-Let it be clear, first, our respect for the people (including deceased colleagues) who in good faith defended the approval of the LOGSE.
-Having said this, we must proclaim with forcefulness that the implementation of the LOGSE (and, more specifically, the ESO) has been, by far, the most colossal educational nonsense that Spain has committed in its entire history. And that its consequences have been devastating for teachers, for students, and for the present and future of our society as a whole. The current situation of secondary education in Spain is, due to its disastrous chain consequences, our most serious social problem. A problem whose only solution is to return to a system similar to that of BUP and COU.
-Focusing initially on the ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education), let's establish some facts and assessments.
1. Almost all the teachers who taught it know and affirm that with the previous system (BUP + COU) their professional performance, their social dignity, and their quality of life were much greater; and that their students were much better trained, both civically and in their humanistic, scientific, and technical preparation.
2. Teachers who, due to their age, did not get to teach BUP and COU, but who did take these studies, also know and affirm, almost unanimously, that the level of preparation (and let's not even mention order and respect) was then much higher than that of the current ESO.
3. Parents with children who previously took BUP and COU, and who in turn have younger children who have later taken or are taking ESO, almost unanimously confirm that they see the centers now as much less formative and much more problematic.
4. An overwhelming majority of university professors know and affirm that students arrived much better prepared at the University ten years ago (that is, before the ESO) than now.
5. The devastating effects of the lack of demand and discipline in the ESO have also been felt in FP. The distinguished freethinking intellectual, Alberto Rodríguez Álvarez, also a professor of FP for more than three decades, summarized it this way in his anthological work "The shadow of the ESO is long": "I have been forced to see, with concern and sadness, how the nobility of the students of yesteryear, of students who were by my side a few years ago, has been left by the wayside to give free rein to students lacking principles and who put the brakes on values such as friendship, solidarity, companionship, respect for others, acceptance of studies, etc. Students, all over 16 years old, very poorly educated, violent, intolerant, selfish, ungrateful, false, irresponsible, lazy..."
6. It is a fallacy to affirm that the ESO is socially advanced and supportive of the middle and lower classes of the population. And it is a fallacy, because what interests parents of the middle and lower classes is that their children are trained, in every sense, as well as possible, which is precisely what has ceased to happen with the implementation of the ESO.
7. It is a fallacy to affirm that the obligation for all adolescents to remain in centers until the age of 16 has improved the "right to education". It has worsened it a lot. Although the 1970 Law established free education, in the EGB, "until the age of 14", the reality is that any student who wished to could continue with the BUP and COU for free, with the only expense, as now, of buying their books and school supplies. What's more: the law even gave a margin of six years to complete the three courses of the Unified and Polyvalent Baccalaureate (BUP); and another three to complete the University Orientation Course (COU).
8. The essential differences (although there are other minor ones) between the desirable BUP and the disastrous ESO are three:
a) That the BUP was voluntary.
b) That to move on to the next course, it was necessary to assimilate the contents of each subject. This "previous base" guaranteed that the students were "well located" in courses that, in essence, they were able to pass, due to their intellectual capacity, or due to their special effort, or both.
c) That the level of demand of each subject (established by the Study Plan) was, in essence, non-negotiable and inexorable.
d) That inappropriate behaviors could be sanctioned exemplarily in various immediate ways. And that very serious or repeated offenses resulted in expulsion from the center and even in the deprivation of the right to continue BUP studies in any center. Expulsion was applied very little, but (and because) this sanctioning capacity was "there" as the "ultimate deterrent understood by all". (This element is essential for the functioning of any educational system. Without a doubt, the almost total discarding of expulsion in the ESO is at the base of the disorder and indiscipline in the current ESO centers and, therefore, at the base of the tragic debasement of the education imparted as well as at the base of the calcination -psychic, physical and moral- of the teaching staff).
9. The excuse that "the greater conflict in ESO centers is due to the increase in conflict on the street" is false. Rather, it is the other way around: the failure of this "anti-educational" system has generated greater youth conflict on the street. What street or domestic behaviors can be expected if even in the educational centers themselves a habit of order and respect is not consolidated? How can the most "anti-social" students not infect their attitude to a good part of their classmates if their misdeeds go unpunished? What moral references do we transmit to adolescents by tolerating, in the same Institutes, undermining and, sometimes, even criminal actions against students, teachers and non-teaching staff?
