These parents who use strategies to avoid their neighborhood school. Augustine Chang/Getty Images
RESEARCH – Wedded to public education, unable to choose private education, some parents play with the zoning rules that public schools impose on them to align their children’s success with political beliefs.
Every morning, 49-year-old Amandine (1) crosses Paris to walk her daughter, 10-year-old Coline, to class. Thirty minutes on the subway during rush hour instead of a five-minute walk to get to a public elementary school in his area. In France, in public education, the school card assigns each student to the school closest to their home (unless there is a request for diversion). For Amandine, who lives in Goutte d’Or, a very working-class neighborhood in the 18th arrondissement.e district, it was impossible to send her daughter to school there. Under the question mark? Extremely “popular” district, low level of education compared to the forties. “I didn’t want my daughter to go backwards,” says the mother. The latter could have chosen to send Colin to a private school to overcome this enforced segmentation, as do 17% of French college students (35% in Paris), according to the Ministry of National Education. “Private is very expensive without the guarantee of a better education, so I…
Source: Le Figaro
