School mergers in Moscow: no plan or goal, but reform is in full swing

Yesterday I participated in another round table dedicated to the mergers of schools and kindergartens in Moscow. I have already written about the previous such meeting , which was organized bythe December 5 party , the Teacher trade union and the Union of Schools . I was also preparing a large press report on mergers .

This time, the organizers ( PublicPost.ru ) and the moderator ( Elena Fanailova ) tried for two weeks to reach representatives of the Moscow Department of Education (authors of the policy of mass consolidation of educational institutions) - they never made any contact...

The Commissioner for Children's Rights in Moscow, Evgeniy Bunimovich , took the rap for the officials, and from the very beginning took the position of "devil's advocate." However, he spoke carefully, tried to say the general correct things and avoided sharp corners.

A representative of the “education reformers from the Higher School of Economics,” Sergei Kosaretsky, took a surprisingly clear position: the Higher School of Economics created a program for the development of education in Moscow - there are no mergers there; there are no design/scientific justifications for the policy of mass consolidation, nor a reform plan; experts can only study the consequences of a large-scale experiment on Muscovites.

In this connection, my prediction: Isaac Kalina will soon be fired. They'll hang all the dogs on him. The merger policy will be declared an “excess on the ground.” And Kalina’s successor will take up the disaggregation of schools with the same Komsomol enthusiasm and the same Bolshevik methods.

The rest of the speakers ( Leonid Perlov from the "Teacher" trade union, Alexander Kovaldzhi , deputy director of the "Second School" lyceum, deputy director of the "Intellectual" school, Alexey Sgibnev from the "Union of Schools" and myself ) consistently debunked all the myths regarding mergers and argued why From the student, parent, and teacher perspective, mass mergers are clearly a harmful policy.

I would like to remind you that the petition in defense of schools with special educational needs has collected not only more than 9 thousand signatures, but also a rich collection of reviews from parents and teachers on the merger from all over the country.

And mathematics teachers from the Union of Schools prepared problems about mergers : how simple arithmetic manipulations create the appearance of bureaucratic efficiency.

I made out one of them at the end of the conversation: “The heads of the city of Gloopov are fighting to increase the share of schools whose students became prize-winners and winners of Olympiads. There were 100 schools in the city. Schools whose students were winners and prize-winners of the All-Russian Olympiad accounted for 3% in the spring. In the summer. In the city, schools were “enlarged”, and now there are 20 schools. We again calculated what percentage of schools had the same students who became winners or prize-winners of the All-Russian Olympiad in the spring. What answer could we get?”

Anyone who has mastered the 7th grade algebra program can solve this problem themselves and enjoy the answer! ;-)

A video recording of yesterday's conversation should appear this afternoon on the organizers' website PublicPost.ru

In the meantime, I offer all interested readers my yesterday's Twitter broadcast with a few of my comments (they are given in italics). Of course, I myself said significantly more than I was able to broadcast on Twitter. So the most interesting thing will be in the video)))

A discussion on mergers of schools and kindergartens will now begin, organized by PublicPost http://www.facebook.com/events/300795316714954/

A question for everyone from Fanailova: who benefits from all these mergers? Kovaldzhi begins: reformers, first of all. Also: control system.

In my opinion, reformers also benefit: they are constantly developing new reform projects and making grants from this.

Bunimovich does not agree with us. He praises Soros: his grants, they say, helped to survive in his time. The problem with our education is the lack of communication
This was a response to Kovaldzhi’s remark, which traditionally linked the identities of education reformers from the Higher School of Economics with grants from Soros and the World Bank.

Bunimovich: all our colleagues around the world win their rights in a different way. Civil society has not been canceled.

According to Bunimovich, the average salary of a Moscow teacher has increased significantly in recent years. Although it is overloaded (1.5-2 rates + bureaucracy).

Bunimovich’s position on today’s discussion: “I am deliberately playing the devil’s advocate. Because otherwise it won’t be interesting.”

Kosaretsky: The Higher School of Economics in my person is not familiar with the documents on the basis of which mergers take place in Moscow.

Kosaretsky: the department’s argumentation looks quite contradictory.

Fanailova (moderator): We tried for 2 weeks to invite representatives of the Department of Education to this round table - they all refused.

Kosaretsky: due to mergers of schools, the resource base is optimized.

An example of optimization (from me): nurses and psychologists are left alone instead of 3-4 for all buildings of the common holding.

Kosaretsky: reforms have two lines of positive potential. How they are implemented in practice is the subject of the following. level of discussion.

Kosaretsky: behind the mergers of schools, perhaps, at the level of design, there is an idea of ​​​​leveling social inequality.

