I ended the first text in this series by asking this question: shouldn’t our education system smooth out inequities rather than deepen them? In a society that is said to be inclusive and egalitarian, the answer is self-evident; but if we recognize today the existence of the school market in Quebec, solutions to put an end to it are still rare. However, there are some. The École ensemble collective has even put together a whole plan “that Quebec could put into motion tomorrow morning” or almost, if the will was there.
I spoke with its coordinator and co-founder, Stéphane Vigneault, a parent from Gatineau who, when he noticed that the public international school in his neighborhood was selecting children as young as seven years old, did not want to stand by crossed. It was in 2017. He and other parents dove in and founded the collective to put equal opportunities back at the heart of the education system.
Five years later, after helping to lift the taboo of the famous three speeds, doing their homework better than many Ministers of Education and reading tons of studies, thinking, collating, analyzing and calculating, they arrived with their Plan for a common school network.
Break the vicious circle
The birth of the three speeds goes back a long way, Vigneault reminds me. In 1968, when the National Union decided to subsidize private schools to cope with the baby boom, 5% of secondary school students attended them. Today, this proportion has increased to 21%. However, the public having in the meantime decided to compete with the private sector by focusing on selective individual programs to attract “clientele”, this means that 44% of young people in secondary school are going to school today. private school or to the selective public.
The ordinary public (the third gear) finds itself increasingly skimmed, disadvantaged or struggling students are over-represented, which “reinforces the appeal of the private sector and particular projects”, underlines École ensemble. “The more public school is avoided, the more we avoid it!” » said the Gatineau resident. In Montreal in particular, where one in two high school students is in the private or selective public sector, school shopping is becoming an extreme sport from which it is difficult to escape… So, what do we do?
To break this vicious circle, École ensemble has a bold proposal, which changes from the unilateral “defunding” of private schools: create a common network 100% subsidized, to which private schools are free to join. Those that do so become “agreed private schools”: their attendance is free, they retain their management autonomy, but can no longer select their students. Those who decide to stay away retain their right to select, but no longer receive any public funding, direct or indirect, and therefore demand substantial tuition fees.
Fairer tomorrows
In this completely free common network, there are only neighborhood schools, each with its own school catchment area. ” But let’s see ! People will move, secondary schools located in certain neighborhoods will be higher, segregation will be renewed! » ; I can hear the criticisms coming from here — but École ensemble listened before me. The collective therefore formulated a brilliant proposal, which could well constitute the Trojan horse of the acceptability of the plan: create equitable and optimized school catchments, all counting approximately the same percentage of families with children of school age with at least one parent with a university degree. It even mandated a Swiss consulting firm, Ville Juste, to carry out the exercise with the City of Laval.
We don’t repeat it enough: the variable of the parent having a university degree (which goes hand in hand with a better socio-economic situation) has a great impact on a child’s academic success and their eventual enrollment in university. However, rankings of all kinds are limited to linking the latter with the type of secondary school attended (private or public), which erroneously feeds the vicious circle mentioned above. By ensuring diversity within each establishment of the common network, the School Together plan (another of whose proposals is to offer a free choice of particular courses to all, without selection and free of charge) establishes a new circle, virtuous that – this, which would increase academic results, school perseverance and social cohesion.
Some resistance is to be expected. But in a Swiss canton where the pools were optimized at the start of the 2023 school year, the explanations and benefits (proximity, groups of friends who remain united, saved travel time, community spirit, etc.) apparently had quickly erases the parents’ fleeting fears.
Perfect ? Probably not.
Perfection is impossible, and expecting it borders on a stagnation that allows inequities to grow (and asbestos ceilings to collapse). For Stéphane Vigneault, we have to move. No new states general on education to underline what we already know, so he dreams instead of a traveling commission, which would carry out consultations “exactly as was done for the DPJ by Régine Laurent; here is a plan, here is a solution to our problem, what do you think? And we refine it.”
According to a CROP survey commissioned by École ensemble in 2022, 85% of people are in favor of the model proposed by the collective. “When everyone is involved, everyone has an interest in making it work; it’s like the RQAP (Quebec Parental Insurance Plan)! » exclaims Stéphane Vigneault. Do we really need political courage when the winds are favorable?
This new system will of course not be homogeneous like good milk. I point out to him that because of the cumbersomeness of public school administration, approved private schools having retained their management model will continue to enjoy enviable agility – but Vigneault hopes that we will draw inspiration from this model rather than let it be swallowed by the machine. In addition, certain non-agreed private schools will continue to welcome students from highly advantaged families; a percentage “which should peak at 6 or 7%, like in Ontario,” according to him.
For now, what is certain is that time is running out — and that the School Together plan would benefit from being more widely discussed. Education is a social issue; everyone needs to talk about it. If ever the show of the same name is looking for a guest…