democratic coexistence as a pillar of the Welfare State by guaranteeing—at least in principle—full and free education for all citizens.

The economic benefit of the organisations that own state-funded schools ultimately drives their policies, which include a wide range of additional revenue-generating activities, such as school meals, extracurricular activities, school trips— all profitable enough to allow them to indirectly select the pupils who become part of their school ethos. These pupils tend to come from far more socio-economically homogeneous backgrounds than those found in state schools, where diversity is greater and the number of pupils with special educational needs is significantly higher. If state-funded schools achieve more successful results, this is therefore not because their teaching teams are more cohesive and committed to their ethos, but because the functioning of the entire institution—including the pupils and families receiving the service—is oriented towards maximising economic efficiency.

The levelling of criteria governing both state and private education, through the imitation of state-funded procedures, represents, ultimately, another triumph of rampant neoliberalism, which has convinced educational policymakers within the Department that the guiding principle of education is not the personal development of the pupil, but rather future professional training in line with labour market needs—precisely what families concerned about their children’s education seek when they choose state-funded schooling.

It goes without saying that these speculative visions of productive futures, framed as academic success, are dressed up in self-righteous humanism, lest the embarrassment of turning education into a business that perpetuates socio-economic class divisions become too evident. In this task of concealment, collectives such as the one represented in the article, Clam Educatiu, play an essential role, transforming commercial arrangements concerning students’ futures into supposedly modern and efficient pedagogical practices, thereby providing the perfect pretext for colonising state schools and effectively pseudo-privatising the way they operate. Measures such as the professionalisation of school leadership, or the linking of subsidies and financial incentives for schools and staff—no longer teachers—to the attainment of favourable academic results, form part of this process. For all these reasons, the proposal advanced in the article sounds far more like a speculative ploy than a genuine demand that is shared by the teaching staff who continue to resist the neoliberal pressures that besiege our poor, vulnerable and under-resourced state education system, even from within.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons