In December 2023 Gabriel Attal, promoted since the summer to Minister of
National Education, details his roadmap: "the shock of knowledge".
Announced in October and unveiled as a response to the decline in the
results of French schools in the "PISA" barometer (1), the program has
been the subject of criticism and has generated a rampant protest
movement since February. ---- A cummunicant minister ---- The Minister's
back-to-school conference was structured around a few announcements: a
focus on abayas and qamis to establish himself as a herald of secularism
when his predecessor Pap Ndiaye had been accused of communitarianism by
an extreme right unleashed against this dark-skinned minister; a call
for national unity around schools to ward off the mistrust that had been
generated by Michel Blanquer's "school of trust"; a bit of sycophancy
towards the teaching world by pretending to have heard their demands and
by rescheduling the bac exams to June; a lot of demagoguery towards
parents by exploiting security feelings around the issue of school
bullying which has become the main problem in school...
All this declarative jumble made it possible to relegate to the second
place the essential difficulties of the school: the shortage of teachers
and substitutes and therefore teaching time for students, due to an
unattractive profession, financially and socially devalued; the
hypocrisy of a so-called inclusive school which fails to integrate
students with disabilities due to lack of sufficient competent staff (2)
while specialized education has shrunk to nothing; the reception of
students who are more and more frequently suffering from psychological
and social suffering, with little availability for learning, and without
adequate supervision (medico-social staff); the reproduction of social
inequalities which remains the distinctive feature of the French school
system (3)...
The start of the year thus saw some battles for salary increases or job
creation, against the Pact (4) or against the umpteenth reform of
vocational education which should see general education give way further
to in-company training under the pretext of remunerating professional
high school students - to date no high school student has yet received
the slightest compensation...
But international news will disrupt the mobilization rituals of National
Education and the assassination of Professor Dominique Bernard in Arras
on October 13, 2023 will put a heavy weight on the desire to mobilize at
the start of the school year. The trauma of this new assassination and
the deployment of the Vigipirate-attack plan will plunge the teaching
world into a state of astonishment that Attal's declarations on "the
shock of knowledge" will slowly draw from his trauma. It will be
necessary to wait until January for discontent to really resurface.
The shock of the announcements
To ward off the poor results of PISA, Attal therefore announced in
December a series of measures which are still part of the same
reactionary policy: refocusing on the fundamental knowledge dispersed by
pedagogism, and rebuilding the authority of the institution victim of
laxity of teachers. The plan sets out different recipes in order to
"initiate an absolute mobilization to raise the level of our students"
(5), an educational rearmament of sorts.
The first of these recipes consists of giving power back to teachers by
giving them "the authority of[their]pedagogical expertise": removing
harmonizations in exam boards, and reconnecting with the ability to make
students repeat a grade. Announcement effect with a "wish to restore
standards at all levels with science and common sense as a compass".
Which maintains the confusion between authority and power, but flatters
the most reactionary of teachers, in defiance of all studies on
education and academic success, while at the same time calling on
science as a guide!
Since everything is at stake in primary school, new programs from
kindergarten to CE2 are announced, as well as school textbooks labeled
and financed by the State (imposed on teachers) from the start of the
2024 school year. Teachers will once again be able to repeat a grade
students from primary school or prescribe them "success training courses
during their school holidays conditioning the passage to the next class"
The college is not left out: "As of the next school year, 6th and 5th
grade students will be therefore now divided into 3 level groups for
their French and mathematics lessons. (...) The same organization will
apply for 4th and 3rd grade classes from the start of the school year in
September 2025" and time flexibility to increase the fundamentals to the
"temporary" detriment of other disciplines will be possible. The Brevet
will become a passing exam for second grade, and those who fail will go
to prep school "to consolidate their level, catch up and be better
equipped for the future".
Students who enter second year will also be armed: "accompanied, at
home, with an AI tool for remediation or deepening in French and
mathematics (...) sovereign software, (...) generalized to all 2de
students from next September. France will thus be the first country in
the world to generalize a tool for raising standards based on artificial
intelligence to an entire age group" (6).
And as there is no Minister of National Education worthy of the name who
does not reform the baccalaureate, Attal also announces the creation of
a new anticipated general and technological first test dedicated to
mathematics and scientific culture for the 2026 session.
Very quickly it was the announcement of the creation of middle school
level groups which focused the attention and criticism of teachers and
their unions, except the SNALC classified on the right and which is
satisfied with the desire to "restore power decision-making for the
professionals that we are" and the questioning of the single college
(7). Quite unanimously, Attal's announcements are seen as a
stigmatization of students in difficulty and the desire to further
accentuate the social sorting function of the school, and the
application of old reactionary recipes.
It must be said that the announcements of the "shock of knowledge"
coupled with the return of the uniform, the systematization of the SNU,
the compulsory internship in companies for second year students under
the pretext of reconquering the month of June, the possibility of
shortening the summer holidays, the recreation of normal schools for a
new reform of teacher training, and other announcements - launched here
and there during the 5 months and 20 days spent on rue de Grenelle - are
back on track with the school-army-factory triptych...
The AOC parenthesis and the Belloubet plan
Gabriel Attal joins Matignon on January 9, 2024, and Amélie
Oudéa-Castéra succeeds him. This appointment is surprising, especially
as Oudéa-Castéra retains his functions in Sports and the Olympics, but
above all suggests that Education remains a specific area over which
Macron and Attal wish to retain control.
The beginnings of a mobilization initiated against "the shock of
knowledge" are reinforced by controversies fueled by a series of
blunders by the new Minister regarding the schooling of her children in
the private sector, the exemptions from higher courses which her would
have benefited from. son, her remuneration at the head of the tennis
federation, the resignation of the Rector of Paris whom she disavowed,
and a series of contemptuous declarations towards the teaching world and
the public education service. Thus the teacher mobilization initially
planned for February 1 against Attal's projects transformed into a
rather sustained day of strike against the Minister. She was finally
thanked 8 days later and replaced by Nicole Belloubet, former rector of
the PS persuasion, converted to Macronism to the point of being Minister
of Justice in the government of Edouard Philippe.
We can consider that the demonstration of February 1st had the skin of
"AOC", and it had been a long time since a teacher mobilization had won
anything. However, the fuse function worked because despite the hopes of
a burst of mobilization, teacher discontent did not lead to a short circuit.
Insufficient militant voluntarism
The strike of February 1 allowed a certain number of significant
mobilizations, with general assemblies such as had not been seen for a
long time in many departments. The activist teams therefore dedicated
themselves to building a movement to counter this reform after the
winter holidays, staggered depending on the academies.
Demonstration of February 1, 2024
So for example in Loire-Atlantique, from February 1, a general assembly
of 200 education personnel planned a renewable strike for March 19-20-21
and 22, the 19th being announced as a mobilization for the revaluation
of the function public and the start of the winter holidays being March
11. At the same time, the staff of Seine Saint-Denis were considering
not returning to school on February 26, as much to denounce Attal's
projects pursued by Belloubet with a few subtleties of vocabulary
(groups of need and no longer of level. ..) than to demand an emergency
plan for their academically devastated department.
These mobilizations were held with more or less success. Seine
Saint-Denis experienced very strong mobilizations, with local
demonstrations of more than 5,000 people like March 7 in Paris, and many
establishments closed in turn between February and April. The
determination is such that Operation Back-to-School Strike was renewed
on April 22. But the material conditions of education seem to take
precedence over questions of educational policies, which would allow
National Education to pass on the emergency plan to the Region and the
department by focusing on the premises and passing the number of
teaching positions gone by the wayside.
The renewable strike in Loire-Atlantique was followed differently. Far
from being massive, it nevertheless polarized media attention and
strengthened links between establishments and with parents.
If there have been real dynamics in several departments, there is
currently a lack of real relay at the national level so that these
movements have a chance of spreading. The education inter-union
announces a national rally in Paris for May 25. This is both far away
and well below what is at stake. We are witnessing the construction of a
movement of opinion, which seeks to establish legitimacy for its
demands, but which for the moment is not yet able to structure a real
balance of power. The State makes fun of demonstrations on Saturdays, of
symbolic and scattered operations such as night of schools, or dead
colleges. But the determination of the teaching world does not seem
sufficient to trigger a real balance of power which would mean a massive
and renewable strike which does not end up when the exams are due...