Kosaretsky cannot give an unambiguous assessment of the Moscow practice of consolidating schools.

Kosaretsky about the US experience: with the forced merger of noticeably different schools, no equalization occurred. Let's see what we can do.

Perlov: there is no evidence that children are better off in large schools. Teachers certainly did not benefit from the consolidation: before there was nothing to eat, but now there is no time.

Perlov: the director of a school for 2000 people instead of 500 ceases to be a teacher and becomes only a manager. Is the director happy about this?

Perlov: economic priority in all matters of education is not accidental. We are discussing the renovation of the third floor of a building with a collapsed foundation.

Perlov: only the accountant benefits from mergers and other education reforms. And the foundation of education is social status in all areas.

Sgibnev: almost all schools were merged. This process concerns everyone. No one has seen the papers justifying the procedure. Nobody knows what will happen.

Sgibnev: mid-level officials now have a “merger” indicator. If a school refuses to merge, it means it is “not developing,” “lagging behind.”

Bunimovich: official. The department’s position is that we do not impose anything. I don't like any campaign when it's just that: a campaign.

Bunimovich: mergers require the consent of the governing council. Parents often complain that they have “pocket” advice. It needs to be actively monitored.

Bunimovich: There is a separate category of children with deviant behavior. It is more profitable to invest money in them at school than to build prisons later.

Bunimovich: There are three special categories of children - with deviant behavior, disabled people and children of migrants. They need to be dealt with separately.

Sgibnev: The competition has grown in Intellectual. The same goes for all the unmerged schools. That is, not alignment, but, on the contrary, polarization.

Kovaldzhi: There is no question of any voluntary mergers.

Kovaldzhi: associations are carried out in an absolutely fantastic way. Directors in the department are required to pay themselves 3 times more.

I gave an example of a merger http://www.facebook.com/events/592270680788239/permalink/592287734119867/ Everyone gasped and rushed to comment.

I also reminded you what deceitful methods official propaganda uses to whitewash mergers http://grani.ru/blogs/free/entries/209450.html
Here I came down hard on Rachevsky (he lied in an interview dated December 4, 2012, when there were already countless examples of forced mergers in the press). In my opinion, the choice of the site “Orthodoxy and Peace” for such a blatant lie and spitting in the face of the professional community is the most characteristic milestone of our time! Bunimovich objected to me that “there is no need to be so harsh with your accomplices.” Naturally, I don’t consider Rachevsky my accomplice!

Here are a couple of examples of parents fighting against mergers http://mn.ru/society_edu/20121108/330260308.html ... http://mn.ru/moscow/20120510/317699984.html ...

In general, because of the mergers, self-organization of parents and teachers against the mergers began. http://www.facebook.com/groups/noschoolmerge/ This is the most important achievement!

Kosaretsky: the positions of minorities must be taken into account. Refers to Latynina's article.

Perlov: even among experts it is difficult for a teacher to get the floor. Do you need information? Why not ask?

Perlov: It’s customary for us to immediately assess the consequences of reforms. Kalina has already stated that there is a positive result.

Perlov: in fact, the result should be seen in 10-15 years. First, we need to discuss reforms before implementing them.

Bunimovich: a teacher should prepare not only to work with motivated children, there are 5% of them. You need to think about the remaining 95%.

M. Kushnir: There are a lot of mathematicians here. If 2 thousand schools were united in a year, can this be voluntary or not?

M. Kushnir: all decisions are procedural. Why is there not a single document documenting the purpose of education reforms in the country?

Kushnir: there is hysteria in society, any action. authorities in the image. responded with hostility. Systemic issues should be discussed in the media, not procedural ones.

Nasyrov: I know the plot and background of school mergers. The idea is an educational franchise. A huge holding under a well-known sign - parents are happy.

Nasyrov: Almost all the schools in the top twenty in Moscow have had someone added to them. From the point of view of parents, places in the choir. There are more schools.

Nasyrov: I have been following this topic from the beginning. A merger never took place if there were 100-200 people who opposed it.

Nasyrov: governing councils in schools are complete bullshit. They started working only a year ago and are not yet able to resolve such issues.

Kosaretsky: the position “against mergers” cannot be taken due to purely logical considerations.

Perlov: large-scale experiments of this kind (like mergers), especially throughout Moscow, are unacceptable in principle.

Kovaldzhi: the wrong agenda is being imposed on us in education, we are talking about the wrong thing. Teachers have no rights, the director can be fired without explanation.

Problems of education from Kovaldzhi: there is no community, the teacher becomes a technologist, a pawn. This is detrimental to our future!

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