For at least the last thirty years, the character of the school in the North and West has been marked by conservative and business dogmas.

 

To the number of these that keep returning, we note the increased inclination for a system of marking pupils during the entirety of their education.  Even if giving marks does not hold up under analysis in terms of its educational effectiveness, it is seen in the eyes of public opinion to assure against academic failure.  The Canton of Geneva recently held a referendum in which a large majority of voters approved the return of marks at school.

 

With the notion that boys do not succeed in mixed classes, the idea of single-sex classes –and in effect single-sex schools - is being discussed as a possible solution to the academic problems of boys.  In the United States, the Bush administration has just authorized – in effect encouraged – the creation of separate schools for girls and boys.  What is not said is that the success of girls seems to worry the very old macho base of the neoconservatives. 

 

Another dogma is affording the Darwinian theory of evolution equal status with the creationist ideology which seeks to be imposed (under the new trappings of “intelligent design”) in the United States, but also in Europe, most notably in Great Britain, the Netherlands and Poland.  The holders of this ideology state that the traditional scientific model of evolution by means of natural selection is not sufficient to understand the origin, the complexity and the diversity of life, and that there are examples of irreducible complexity which cannot be explained by the Darwinian theory of evolution.

 

In addition, since the 1980s, educational policies have been greatly influenced by international economic organisations – in particular the OECD and the Bretton Woods institutions – which in turn are followed by state domestic politics, assuring the best alignment possible of the schools to the demands of the contemporary market – the credo of the decision-makers and educational policy-makers inscribed within the logic of competition.  It was within this context that the ideology of “testing” took flight in that it takes the idea of social selection established in schools and allows pupils – these future workers – to be selected according to their results, in the various educational streams which are the means of selection and elimination before the forces of the workplace.

 

The idea of placing students, of sorting them by means of academic performance, gender and belief, constitutes a worrying regression in the ideal of democratic education for all without discrimination.  In the face of this conservative and reactionary offensive, it is time to rediscover the classical notions of education in cooperation, solidarity and the interest of the child and to denounce these abuses of language and power.