Now against and on Good school almost everything has been said and, thanks to the torrid heat of recent days, after 277 votes have passed it in the Chamber of Deputies, the protests and uproar staged outside Montecitorio have moved to social networks and in the fiery declarations of the trade unions that promise a warm autumn in the school. On the net runs the unsustainable appeal not to sign the law, addressed to the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella and the disquisitions on an alleged unconstitutionality of the provision abound.
However, the sharpest arrows have as their target the introduction of reward evaluation of teachers. In reality, the army of rioting teachers and trade union pasdaran, led by the praetorians of demagoguery such as Fassina and Grillo, who just can't digest the little enhancement of merit introduced by the law, are all children of '68 and the consequent Decrees delegates of 1974. In the name of an egalitarianism that was certainly not fairness, that was the climate of the political six and of laxity and for about thirty years those generations fed on it, producing condescending and overprotective parents, giving up and demotivated teachers.
Those who scream the most are certainly the most unqualified, those who perhaps have the most to fear from the introduction of evaluation mechanisms, but there are also large swathes of teachers, albeit good and scrupulous, who allow themselves to be convinced by pharisaic arguments such as " merit yes, but this is not the right way to introduce it”. It is a pity that it is the same argument used fifteen years ago against the proposal of the then Minister of Education Luigi Berlinguer, which perhaps guaranteed greater objectivity of evaluation because it linked it to a sort of competition based on three components: curriculum, written tests pedagogical and field observation.
Probably other solutions could also be found, such as attributing the evaluation of the effectiveness of the training action to third parties, with mechanisms capable of guaranteeing greater objectivity and validity, but often the best is the enemy of the good and the search for perfection becomes an alibi for do not act. However, this is an epochal turning point for the school. A forty-year taboo, sanctioned precisely by those delegated decrees of 1973 and 1974, is finally broken down and concrete prospects open up for making the school system more competitive at European level and for adapting it to the best qualitative and functional standards, on the principles of meritocracy and autonomy.
Another wall that is creaking is the one that prevented, despite the extensive legislation from 1997 to 2000, a true implementation of autonomy. Today, greater responsibilities are entrusted to the principals such as the ability to identify some teachers from the autonomous staff to be called on the three-year plan of the offer, the possibility of appointing one's own collaborators up to 10% of the staff, the function of guidance in the training path of the three-year plan of the offer and the attribution of ownership in the management of the reward bonus. Today's controversies against merit are thus also welded to the other vexed question, that of powers to the principals who is held up as a terrifying bogeyman. This, however, does not make the principals of the satraps endowed with absolute power but managers who must answer for the choices and actions taken, without being able to hide behind the alibi of bureaucratic and hyper-guaranteed shackles. Of course, it is true that more power to bad principals can cause serious damage as Roger Abravanel stated during the presentation in Rome of his book “Playtime is fake”, last June 25, just as the Senate approved the bill on the Good School. Perhaps greater damage than what the bureaucratic hobble causes to the good headmaster, but the way is paved towards a system that will be rewarding for the good headmasters and which finally allows for wrong – or, worse, dishonest – results and choices to be charged to incapable headmasters or irresponsible.
The protest of the unions and teachers enchanted by the extremist demagoguery, which threatens to set the beginning of the next school year on fire, however appears even more incomprehensible when compared to the huge investment plan of 3 billion and the recruitment of 100.000 precarious workers plus a competition for 60.000 teachers.
Breaking with the trend of recent years, eliminating linear cuts and hiring freezes, wasn't that something leftist?
