More hours in class, worse grades

Something is wrong with this picture. A report on education released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) describes a system where conditions do not seem as bad as student results would indicate. Spanish teachers spend more hours in the classroom than their counterparts in other countries - and so do students. Educators earn higher wages, and the teacher-to-student ratio is optimal compared with other member states. And yet every single Pisa report - the world reference in educational testing, conducted every three years - puts Spain near the bottom of the ranking: 26th out of 34 developed countries in 2009.

What is it that's failing? Coming as does is in the middle of a heated debate over the amount of public resources that should be spent on education in these times of crisis - teachers from various regions have already rebelled against announced cuts - the report introduces a new level of complexity: it's not just about the number of teachers or how many courses the students take; it's also about what is being taught, how, at what age and what kind of additional support students are getting.

Other countries with better results have teachers who spend less time in the classroom. The regional governments of Madrid, Navarre, Catalonia, Galicia and Castilla-La Mancha have angered their own educators by extending the number of teaching hours while reducing other activities like support groups or parent-teacher time, which teachers say is what really creates a quality education. What is the goal of this extension of classroom hours? Felipe José San Vicente, president of the National Association of High School Teachers, replies: "There is no educational goal in it, or anything like it. It's an economic issue that saves money by not having to hire substitute teachers; everything else is hollow rhetoric."

The OECD report shows that academic success does not necessarily imply subjecting schoolkids to endless schedules (1,050 hours a year for a Spanish 15-year-old, compared with 856 for a 15-year-old from Finland, the role model in the Pisa report. Spanish grade school teachers spend 880 hours every year teaching class, 101 more than the OECD average, while high school teachers spend 37 additional hours on top of that. Students also have more compulsory subjects than kids from other countries: 126 hours more in grade school and 148 more in high school.

In public schools, there are an average 19.8 students per class, lower than the OECD average of 21.4. The tables are turned at private schools, where there are 24.5 students per class, higher than the average of 20.5. Finally, Spanish teachers make more money: 8,300 euros a year more than the average for grade school teachers, and 10,500 euros more for high school teachers.

So why isn't this working? "In education, you don't see short-term results. All investments need time," says Jesús María Sánchez, president of the Spanish Confederation of Parent-Teacher Associations (CEAPA). The secretary of state for education, Mario Bedera, also notes that Spain has had to make up in the last 30 years for an educational lag of many decades.

But that does not conceal the fact that there are probably other causes behind the poor results. Success requires a change in the system, holds María José Martín, president of the National Association of Movements for Educational Renovation. What is being taught, she says, is poorly conceived of. Her association has been meeting with hundreds of teachers for several decades, and everyone agrees that the curriculum is ill adapted to the maturity level of the students and that the contents are often useless for the 21st century.

"It is absurd for children six and under to be using textbooks. At that age they are exploring the world and they need creativity. They need to learn to do things on their own, including hygiene and basic norms of coexistence. But above all, they need to build self-confidence in their relationships with other children, and to create the right foundation for proper socialization," she explains.

"At age eight, kids are being asked to put the right accents on words as they write. By age 10, they're being asked to do square roots. Why would they want to do square roots at that age? It makes no sense. Then the Pisa examiners show up and find schoolkids who don't understand what they're reading and who hate language class and math. That's what happens when you teach things to the wrong age groups."

San Vicente also believes that the Spanish system has an irrational number of subjects: "Eleven subjects in one school year is too much." And he blames the previous education law, known as LOGSE, for the most worrisome of all the figures that show up in the report: the dropout rate, which stands at 28.4 percent.

Now, high school students have three separate choices depending on whether they choose to pursue the humanities, the sciences or vocational training. "Until now, up to age 16, students had to stay together, and half of the classroom might have no interest whatsoever in what was being taught. By bringing the choice down to age 15, dropout rates will improve," says San Vicente, whose association has asked the Education Ministry to rename vocational training (known as Formación Profesional in Spain) and call it "bachillerato profesional," in an attempt to bring some luster to a widely reviled career choice. "It's a tiny gesture, but maybe it will dignify non-university studies."