Freedom of school choice meets its limits

Derk Walters

Handelsblad

April 24

The Dutch take their constitution seriously. A few articles jump out: article 1, about the principle of equality, and article 23, about freedom of education. Article 23 is so important that professor emeritus Dick Mentink made a career out of it.

Mentink, who taught educational law at Rotterdam's Erasmus university until his retirement, says article 23 is unique in the world. "The Netherlands are the only country in the world where the state is constitutionally bound to finance confessional schools in the same way it finances public schools."

Study reveals primary school segregation The Knowledge Centre for Mixed Schools says one third of primary schools in the Netherlands do not reflect the ethnic backgrounds of their local communities. The observation is based on a survey of over 2,000 primary schools in nearly 40 municipal districts. The centre presented its report to deputy education minister Sharon Dijksma on Wednesday. The centre, which promotes desegregation in education and is subsidised by the education ministry, believes that schools should reflect the ethnic and social make-up of their areas. It says research shows that this is not the case in one third of all primary schools. They have mostly either immigrant or Dutch-background pupils, while their local areas are much more diverse. The centre describes the results of its research as "shocking", pointing out that the children are not learning to get along with people from other nationalities and religions. The cities with the worst results according to the survey were Lelystad, Leiden and Almelo. The study reflects ongoing concerns about the degree of ethnic segregation in Dutch schools, caused by ethnically Dutch parents opting to send their children to schools where the pupils have a similar background to their own, even if the school is outside their neighbourhood. This has led to the intake at schools in some neighbourhoods becoming dominated by pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds. Such schools are officially termed "black schools". (Radio Netherlands Worldwide)

The Dutch state, says Mentink, "recognises that all parents must have the unlimited freedom to give their children the education they want. Article 23 guarantees that the state cannot force parents to send their kids to a school against their will."

The Nijmegen challenge

The adoption of article 23 in 1917 was seen at the time as a compromise between liberals and confessionals. Then prime minister Pieter Cort van der Linden, a Liberal, felt that the state ought to be only minimally involved in organising education, but that it had a duty to facilitate free competition between the different educational and philosophical views in Dutch society. Article 23 also says the state cannot intervene with the fundamentals of confessional schools; its only role is to finance all schools equally.

In 2009, Dutch society is profoundly changed. Because of immigration, confessional schools - traditionally Catholic or Protestant - have come to include Muslim and even Hinduist schools. Added to the distinction between public and confessional schools is the distinction between 'black' (ethnic minority) and 'white' (native Dutch) schools.

According to some people, it is a perverse effect of article 23 that the freedom of education now allows Dutch parents to cycle across town just to send their kids to that one good - usually white - school. These schools have long waiting lists, while other schools become more and more populated with immigrant children.

Ghettoisation

The city of Nijmegen has recently decided to challenge article 23 in an effort to fight the increasing ghettoisation of its primary school system. Starting next school year, parents in Nijmegen will be allowed to name up to six preferred schools, after which a central committee will determine to which school the child will be admitted.

The committee will use several criteria to determine the choice of school, but the first criterium is that children must be encouraged to go to school in their own neighbourhoods. If parents name faraway schools they decrease the chance that their child will be able to attend the school of their choice, because children living near those schools will be given preference.

The second criterium is to strive for a better balance between disadvantaged and mainstream children. Research shows a ratio of 30 percent disadvantaged children to 70 percent mainstream children is beneficial to both groups: it encourages disadvantaged children to do better without lowering the quality of education in the process.

The right to choose

The two criteria are sometimes at odds with each other because the demographics of the neighbourhoods are not always desirable. In those cases preference is given to sending kids to schools in their own neighbourhoods.

Nijmegen denies that its policy is a violation of the freedom of education principle. Article 23 only guarantees the right to choose a kind of school, based on its denominational or educational fundamentals, the city says. It does not guarantee the right to choose a specific school establishment.

The right-wing liberal party VVD in the Dutch parliament objected to the new policy because it could force parents to send their children to Islamic schools against their will. The city authority says all parents have to do is not to list Islamic schools among their preferred schools.

Nijmegen is not the only local authority in the Netherlands to have challenged article 23. In the town of Tiel, parents have to report to either the public, protestant or catholic school system, after which their children are assigned to a school in their own neighbourhood. Tiel does not use a ratio of disadvantaged to mainstream children, which means that Tiel schools better reflect the demographics of the neighbourhood they're in. Another difference is that Nijmegen assigns children to one specific school; in Tiel, parents can choose between any school of the same denomination within the same neighbourhood.

There has been little protest in Tiel, but the changes in Nijmegen are more controversial. Educational columnist Leo Prick wrote in NRC Handelsblad that the city is "riding roughshod over the fundamental right of parents to send their children to a school of their choice."

Closing achievement gaps

Mentink disagrees. He says article 23 has often been misinterpreted in the past. "Article 23 was never about the consumer's right to choose. It is about the right to organise education", he says. And former prime minister Cort van der Linden's interpretation that "no child shall be forced to attend a school that doesn't respect the religious convictions of its parents" stands unchallenged, says Mentink. "Parents in Nijmegen can still chose the denomination of the school their kids are sent to."

At issue is whether local authorities have the right to spread out pupils in their efforts to fight ghettoisation. Doing so is illegal when it is based on nationality or ethnic background, but it is compulsory when it comes to closing achievement gaps. Article 167a of the law on primary education says local authorities have to consult with the schools in order to prevent segregation and spread out struggling pupils equally.

But is the Tiel or Nijmegen approach applicable to all areas, especially to the big cities? Tiel has only one "very weak" primary school. Amsterdam and Rotterdam have fourteen "very weak" primary schools.

Christian Democrat member of parliament Jan Jacob van Dijk is not opposed to the Nijmegen experiment. But what if all the schools in your neighbourhood are marked as very weak? he asks. "I wonder if one can force parents to send their kids to an obviously underperforming school. The system can only work if the quality of education is guaranteed across the board."