Filed under: Education
Here’s a really interesting article in LeMonde concerning La Carte Scolaire. It’s called “Le taboo de la carte scolaire” which is really a misnomer for an article that then goes on to describe in great detail the positions taken by various politicians on the subject matter. The term Carte Scolaire translates to the act of public school zoning (is there another term in English?). It would appear that of the main candidates for the presidential election, only Bayrou is somewhat in favour of maintaining these zone enforcements. The idea behind them is that your local mayor’s office decides which school your child should go to based on where he lives.
The idea behind these zoning laws was originally to ensure that parents didn’t self–segregate their children. It would appear though that with time the Carte Scolaire is now effectively doing just that. Well, if that is true, then it follows that certain areas of France and within towns are self–segregating as well. In other words, if at one time you had people of different nationalities living in the same area, then the Carte Scolaire would ensure that their children ended up going to the same school. If in the meanwhile, these areas themselves have separated into little pockets of communitarinism lite, then the Carte Scolaire is now ensuring that their children go to school without mixing as much with children of other backgrounds. If there is a taboo in that article on this subject, it is most likely that.
Jonathan Smith
