Lisa Kamen is a teacher. She is the author of “La Grande Garderie
” (Albin Michel, 2023).
About twenty years ago, I changed careers.
I was a consultant, as they say, in a communications agency.
Thanks to a slightly less prosperous period, my little girl's dream resurfaced: to become a schoolteacher, to pass on my passion for literature, to help children discover their field of excellence, to cultivate their curiosity, their independence , give them the keys to learn on their own afterwards.
My decision made, I was impatient to change my life.
I applied to public and private teacher training institutes.
The first sent me forms to fill out;
the latter received me and questioned me about my motivations and my expectations.
My choice was made: I would take the competitive exam to join a private school.
I preferred human beings to algorithms.
During a dinner with the friends I frequented most, mostly graduates of Sciences Po and business schools, I joyfully announced my reconversion and clarified that I had decided to take the private school exam. .
After a moment of general consternation, the questions came flooding in, then the remark:
“but do you realize that you will be paid to brainwash your students?”
It was then explained to me that I was committing separatism by going to work in a Catholic school, even under contract, and that I would do well to reconsider my position.
Teacher yes, fantastic, what a great job!
But then we had to become a soldier of the republic and of living together!
Although I explained that I had not encountered any proselytism among my interlocutors, that they were content to demand from me
"benevolent neutrality"
regarding religion and that they welcomed my own doubts and questions with interest, I I was disqualified in a few words.
Yet I was still the same, living with a man without being married, going out dancing in a sequined miniskirt and hanging out with people of all origins and religions.
Nothing helped: I was irremediably tainted by an original crime of religious obscurantism.
From a “so swag” girl I had gone to a “bigot-reactive-no-make-up-flat-heels”.
Since then I have continued to face this type of criticism, almost everywhere, even if the schools in which I worked welcome students of all origins and all conditions.
Supporters of academic freedom never call for the closure of public schools.
On the contrary, they demand the possibility of creating and operating schools – all types of schools – in conditions of healthy competition, that is to say with more egalitarian financing.
Lisa Kamen
However, a few years later, these friends had children, almost all of whom were educated in prestigious Parisian Catholic schools.
Some moved to achieve their goals... The same people who strongly criticized my choices a few years earlier denied their opinions as soon as they became parents.
Obviously, none of them called me to kindly say: “you know, you were right: today we agree to recognize parents' total freedom to send their children to school wherever they wish.” .
When I managed to drag them into this area, they argued that the public schools in their neighborhood – 5th, 6th, 7th or 14th arrondissements… – were less demanding, that discipline there was less firm and that they had the reputation of often be on strike.
Unsurprisingly, like all parents, they wanted the best for the children.
They also continued to publicly defend forced social diversity and the limitation of the private sector to 20% of the public workforce, but did everything to escape it.
The “public-private war” revived by the Stanislas affair was not initiated by private schools.
Supporters of academic freedom never call for the closure of public schools.
On the contrary, they demand the possibility of creating and operating schools – all types of schools – in conditions of healthy competition, that is to say with more egalitarian financing such as the education voucher or on the basis of 'a tax exemption.
Public financing of private choices reflects the freedom guaranteed by the Debré law to choose the school of one's children, within the limits of public order and security of course.
This equality, which consists of monopolizing public money to pay it to those who find favor in the eyes of those in power, prevents the most modest from accessing the schools of their choice.
Lisa Kamen
When the Paris town hall suspends its grants even though the Stanislas high school trial has not been investigated, it breaks a contractual obligation and contravenes a fundamental freedom: that of choosing one's school.
One in two students “go” through the private sector at least once during their schooling.
What parent can be absolutely certain that they will never need to use a private charter school or even a free school?
Who can, without blinking, affirm that their child will never be harassed or fail in the class assigned to them by the school map?
Why refuse a particular pedagogy to those who want it?
In the name of equality?
A fallacious argument since this equality which consists of monopolizing public money to pay it to those who find favor in the eyes of those in power prevents the most modest from accessing the schools of their choice.
An IFOP study from May 2023 shows that 58% of French people think that students do not benefit from the same opportunities in public schools.
To the question
“Do you consider that the State would advance equality of opportunity in France if it allowed the most disadvantaged to access the public or private school of their choice, by covering all tuition fees? and by removing the school card?
, 56% of French people answer yes.
This strong desire for freedom is also manifested by the growing number of students in non-contract schools, which often have nothing religious about them (only 30% of non-contract schools are religious, and this figure is falling).
Also read: Chantal Delsol on the Stanislas controversy: “Is it still allowed to provide Catholic education?”
If we really want neutrality and efficiency in public spending, how can we explain that no one questions the 400,000 euros which are paid by the Paris town hall to LGBT associations, the 200,000 euros which were granted to the company Dédale to design and install “parklets” instead of car parks, urban convivial spaces where no one ever stops?
Would taxpayers acquiesce if they knew that the city pays money to associations such as "channeling the energy of young people in Belleville Park through board games", "We want poppies", the association Maydée, which intends to raise awareness of the unequal distribution of domestic tasks between men and women, or the “citizen assembly of people from Turkey (acort)” which called a few months ago to demonstrate against “police violence”?
We should ask the Parisian if he prefers to provide private schools that help their students succeed or maintain plastic arts or urban dance workshops to help migrants
“meet the other”
as the BAAM association (Bureau reception and support for migrants which can be found on the Paris transcultural network portal).
We must cease fire, draw inspiration from what works in each of the two systems and give parents, the first educators of their children, freedom – and responsibility!
– to choose the education system that seems suitable to them.
Lisa Kamen
Furthermore, removing this public funding from private schools mechanically increases the tuition fees that establishments are then required to charge families.
This is a little more punishing low-income families who would like to join these establishments.
However, many of them no longer want to be placed under house arrest by the school card.
What then consists of the “specific character” of Catholic establishments, if they do not have the right to speak about the faith nor to base their pedagogy on a Christian anthropology, one which allows each person to make free and responsible choices? , to respond to one's vocation and develop one's uniqueness, one's heart and one's conscience?
The megalomaniac madness of the supporters of the all-state, convinced that it can provide a response adapted to each individual, leads them to demand the abolition of public funding of private schools.
But the State would today be incapable of integrating 2 million students into public schools, for budgetary and organizational reasons.
Furthermore, it would undoubtedly face resistance from many families who would find a way to operate these schools without public assistance and would thus be freed from the obligation to follow the programs and to train and recruit teachers in accordance with the obligations imposed. by the ministry.
No one wants to get to that point.
This is why we must cease fire, draw inspiration from what works in each of the two systems and leave parents, the first educators of their children, freedom – and responsibility!
– to choose the education system that seems suitable to them.