The latest PISA results once again place education at the center of public debate. In Catalonia, however, this time we have an even more elementary problem: we do not even know well enough where we stand. The exclusion of an excessive portion of the student body from the sample of students who took the PISA tests means that the results of Catalan boys and girls are not comparable. It is a significant technical and political fiasco. But perhaps we run the risk that the discussion about who is to blame prevents us from seeing a deeper issue. PISA is talking to us about mathematics, science, and reading comprehension. But it is also talking to us, indirectly, about democracy. The OECD points to a worrying decline in the reading ability of our children and identifies an especially revealing phenomenon: the number of young people who read quickly, superficially, and respond before having understood the text well is growing. At the same time, the use of social networks is increasing, and more than a quarter of the students state that digital devices habitually cause distractions in class.The issue, in my opinion, is not to totally demonize screens. Used well, technology can be an extraordinary learning tool. The problem is another: we are educating a generation in an ecosystem that rewards speed, constant interruption, immediate response, and emotional impact. And then we ask them to read with attention, to distinguish a fact from an opinion, to compare sources, to identify manipulation, and to listen to arguments with which they do not agree. These are not just school skills: they are democratic skills.The temporal coincidence is unsettling. While we discuss the PISA results, in Germany the far-right AfD has just obtained nearly 45% of the votes in Saxony-Anhalt. A year and a half earlier, it had already doubled its support in the federal elections and had become the second political force in the country. Germany is once again asking itself to what extent a democracy can see the values that sustain it eroded from within. It would be absurd, and too convenient, to establish a causal line between TikTok and the vote for the far right. The causes of the AfD's growth are much more complex, but we should not ignore the information ecosystem in which these concerns are transformed into political behavior. Networks do not necessarily invent unrest, but they can amplify it. They do not necessarily create polarization, but they reward content that outrages. And disinformation is especially effective when it confirms what we would already like to believe. That is why the problem of fake news is not just that we do not know how to detect a false piece of news. The most difficult problem appears when we know, or suspect, that information is false and, despite everything, we decide to share it because it reinforces our prejudices, harms the adversary, or reaffirms our identity.We are no longer just talking about digital literacy here. We are talking about democratic ethics. For many years, we have acted as if democracy were an infrastructure that, once built, functioned almost by itself: a Constitution, periodic elections, parliaments, courts, and freedom of the press. All of this is essential. But it is not enough. A democracy needs citizens willing to participate, capable of listening and deliberating, with the judgment to evaluate information and enough democratic resilience to continue respecting rules, rights, and opponents even when they are angry, afraid, or feel like they are losing. And these capabilities do not appear spontaneously when we turn eighteen. They are learned.This is where the school acquires a responsibility that goes far beyond recovering points in PISA. Obviously, we must improve mathematics, science, and reading. In fact, being able to understand a complex text is probably one of the best defenses against manipulation. But educating democratic citizens does not consist of adding an hour of "values" to the curriculum or memorizing how Parliament works. Democracy is learned by practicing it. It is learned when a student has to defend a position with arguments and listen to the opposing one. When they have to distinguish a reliable source from one that is not. When they work with other students with whom they do not share an origin, opinion, or interests. When they participate in a real decision of the school and discover that their voice has consequences. When they have to accept losing a vote. When they verify that being convinced of something does not equate to being right.Perhaps, then, after PISA we should formulate a slightly different question. Not just how many points we want to recover in reading or mathematics, but what kind of citizen we want to emerge from our schools. Someone capable of reading a long text. Of listening to an opinion they detest. Of distinguishing a scientific argument from a slogan. Of not sharing a lie even if it favors their own. Of participating without wanting to exclude. And of defending democratic rules even when the result is not what they would want. If the school does not help to form this citizen, the problem we have is quite a bit more serious than performing poorly in PISA. We need above all to teach how to live democratically in a world that will continue to be digital.