10. The pernicious effect of many television programs, and that of many Internet contents, as well as other contemporary circumstances, is undeniable. But this cannot obscure the very obvious "cause-effect" relationship between the implementation of the ESO and the breakdown of the Institutes at all levels. One fact proves it: only in the first quarter in which the first ESO groups arrived at the Institutes were there more discipline problems than in the previous five years with all the BUP and COU students together.
11. It would be, legislatively and operationally, long and cumbersome to return, as is, to the system enshrined in the 1970 Law (EGB-BUP-COU) including its denomination, curricula and distribution of courses (8 of Primary, 3 of BUP and 1 of COU). Our education and our society need, yes, drastic and effective solutions, but, at the same time, solutions that can be implemented almost immediately and with the least possible dissent. This can be achieved by preserving the "shell" (distribution of stages and cycles, curricula, teaching staff) of the current LOE but introducing the following essential modifications:
a) Establish at the end of Primary Education an Entrance Exam to Secondary Education (hereinafter "ES") offering, until the age of 14, an alternative itinerary to the ES for those who do not pass, or do not want to take, this Entrance Exam. In any case, students who so wish will have, with a positive report from the evaluation board, four opportunities to take this exam in the June and September calls of two consecutive years.
b) Limit to two, at all educational levels, the number of failed subjects with which you can move on to the next course.
c) Establish a Revalidation at the end of 4th of the ES, whose passing will be an essential requirement to study the Baccalaureate. Students who so wish will also have four opportunities to pass these Revalidation exams.
d) Place the right and duty of schooling at 14 years of age, enabling access to Vocational Training (FP), or directly to the labor market, from this age. (In England, young people can work for pay, with certain limits, from the age of 13. The best way to "responsibilize" and "motivate" adolescents who do not want to continue studying is to offer them the possibility of assuming the responsibilities, and enjoying the remuneration, that all work entails. Work, in any sector or company, is, in itself, educational, and constitutes a learning option as dignified as any other. It is not logical that a country that has opened its labor market to hundreds of thousands of immigrants prevents the "labor regularization" of its own adolescents until the age of 16. Many adolescents begin antisocial and criminal careers of difficult return precisely due to the lack of the legal option to work).
e) Without prejudice to the option, by judicial decision, of internment in properly said correctional facilities of those responsible for particularly serious acts (committed in the centers or outside of them) re-education centers with specific regulations and voluntary and specialized teaching staff will be created for students under 14 years of age who persistently cause conflicts in their schools and institutes. This is the only way to guarantee, in the rest of the centers, the respectful atmosphere of ordered freedom, discipline and work that constitute "conditiones sine quae non" for the effective educational process to which the rest of the students and parents have the right. (Indeed, purely and simply impossible, no matter how much we turn it over, to "restore authority to the teaching staff" if the suicidal premise is maintained that "the offending student is going to stay in the center anyway". Without clear options for punishment and expulsion, there is no education. The right to education must have, like all rights, its channels and its limits. In the same way that the constitutional right to "circulate freely through the country" is suspended if one commits a crime that entails imprisonment, similarly bad behavior, serious or repeated, in schools and institutes, not only should never go unpunished but should be deterred and penalized expeditiously, as the only way to achieve its prompt eradication and the consequent normalization of school life.
-In any case, minors under 14 years of age with inadmissible behaviors will continue to retain, until that age, and except in serious cases of internment in other precincts by judicial decision, the right to education in the re-education center, regional or district, to which they are referred).
Conclusion: Appeal to the Government and society
-We respectfully urge the President of the Government, Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero, and the entire Government of Spain, to undertake the reforms proposed here -and other complementary ones of a similar nature- to reverse the process of self-destruction in which the educational system is immersed and to enable the return of school peace and all the beneficial effects that this entails.
-We also urge teachers, parents of students (individually and through their associations), to raise their voices unequivocally through the faculty and school councils, publicly manifesting themselves to exercise the necessary pressure so that our rulers change the course, today suicidal, of our Public Education.
