The concert business 
subsidized centers out cheaper governments to invest in schools public - education experts warn that social cohesion suffers where private network progresses Start
September and, with it, the school year. Children return to class and the numbers of students say again that immigration takes public school (last year was 67% of students and 82% of foreigners) while the private concert, which is paid with public money, accept less foreign kids who would fall. Will restart a fight that seems to have no end in an educational system, English, unusual in developed countries. Only Holland and Belgium, where the network is concerted majority religious education, and the United Kingdom, which has spent years experimenting all kinds of possibilities, they have less percentage of pupils in primary, middle and high school public school
" has no solution that battle? Is it possible the peaceful coexistence between the two networks? Who benefits from this model? The Religious charter schools (the majority) have an average profit of 76,000 euros per year and the laity, of 68,000. The economic situation, according to these 2005 figures from National Statistics Institute (INE), is not perceived as desperate as the employer pint of Catholic schools, FERE. Its president, Manuel de Castro, said they have "any school that is not deficient, and remember that both the government and communities have admitted their financial shortages and are reviewing the amount of subsidies. Also explains the difference with the INE statistics may be due to certain expenses of maintenance of the buildings are computed differently.
In any case, even with the INE data, is not the world's most profitable business. Not as much as it is, at least in the short term and in purely budgetary terms, to the autonomous communities, for whom these schools will cost significantly less than public, because they have to build and maintain these buildings and because teachers often charge less and work harder. This is a 25% to 50% less, as do the calculation or the CC OO FERE, ie between 1,400 and 3,000 million per year savings.
not for families, because in most of these centers provide some sort of contribution by different concepts (coupled with extracurricular activities, dining o refuerzo les reportan casi el 27% de sus ingresos a la concertada religiosa y el 32%, a la laica).
Pero contra la lectura obvia de la rentabilidad para las administraciones está la mirada a largo plazo, esa que puso de manifiesto un informe del Colectivo Lorenzo Luzuriaga y que habla de la cohesión social, cultural y territorial que sólo puede garantizar una escuela pública, plural y laica que no separe, como en el caso de la concertada católica, por convicciones religiosas o por cualesquiera otras.
Por el otro lado, en la parte del negocio para sus propietarios, hay que tener en cuenta ese 76% de la concertada. Esto es, la concertada católica, cuyas motivaciones van más allá del dinero. Sus objetivos se rise to religious proselytizing. "We have no intention of making money, but about bringing our work to society and the Church. Of course we have between our work of evangelization, but that's in our ideology and parents know when we choose. I know people who believes that the parishes that are already, but this clearly conflicts with what society demands, "said Manuel de Castro.
is look where you look, always comes through the confessional. Educational agreements were created in the mid-eighties, with the Organic Law of the Education Law which drafted the Socialist government to bring some order to the subsidies from the sixties had received numerous Catholic schools (always have been and remain the vast majority of private schools). The conservative Spain has always put forward the right of parents to choose education for their children, which includes the Constitution, in favor of Catholic school (on behalf of which Belgium and the Netherlands have the highest percentages of charter school OECD) . This argument can be seen on the banners that have shaken the Conservatives in the streets since the Second Republic (which sought to promote public schools and secular) to the last rallies against the current education law, to the protests of the eighties against LODE .
Then, it was understood that concerts attacked the Catholic schools because, instead of money, they should abide by a set of rules, for example, the academic freedom of teachers or the admission of students according to criteria that make administrations. "Adhere to the concert would open schools to all social classes, but risking exactly what you are looking at parents, the guarantee of a Christian education," said the pope's nuncio to the Catholic parents of students (CONCAPAN) in 1984. They
concerts were consolidated and the nuncio seemed to get away with: the schools did not give up the Christian ideology, which some experts is still the core of the conflict. "If we take the clerical component, the controversy is reduced to nothing," said Professor of Sociology of Education at the University Complutense Carabaña July. Also Professor of Sociology at the University of Salamanca Mariano Fernández Enguita: "Looking from a distance, is a controversial nineteenth century. The problem is not his private property, but her confessional."