The crisis in the education system is very deep and can only increase
under the blows of a bourgeoisie more than ever on the offensive. The
divisions between the followers of a return to authoritarianism and the
omnipotence of the educational institution against the young, dangerous
new class, and those who still hope to contribute to the intellectual
and social emancipation of students will widen ( 8). Teachers are no
more able today than yesterday to ask these political questions alone
nor to stop the development of a 2-speed education which has been
strengthening at least since 1984 and the victory of the private school
over the service public education. The famous educational dualism, with
a public school dedicated to the working classes which must be trained
to subject them to capitalist exploitation, and profitable and secure
private education for the children of the bourgeoisie and its lackeys,
cannot be undone. than through a large-scale political and social
movement which must encompass well beyond the world of education alone.
Saint-Nazaire
April 22, 2024
Notes:
1. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an OECD
assessment that aims to test the skills of 15-year-old students in
reading, science and mathematics. This evaluation takes place every 3
years, the results of the 2022 survey were published in December 2023
and revealed a new decline in French schools, particularly in maths and
reading comprehension, placing it just in the average of OECD countries.
2. AESH Accompanying students with disabilities, precarious staff in
notoriously insufficient numbers. Cf. National strike of AESH,
Alternating Current n° 314 November 2021
3. One of the lessons from PISA 2022 on social inequalities is that
"France is still one of the OECD countries where the link between
socio-economic status economic performance of students and the
performance they obtain in PISA is the strongest"
4. New system of remuneration for overtime presented as a salary
increase cf the Pact, "I will make you an offer that you cannot refuse"
in CA n°333, October 2023
5. Unless otherwise indicated, the quotes in quotation marks in this
paragraph are taken from the Press kit of Tuesday December 5, 2023 "The
clash of knowledge. Raise the level of our school»
6. Cf. At the school of robots CA n° 331, June 2023
7. SNALC press release of December 5, 2023
8 Cf. the speech by Attal de Viry-Châtillon of April 18 on the "youth
violence"
P.-S.
On school and education in Courant Alternatif
The brochure "School, daughter and servant of capitalism" from the OCL
"Some elements on the privatization of National Education" , in Courant
Alternatif 301, June 2020
"The capital to attack vocational high schools" in Courant Alternatif
324, November 2022
"Education: from one pope to another" , Courant Alternatif 322, summer 2022
"Where is school going?» , Alternating Current 325, December 2022
and of course, still available or downloadable online the special issue
School between domination and emancipation
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4164
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
National Education, details his roadmap: "the shock of knowledge".
Announced in October and unveiled as a response to the decline in the
results of French schools in the "PISA" barometer (1), the program has
been the subject of criticism and has generated a rampant protest
movement since February. ---- A cummunicant minister ---- The Minister's
back-to-school conference was structured around a few announcements: a
focus on abayas and qamis to establish himself as a herald of secularism
when his predecessor Pap Ndiaye had been accused of communitarianism by
an extreme right unleashed against this dark-skinned minister; a call
for national unity around schools to ward off the mistrust that had been
generated by Michel Blanquer's "school of trust"; a bit of sycophancy
towards the teaching world by pretending to have heard their demands and
by rescheduling the bac exams to June; a lot of demagoguery towards
parents by exploiting security feelings around the issue of school
bullying which has become the main problem in school...
All this declarative jumble made it possible to relegate to the second
place the essential difficulties of the school: the shortage of teachers
and substitutes and therefore teaching time for students, due to an
unattractive profession, financially and socially devalued; the
hypocrisy of a so-called inclusive school which fails to integrate
students with disabilities due to lack of sufficient competent staff (2)
while specialized education has shrunk to nothing; the reception of
students who are more and more frequently suffering from psychological
and social suffering, with little availability for learning, and without
adequate supervision (medico-social staff); the reproduction of social
inequalities which remains the distinctive feature of the French school
system (3)...
The start of the year thus saw some battles for salary increases or job
creation, against the Pact (4) or against the umpteenth reform of
vocational education which should see general education give way further
to in-company training under the pretext of remunerating professional
high school students - to date no high school student has yet received
the slightest compensation...
But international news will disrupt the mobilization rituals of National
Education and the assassination of Professor Dominique Bernard in Arras
on October 13, 2023 will put a heavy weight on the desire to mobilize at
the start of the school year. The trauma of this new assassination and
the deployment of the Vigipirate-attack plan will plunge the teaching
world into a state of astonishment that Attal's declarations on "the
shock of knowledge" will slowly draw from his trauma. It will be
necessary to wait until January for discontent to really resurface.
