Merit, finally. For the first time, a government introduces mechanisms and, above all, funds - 200 million - in schools to enhance the merit of teachers. It is one of the cornerstones of what Matteo Renzi defined yesterday at the press conference, after the green light of the CDM for the bill, "The main reform for our country".
Together with the valorisation of merit, among the ten points presented by the Premier, autonomy and the hiring of one hundred thousand precarious workers undoubtedly constitute the strategic nodes for the conceptual revolution of the school which intertwine with each other to determine a system of virtuous effects.
For some time now, the promotion of teachers' merit, starting with the generous attempt by the Berlinguer ministry, has been the subject of contradictory resistance from the teachers themselves who are wary of all the mechanisms hypothesized so far for deciding who and how to evaluate. Well, Renzi solved this dilemma with an agile move, entrusting the task to the principals who will decide also taking into account the opinion of the teaching colleges.
The issue of valuing merit is not only linked to the economic bonus but is also implicit in other points of the reform, in the direct call of teachers by the principals on the basis of the curriculum and in the context of a professional register. Furthermore, always to the valorisation of merit it is necessary to ascribe the recruitment of teachers by competition, once the notorious rankings have been exhausted.
The three key points of the reform thus intertwine with each other in a framework which is that of autonomy finally substantiated in the concrete implementation of the legislative measures adopted since the end of the nineties, but so far thwarted by bureaucratic and centralist formalisms.
The autonomous schools will now have, thanks to the recruitment of the hundred thousand, also a functional staff, that is a sort of task force that will make the coverage of sudden and temporary absences agile and prompt. But above all the autonomous schools will operate in terms of responsibility towards the users and their principals will be evaluated for the results that the schools they direct will obtain.
These principals will certainly have more powers, they will be able to call the teachers directly, they will decide who to reward and so on, but they will have to account for the efficiency and effectiveness of their choices, in any case not arbitrary but always made in relation to predefined criteria such as the professional qualifications and teachers' CVs.
Finally, the one hundred thousand hires will heal a painful wound, that of many people forced into uncertainty and precariousness and will provide schools with sufficient staff to meet the needs hitherto compressed. Above all, they will ensure that there are never more chicken coop classes. At the same time it will put an end to a perverse mechanism - that of substitutes - which did not guarantee quality and generated disappointing expectations.
In this regard, there are several perplexities that are raised about the time needed to make recruitment possible by September. To those who ask at the press conference if we will make it in time for that date, the Premier replies "Parliament will succeed, one way or another" and insists "Parliament will succeed. This sentence is beautiful – he adds jokingly to Undersecretary Graziano Delrio. But, above all, the exhortation is addressed to Parliament, to act quickly and well.
The other aspects of the reform – transparency, introduction of music and art – all respond to quality goals that tend to change and improve not only the school but the society itself that is formed in the school.
A revolution therefore more than a reform, but perhaps it is better, as Renzi says in a press conference (“Enough with the reforms!”), a series of common sense choices that can lead to concrete effects.
