Congratulations to the charter school
Charter schools are thriving, especially those that carry out social integration work, which, contrary to what some believe, is quite important. Elite private schools (without government funding) are often confused with charter schools, which encompass a wide variety: teachers' cooperatives, religious schools, etc. In Barcelona's Raval district, where ARA is based, there are several long-established charter schools that serve thousands of children from low-income families with diverse backgrounds. This doesn't change the fact that public education, across Catalonia, is responsible for the bulk of education. Including preschool, primary, secondary, and vocational training, the figures are as follows: 3,835 public schools (with over one million students, 65% of the total and 75% of all Catalan students with special educational needs) and 681 charter schools (350,000 students, 22%). There are 940 private, non-subsidized schools (more than 150,000 students, 11% of the total, and 2.7% of those with special needs).
The 390 million euros that the Government has promised to these schools should serve to compensate for the historical deficits they carry: 193 million euros (between now and 2030) for operating expenses and 150 million euros to fund staffing, a budget item that had not been reviewed in the last decade. There will also be 41 million students in vulnerable situations. As I said, this is directly and tangibly good news for these schools.
The second piece of good news concerns a measure that indirectly benefits them: the weakening of the autonomy of public school leadership. International educational bodies (GEM UNESCO 2024 and the OECD's TALIS report, the PISA for teachers) have long been calling for the strengthening of educational leadership and autonomous school projects. In practice, in the Catalan public system, this had translated into a tentative step towards better training for principals, higher salaries, and a small margin of choice in selecting their teams according to the specific needs of the school. Now, suddenly, as a result of the agreement with the unions, this has been interrupted. Seniority will once again prevail as the main centralized criterion for assigning teachers.
What does this mean? Well, some schools (the private ones) will continue to form teams with the most suitable profiles, while others (the public ones) will remain immersed in a kind of lottery and weakened, moreover, by great instability: every year, a third of public school teachers change schools. It's as if, in the same neighborhood, one store sold hand-picked apples and the other could only offer the ones supplied by the distributor.
The recurring question at the beginning of the school year in public schools will continue to be: "Let's see who we get. Let's hope we're lucky and someone suitable and willing to get involved comes along." A question not asked by families or children, but by the teachers themselves. Can a school or high school function properly like this? How can a team work well in this context? How can a faculty meeting—the place where educational and organizational matters are debated and agreed upon—function well if its composition depends largely on chance, if the team itself, under the leadership of the administration, cannot find professionals suited to the task and the environment? Good leadership is that which knows how to involve and motivate all the teachers, that which gives everyone a voice within the faculty, that which fosters cohesion and creates a sense of school identity. Of course, a leadership with more power, if it is authoritarian and unwilling to engage in dialogue, is a disaster. But experience clearly shows that a lack of leadership in schools does not work. The problem in many schools and institutes is that, with the system to which we are now returning, nobody wants to be a principal because it involves a lot of underappreciated work, giving up teaching, taking on bureaucratic tasks, and, ultimately, receiving responsibilities and pressures without any room to maneuver. This is what was beginning to change in recent years. Now they're backtracking. A disaster. Is anyone surprised that the image of public education is worsening compared to private schools?