The shock of the announcements
To ward off the poor results of PISA, Attal therefore announced in
December a series of measures which are still part of the same
reactionary policy: refocusing on the fundamental knowledge dispersed by
pedagogism, and rebuilding the authority of the institution victim of
laxity of teachers. The plan sets out different recipes in order to
"initiate an absolute mobilization to raise the level of our students"
(5), an educational rearmament of sorts.
The first of these recipes consists of giving power back to teachers by
giving them "the authority of[their]pedagogical expertise": removing
harmonizations in exam boards, and reconnecting with the ability to make
students repeat a grade. Announcement effect with a "wish to restore
standards at all levels with science and common sense as a compass".
Which maintains the confusion between authority and power, but flatters
the most reactionary of teachers, in defiance of all studies on
education and academic success, while at the same time calling on
science as a guide!
Since everything is at stake in primary school, new programs from
kindergarten to CE2 are announced, as well as school textbooks labeled
and financed by the State (imposed on teachers) from the start of the
2024 school year. Teachers will once again be able to repeat a grade
students from primary school or prescribe them "success training courses
during their school holidays conditioning the passage to the next class"
The college is not left out: "As of the next school year, 6th and 5th
grade students will be therefore now divided into 3 level groups for
their French and mathematics lessons. (...) The same organization will
apply for 4th and 3rd grade classes from the start of the school year in
September 2025" and time flexibility to increase the fundamentals to the
"temporary" detriment of other disciplines will be possible. The Brevet
will become a passing exam for second grade, and those who fail will go
to prep school "to consolidate their level, catch up and be better
equipped for the future".
Students who enter second year will also be armed: "accompanied, at
home, with an AI tool for remediation or deepening in French and
mathematics (...) sovereign software, (...) generalized to all 2de
students from next September. France will thus be the first country in
the world to generalize a tool for raising standards based on artificial
intelligence to an entire age group" (6).
And as there is no Minister of National Education worthy of the name who
does not reform the baccalaureate, Attal also announces the creation of
a new anticipated general and technological first test dedicated to
mathematics and scientific culture for the 2026 session.
Very quickly it was the announcement of the creation of middle school
level groups which focused the attention and criticism of teachers and
their unions, except the SNALC classified on the right and which is
satisfied with the desire to "restore power decision-making for the
professionals that we are" and the questioning of the single college
(7). Quite unanimously, Attal's announcements are seen as a
stigmatization of students in difficulty and the desire to further
accentuate the social sorting function of the school, and the
application of old reactionary recipes.
It must be said that the announcements of the "shock of knowledge"
coupled with the return of the uniform, the systematization of the SNU,
the compulsory internship in companies for second year students under
the pretext of reconquering the month of June, the possibility of
shortening the summer holidays, the recreation of normal schools for a
new reform of teacher training, and other announcements - launched here
and there during the 5 months and 20 days spent on rue de Grenelle - are
back on track with the school-army-factory triptych...
The AOC parenthesis and the Belloubet plan
Gabriel Attal joins Matignon on January 9, 2024, and Amélie
Oudéa-Castéra succeeds him. This appointment is surprising, especially
as Oudéa-Castéra retains his functions in Sports and the Olympics, but
above all suggests that Education remains a specific area over which
Macron and Attal wish to retain control.
The beginnings of a mobilization initiated against "the shock of
knowledge" are reinforced by controversies fueled by a series of
blunders by the new Minister regarding the schooling of her children in
the private sector, the exemptions from higher courses which her would
have benefited from. son, her remuneration at the head of the tennis
federation, the resignation of the Rector of Paris whom she disavowed,
and a series of contemptuous declarations towards the teaching world and
the public education service. Thus the teacher mobilization initially
planned for February 1 against Attal's projects transformed into a
rather sustained day of strike against the Minister. She was finally
thanked 8 days later and replaced by Nicole Belloubet, former rector of
the PS persuasion, converted to Macronism to the point of being Minister
of Justice in the government of Edouard Philippe.
We can consider that the demonstration of February 1st had the skin of
"AOC", and it had been a long time since a teacher mobilization had won
anything. However, the fuse function worked because despite the hopes of
a burst of mobilization, teacher discontent did not lead to a short circuit.
Insufficient militant voluntarism
The strike of February 1 allowed a certain number of significant
mobilizations, with general assemblies such as had not been seen for a
long time in many departments. The activist teams therefore dedicated
themselves to building a movement to counter this reform after the
winter holidays, staggered depending on the academies.
