A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #340 - Education: the shock strategy! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

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
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