First there are those who live inside teachers

The school is also, traditionally, a literary school. This year, the bouquet is provided, but its colours are decidedly dark: rarely look on our educational system was more pessimistic.

First there are those who live inside - teachers. In "The school of shame", Emilie Sapielak says with sincerity of despair a day of his life of TZR (holder of a replacement area) in the College of Paris suburbs where it landed after his Capes of letters and his year at the IUFM (institut universitaire de formation des maîtres). His story remarkably written, enameled scenes taken live, is also an indictment against the educational community, where there is a "pedagogical kitsch", a "conclusive and hollow" speech delivered by the IUFM. In the latter case, we know, are now integrated into the universities, and their role is greatly reduced. The nostalgic lament this reform should read the pages that the author dedicated to these surrealist training sessions where recommended to teachers, soon faced with future classes of 30 students, to adapt to the "unique skills" of each of them

As a response to these depressing findings, two experts in pedagogy, Jérôme Saltet and André Giordan, expose in "Change College, it is possible," a groundbreaking project that resembles the phalanstery of Fourier: their ideal College welcomes 150 to 200 students. step class, but "reference group" by level; the teaching methods are diverse (courses, visits, conferences, projects etc.); notes disappear. These innovations are of course a good dose of naïve optimism, but open up attractive channels.

It is the reform of the school that attaches the book by Richard Descoings, Director of Sciences po. A reform which is currently application and to which the author himself has contributed, but considers incomplete and too timid. What would do First upgrade massively school and the technology sector, great forgotten secondary education while they meet half of its workforce. The General lycée, granting real autonomy teaching teams and lower again the number of hours of courses for the benefit of a custom cover.

Apart from the point of view of practitioners, there is one, more general, observers. In a severe book ("one completes well schoolchildren"), English journalist Peter Gumbel believes that the France did not deal with the democratization of education. While enrolment increased massively methods have remained those of the 19th century: passivity of classes, mania of the classification and selection, frequency of repetition. Result: students stressed, reluctant to express themselves. The diagnosis is certainly not new.

The most radical criticism is made by three sociologists of education, François Dubet, Marie Duru-Bellat and Antoine Vérétout. They leave an iconoclastic question: a better school necessarily creates a better society Surprise: with few exceptions, including the Scandinavian countries, across the divergence between the company and the school is the rule. Thus, compared to the France, the German education system is more unequal, but more egalitarian society. The Japan, extremely unequal, has a school that is among the most égalitaires It is that the school does not have the same "grip" on the company. Other factors are involved in the personal destinies and the distribution of income: continuing education, personal temperament or even the social environment, relationships, etc. In France, the school right-of-way is particularly powerful and strengthening in sustaining movement: the belief that the degree is the most democratic selection mode justifies the importance of its role in the access to the "places"; This led families to invest in the education of children; the inequality of the means available to them then increases educational inequality, which in turn exacerbate inequalities social Out of this gear by administrative reform will not suffice. Need to review our traditional conception of Republican egalitarianism.