In “Deconstructing the three-speed school in Quebec” recently published in The duty, professors Marie-Odile Magnan and Julie Larochelle-Audet explain that many of their students (current or future principals) try once they return to work to develop “bold projects to shake up, within their school , the school market” even if they “know that it is not enough! “.
The authors put their finger on a major issue in the fight against the three-speed school: the solution can only be structural and must take into account the entire education system. We cannot place the weight of the inequity of the Quebec model on the shoulders of certain players in public schools. Local or individual initiatives, however laudable they may be, will not overcome our unjust system; it is up to the Quebec government to include subsidized private schools in the equation and to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity in education.
Deconstructing the three-speed school is necessary. But what to replace the current model? Answering this question is the mandate that École ensemble has given itself and which led to the publication, last May, of the Plan for a common school network intended to put public schools and private schools under agreement school market shelter.
All the schools in the common network would be free, the private schools under agreement would therefore be 100% financed by the State. This way of putting them at the service of the common good is inspired by Finland, where their inclusion took place in 1972.
All the schools in the common network would have their own school pool. The use of the innovation of optimized school areas will allow students to go to school near their homes while socio-economically balancing schools in the same area.
Schools in the common network would also offer a choice of specific courses to all pupils: it would be a matter of free choice, because these specific courses would be free. This improvement would take advantage of the resources of the environment as well as the general culture of the teachers. Introduction to the Innu language, orchestra, outdoor sports: each school would have its own personality.
Outside the common network, we would find private schools that would have chosen not to agree. These would continue to select their students and charge tuition fees, but they would no longer have any public funding, either direct or indirect. The Plan is inspired in this by Ontario, where private schools are not subsidized. The students who attend them cost the taxpayers nothing.
The Plan has been praised since its launch by several personalities, including Pauline Marois, Lise Bissonnette and Camil Bouchard. For Guy Rocher, this is “the most coherent project to return to the intention of the Parent report and finally settle the problem”. The common network is now attracting attention outside Quebec, as evidenced by the invitation made to École ensemble to go and present it last December in Barcelona at the congress of the European Cities Against School Segregation initiative. I was also able to hand-deliver a copy of the Plan to the Catalan Minister of Education.
Foreign newspapers talk about the common network, as at the start of the year in the major Spanish-language daily El País. Other articles are to be published, in Chile in particular. This international interest should remind us that educational inequity is not unique to Quebec and that many societies are trying to get out of this vicious circle. The Minister of Education of France must also very soon announce measures in favor of mixed schools.
The year 2022 has been an opportunity for Quebec society to experience unprecedented awareness of the negative consequences of the three-speed school system. The thirst for change is strong. Will the Minister of Education Bernard Drainville be able to grab the bull by the horns or will we be entitled to four years of patching?
The transformation we are proposing is pragmatic, quantified and achievable. For a government preoccupied with its legacy, it is much simpler to put in place than having to wrestle with the consequences of the three-speed school, the example of the shortage of teachers springing spontaneously to mind. . Building a school network that lives up to our democratic ideals is indeed an exciting project for Quebec.