Demonstration of February 1, 2024
So for example in Loire-Atlantique, from February 1, a general assembly
of 200 education personnel planned a renewable strike for March 19-20-21
and 22, the 19th being announced as a mobilization for the revaluation
of the function public and the start of the winter holidays being March
11. At the same time, the staff of Seine Saint-Denis were considering
not returning to school on February 26, as much to denounce Attal's
projects pursued by Belloubet with a few subtleties of vocabulary
(groups of need and no longer of level. ..) than to demand an emergency
plan for their academically devastated department.
These mobilizations were held with more or less success. Seine
Saint-Denis experienced very strong mobilizations, with local
demonstrations of more than 5,000 people like March 7 in Paris, and many
establishments closed in turn between February and April. The
determination is such that Operation Back-to-School Strike was renewed
on April 22. But the material conditions of education seem to take
precedence over questions of educational policies, which would allow
National Education to pass on the emergency plan to the Region and the
department by focusing on the premises and passing the number of
teaching positions gone by the wayside.
The renewable strike in Loire-Atlantique was followed differently. Far
from being massive, it nevertheless polarized media attention and
strengthened links between establishments and with parents.
If there have been real dynamics in several departments, there is
currently a lack of real relay at the national level so that these
movements have a chance of spreading. The education inter-union
announces a national rally in Paris for May 25. This is both far away
and well below what is at stake. We are witnessing the construction of a
movement of opinion, which seeks to establish legitimacy for its
demands, but which for the moment is not yet able to structure a real
balance of power. The State makes fun of demonstrations on Saturdays, of
symbolic and scattered operations such as night of schools, or dead
colleges. But the determination of the teaching world does not seem
sufficient to trigger a real balance of power which would mean a massive
and renewable strike which does not end up when the exams are due...
The crisis in the education system is very deep and can only increase
under the blows of a bourgeoisie more than ever on the offensive. The
divisions between the followers of a return to authoritarianism and the
omnipotence of the educational institution against the young, dangerous
new class, and those who still hope to contribute to the intellectual
and social emancipation of students will widen ( 8). Teachers are no
more able today than yesterday to ask these political questions alone
nor to stop the development of a 2-speed education which has been
strengthening at least since 1984 and the victory of the private school
over the service public education. The famous educational dualism, with
a public school dedicated to the working classes which must be trained
to subject them to capitalist exploitation, and profitable and secure
private education for the children of the bourgeoisie and its lackeys,
cannot be undone. than through a large-scale political and social
movement which must encompass well beyond the world of education alone.
Saint-Nazaire
April 22, 2024
Notes:
1. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an OECD
assessment that aims to test the skills of 15-year-old students in
reading, science and mathematics. This evaluation takes place every 3
years, the results of the 2022 survey were published in December 2023
and revealed a new decline in French schools, particularly in maths and
reading comprehension, placing it just in the average of OECD countries.
2. AESH Accompanying students with disabilities, precarious staff in
notoriously insufficient numbers. Cf. National strike of AESH,
Alternating Current n° 314 November 2021
3. One of the lessons from PISA 2022 on social inequalities is that
"France is still one of the OECD countries where the link between
socio-economic status economic performance of students and the
performance they obtain in PISA is the strongest"
4. New system of remuneration for overtime presented as a salary
increase cf the Pact, "I will make you an offer that you cannot refuse"
in CA n°333, October 2023
5. Unless otherwise indicated, the quotes in quotation marks in this
paragraph are taken from the Press kit of Tuesday December 5, 2023 "The
clash of knowledge. Raise the level of our school»
6. Cf. At the school of robots CA n° 331, June 2023
7. SNALC press release of December 5, 2023
8 Cf. the speech by Attal de Viry-Châtillon of April 18 on the "youth
violence"
P.-S.
On school and education in Courant Alternatif
The brochure "School, daughter and servant of capitalism" from the OCL
"Some elements on the privatization of National Education" , in Courant
Alternatif 301, June 2020
"The capital to attack vocational high schools" in Courant Alternatif
324, November 2022
"Education: from one pope to another" , Courant Alternatif 322, summer 2022
"Where is school going?» , Alternating Current 325, December 2022
and of course, still available or downloadable online the special issue
School between domination and emancipation
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4164
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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