Laurence de Charette: “Why school grades are no longer useful”

Don't say: "Congratulations on your results," or "well done on your good grades." Say: "Excellent, that IPS ." Don't say: "We're so happy that Emma (*) is in a good school." Say: " It's fantastic, the level of Emma's high school has finally dropped, it's a perfectly "averaged" establishment. " Is this little dialogue and its jargon absurd? Certainly, but although fictitious, these exchanges are nonetheless perfectly realistic. Since the beginning of May, Parisian parents have been getting agitated: Affelnet, the software for assigning students from middle schools to high schools, is preparing, they fear, to play new tricks on them.

Their fears are not unfounded. For the fifth year, the doors of the best high schools are closing, more and more openly, to deserving students: through a clever mechanism of "points" - the choice of word is not without perversity - the grades...