In the past 20 years, on the grounds of freedom of choice (especially to choose Catholic education) or public school priority backbone, has agreed to a proliferation of conservative governments (PNV, CiU and PP), while it has remained the public under command of the progressives. Castilla-La Mancha is the community that has more pupils of compulsory education in the public (81%). "Our priority is public, but not limited to private initiative," said Deputy Minister of Education castellanomanchego, Pedro Pablo Novillo.
These are the classic political positions that have come to break, causing a stir, Madrid Socialists (PES). This summer, declined to address criticism and smooth the speech against the concert. This has caused the immediate rejection of much of their coreligionists and of such unions CCOO and UGT, leading two terms of policies to fight strongly against "privatization Esperanza Aguirre. "complain of" abandonment of public schools, an education spending has risen from 27.5% of GDP in 2003 to 25.4% in 2007. The Minister of Education in Madrid, Figar Lucia, refuses to be more supportive than the public concert, and has a new neighborhood that has come before a concerted center groups, as claimed by the unions CCOO and UGT. And enrollment figures in compulsory education (53.2% in public, 33.9% in the concerted and 12.9% in private) answered: "To me what worries me is the freedom of choice parents. What worries me is the percentage of families that are not going to school they have chosen. "
say nothing, as in the previous term of efficiency or economic savings resulting from the concerted Figar does support the option of private land councils give to private schools. This has come to extreme situations, such as transfer to private management and built a public school.
was precisely the situation that led Madrid to the Collective Lorenzo Luzuriaga to write and publish the document for discussion by the public school. The article argues that the basic rule of the concerts, they could increase their seats, but the new requirements would be met by public schools, "has been broken in Madrid and may follow suit other communities. His fear, and many other experts, is that public education is that becoming a subsidiary, serving the disadvantaged classes, a concert that would cater to middle and upper classes. His argument is that the concert not only separates students for the confessional, but by social class.
Despite being a public service and therefore free, the concert takes money for different concepts, voluntary contributions, through the partnership of parents, foundations ... Some contributions are not always voluntary and that, coupled with the religious character of most of these centers, become an impenetrable wall for the poorest families, whose children are be more difficult to serve students and their notes, which lowered the average in public schools. And today, poorer immigrants. There are always examples of concerted welcome students without problems more difficult in a very complicated, but generally, these guys studied mostly in public school.
But really, the dysfunction of immigrant students from public and private schools is a problem concentrated in certain areas, and that outside the cities there is little subsidized in rich neighborhoods of the cities the public has no great difficulties. Both communities such as Andalusia, with much public education, and Madrid, with much less, where there is concerted decompensation. In the city of Madrid, more than half the students go to the concert, but only makes a third of foreigners, and the public, which has 34.5% of students, attending 62% of immigrants. In Almeria, aided schools, one third of the total, only cater to 6% of foreigners, reports Maria José López Díaz.
Thus, the few schools that are dangerously close or exceed the ghetto line convey that image to the entire public education, improving the concerted step that is increasing its demand among the middle classes. Manuel de Castro defends. "There are a lot of demagoguery," he says, recalling that most kids who have failed in the attempt to get the basic degree of education and want to learn a trade in a school workshop, do it in Catholic schools. He admits that there may be a better distribution to students more difficult, "but also between public," and relies on the mechanisms of the new education law (LOE) to do so slowly: "We are ready," he said.
should not lose sight of other advantages objective study of the group said the Lorenzo Luzuriaga. The centers often offer subsidized in the same building all educational levels, with similar schedules and longer opening hours in the afternoon, by the morning or when required. Most have room service, extracurricular activities, things that are scarce in public.
And now, perhaps it is time to revisit two of the initial questions: Do not have a solution to the battle? Is it possible the peaceful coexistence between the two networks? The ideological debate has not advanced much in the last 20 years, but we believe new ideas. The problem of "the public is not that you go the worst students, but lack of motivation, incentive and control of teachers. The goal of government should be, provide a public service, effective and equitable, based in both networks, "says Fernández Enguita. "It's not that there are many public school and that students have no choice but to turn to her, but is a quality school, able to compete with subsidized centers of prestige," says the text of the Collective Lorenzo Luzuriaga .
