After visiting the Richhom school in the popular Goutte d’Or in Paris (18th century) in November, Jean-Michel Blanquer returned ecstatic. “The students there reach the same level as the students of the 7th district” in beautiful areas. This is confirmed: an institution in the Reinforced Priority Education Network (REP+) has benefited from duplication of classes in a large part of kindergarten, CP and CE1 in disadvantaged areas.
“Duplication,” explains the Minister of National Education, “is the driving force behind all my actions in this ministry.” A symbolic measure of social justice to fulfill Emmanuel Macron’s promise to end France’s sad track record of educational inequality, fight house arrest, promote “emancipation”, commit to “poor children will not be poor tomorrow”.
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In fact, all international studies prescribe to put the package on small classes, showing that it is at an early age that difficulties are settled. Launched at the beginning of the 2017 school year, these programs now reach 380,000 students (20% of the age group) in 1,050 REP and REP+ schools, with an additional 10,800 teachers.
In these classes with twelve students, the atmosphere is more relaxed, the students are attentive, the teachers rested. And the parents are very happy. But are the results consistent? Jean-Michel Blanquer confirms Problems that the gap between REP students and non-REP students was reduced from eleven to seven points in reading fluency, thus by 36%: “This is an outstanding result. I can be proud of the work that has been done,” the minister launches, even as he acknowledges that “2020 lockdown has delayed progress that is still patchy.”
Expensive device
However, an in-depth study published in September by his ministry in the Department of Evaluation, Forecasting and Performance, validated by a panel of independent experts, shows a much smaller reduction in the gap: 14% in mathematics and 9% in French. Very timid progress when the Minister’s goal was to achieve “100% success in KP”, which meant that priority education students had completely caught up with the rest. And disappointingly, the results are half as expected, given the many evaluations of class size reduction experiments around the world.
Fewer employees in priority areas
“Everyone shows an effect that is not impressive, but very strong, even without special educational support,” says Julien Grenet from the Paris School of Economics. A member of the panel of experts, he offers an explanation for this disappointment: the number of classes, already smaller in the priority zone, “decreased by an average of only seven students, not twelve.”
However, for Elise Willery, a Paris-Dauphine economist and specialist in school affairs, to be effective, duplication had to be accompanied by a change in mentality: “There were indeed math and French plans for teacher training, but there was nothing to work on. motivation, cooperation… all these skills, so lacking in the French school system, are still characterized by too vertical authority, forbidding erroneous status, a punitive grading system.
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More hindsight to measure effects?
We certainly need more in hindsight for the measure to have its full effect, while duplication is being phased in (large portions of the REP are still waiting until the start of the 2022 school year) and Covid-19 has disrupted schooling. for two years. Moreover, problems with the premises also delayed its implementation.
“We had to take over the library, the computer lab or the extracurricular activities,” says Delphine Labay, mayor (PS) of Periguet, who is in charge of the school at the Association of Mayors of France. In Seine-Saint-Denis, due to the lack of the ability to move the walls, many schools were left with a two-teacher-per-class arrangement, set up at the behest of François Hollande. The fact remains that with such a modest balance sheet, duplication is very costly. Economists from the Institute for Public Policy (IPP) estimated it in 2017 at 700 million euros per year for CP and CE1, to which should be added 300 million for large sections of kindergartens.
bad zoning
Therefore, it is difficult to claim victory like Jean-Michel Blanquet. “Much of his strategy for primary school has been focused on priority education, which weighs only 20% of the total, and this is only for the levels of the large section, CP and CE1,” OECD expert Eric Charbonnier raises the question. what has been done remains small compared to the great whole.”
Even worse, the device largely fails its purpose, according to Louis Moren of think tank l’Observatoire des Inequalities, due to poor REP and REP+ zoning: “70% of disadvantaged children are not educated in these priority networks!” » If the duplication is going in the right direction, his verdict is harsh: “This is not at all up to the task of fighting inequality.”