-This change of course, which our Education imperiously needs, is not, should not be, a matter of ideological, political or partisan character. It is not a matter of PSOE, PP or IU, or of centralisms or nationalisms. We are facing a matter of common sense, of common defense of Spain and its future. Or, for those who prefer another formulation, of logical defense of social and family interests in all regions and nationalities of Spain.
-But, above all, we are facing the obligation (required by the Constitution that defines us as a "social and democratic State of law... that advocates as superior values of its legal system freedom, justice, equality...") to defend the educational interests of the children of the middle and lower classes of the population. Indeed, the erroneous principles on which the LOGSE was based, and more specifically, the ESO, have created a chasm between (to call them that "roughly") poor and rich. The environmental, educational and formative difference between public and subsidized schools (and let's not even mention private ones) is today much greater than it was fifteen years ago. The solution cannot be (as seems to be deduced from some approaches) to equalize downwards and distribute misery "forcing subsidized centers to function as public ones currently function". No. Obviously, the only progressive and sensible solution is to "modify the system so that public centers can function, as far as possible, as private ones are doing".
-For the above purposes, the collaboration of the unions and parties (IU, UGT, CCOO, etc.) that, together with the PSOE and since 1985, conceived the LOGSE-ESO and its implementation and continuity would be very desirable (although it is not in any way essential). We understand that it would be morally hard and strategically very complicated for these unions and parties to recognize their serious initial errors, and their stubborn persistence in them throughout the last decade, to some extent until today. It would be counterproductive, and even malicious and opportunistic on the part of their adversaries (adversaries who, for the most part, have not done much to change the situation either) to demand ostentatious chest-beating and public rectifications from them. It will suffice, then, with their responsible silence, with their invaluable tacit cooperation (without prejudice to the critical "nuances" that they deem appropriate) to enable the Government and, where appropriate, the Congress, to quickly culminate the process of change and get us out of the current quagmire in the very short term. But, however much we wish to avoid already sterile and counterproductive reproaches, no one should forget one thing: most of the diagnoses of this work (and, to a significant extent, of its proposals) are an open secret, shared by the overwhelming majority of the teaching staff. Only modesty, fear, and media pressure have prevented the convictions that almost everyone expresses in "petit comité" from being raised to "public". But, gentlemen, the situation is changing. Those who insist, putting stones in the way, on keeping (the teaching staff, the public centers and society) sunk in the infamous current quagmire, are going to pay for it, harshly and perhaps for decades, in the political and union polls.
-Precisely, one of the pretensions of this work is to stimulate, not only the teaching staff and parents, but also associations and personalities from all areas and ideologies, to break the ominous wall of silence, the shameful "omertá", which has been constricting the free expression of the majority thought during the last decade. Because it is unlikely that politicians "will change things for us" if we sit down to wait for them and do not request it energetically. Because, friends, there is no greater force than that of inertia. Let's combatively pulverize that inertia!
-Finally, we reiterate our formal request to the Hon. Mr. President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to his Government, to the socialist parliamentary group, and to the Federal Executive of the PSOE, to immediately and urgently begin the path towards the requested reforms. They will have the support of 90% of society, since the socialist groups themselves, and in general the social base of the PSOE, have only continued to defend the indefensible (and that with their mouths small) out of mere partisan loyalty.
It is to be assumed that the Government will have guaranteed, in this area, the political and parliamentary collaboration of the PP, as it has guaranteed the sympathy of the majority of independent intellectuals. Whether or not it has the support, tacit or explicit, of its current de facto partners (IU, ERC, BNG, XA, etc.) or that of the rest of the groups (CiU, PNV, CC, EA, etc.) will depend on them, but if they obstruct the process, let each stick then hold its candle in the elections.
It is our wish that the usual parliamentary partners of the Government do not threaten to break the current "entente" if the PSOE addresses the reforms proposed here. But if this were the case, Mr. Zapatero could always end the legislature with the support of the PP. If in Germany the two major parties have joined forces (during an entire legislature) to enable social reforms that they understand are necessary, with much more reason can the same be done in Spain during half a legislature to guarantee a superior social good and whose need is even more evident: the right to an "Education" that deserves such a name.
Emilio de Fez Marrero
