Dear President Mattarella, stop that decree that brings Italy back to the "racial laws". It is with these very harsh words that the parents of a school that is a symbol of multicultural integration in Italy, the "Federico Di Donato" in the Esquilino district of Rome, addressed a long appeal to the President of the Republic, not to sign the government decree which imposes limit quotas of children of foreigners in classes, compulsory Italian courses for parents who would otherwise be reported to social services, very severe fines for those who do not respect the canon of uncovered faces - One after another this appeal - which is also a passionate defense of public education and multiculturalism as a resource - dismantles the theories on the urgency of the decree and demonstrates what the current priorities and very serious shortcomings of our school are.
Here is the text of the letter sent to the President of the Republic, the House and the Senate.
We are mothers and fathers of girls and boys who attend the Daniele Manin comprehensive institute in Rome, which includes the Di Donato nursery and primary school. After the approval by the Council of Ministers of the decree-law on schools, we feel the duty to turn to you and take a public position.
The 30% threshold foreseen for some of the students with non-Italian citizenship introduces a distinction between children in the organization of public schools. In the words with which the Prime Minister announced the measure, this distinction is even more explicit: Italian children should not become a "minority" in their own class. The presence of other children is thus indicated as something to be contained so that the former can continue to feel like the majority.
The return of the racial laws
We are faced, in our eyes, with a contemporary version of the logic of racial laws: public authority draws a line between people, attributes them to belonging and causes different treatment to derive from that classification. Precisely the memory of that history requires us to recognize the moment in which a completely arbitrary and humiliating distinction of the dignity and identity of children is represented on the contrary as a reasonable and optimal management of common life.
We have always wondered how it was possible to arrive at the racial laws in Italy. Yet unfortunately we seem to be witnessing a repeat of that nefarious trend these days.
When the excluded were the Italians
And there is an even closer story, which concerns our families. In the last century the children of Italian emigrants were excluded from white schools in the South of the United States; in Switzerland the children of seasonal workers lived in hiding or ended up in special classes; in Germany they were relegated to special schools for a long time because they did not yet speak German.
Today Italy risks reserving for the children of others the same treatment suffered by the children of our grandparents. In our school, boys and girls are not quotas to be distributed. Some have Italian citizenship, others do not; some were born here, others arrived later; Many families have stories that cross multiple countries and multiple languages. A legal classification does not say how much a child knows Italian, what supports she needs, what bonds she has built with her classmates. Citizenship does not prevent a name, family origin or skin color from exposing a child to the gaze of those who continue to consider him a foreigner.
The Government claims that the law concerns language. But the decree does not measure knowledge of Italian: it counts passports. A child with foreign citizenship born in Rome, who has always spoken Italian, falls under the roof if he has not attended two years of nursery school, which is not compulsory; a child with Italian citizenship who does not speak Italian, however, does not. If the problem were really the language, we would invest in teaching Italian, rather than setting quotas based on citizenship.
We know that schools need tools to teach Italian to those who arrive without knowing it. We also know that poverty, housing segregation and the unequal distribution of resources weigh on school life. However, these are the responsibilities of politics: they require teachers, linguistic mediation, full time, services and investments to restore substance to social rights.
Italian courses canceled by decree
If some schools, more than others, find themselves having to face greater linguistic, social and housing complexity, the question should be another: what resources do those schools need to guarantee quality education for all? We therefore ask that schools be allocated resources based on the needs actually identified and not on the citizenship of the students. School is open to all and the Republic has the task of removing obstacles that prevent people's full development. It is precisely at school that boys and girls can build relationships beyond the divisions that politics would like to impose on them.
It is also striking that, under the title of "integration", an article of the decree combines the reporting to social services of families in which the parents do not know enough Italian, the obligation for them to obtain a language certification and the ban on participating in school activities with their faces covered, punished with sanctions also for the parents: a logic of control and sanction, not of support. And it's contradictory logic. Legislative Decree no. 20 of 2023, the so-called Cutro decree, eliminated Italian courses from reception centers for those seeking protection; now parents are expected to learn the language quickly, with courses to be implemented "without new or greater burdens on public finances".
Covered face and integration
We also refuse that, in the same political discourse, the composition of classes is linked to the freedom of girls and young women, as if a threshold for pupils with non-Italian citizenship and a ban on covered faces could, in themselves, guarantee that freedom. The freedom of all girls and boys requires public policies capable, including through schools, of counteracting any sexist and racist practice with listening, support and spaces for self-determination, whatever the religion and traditions of their families.
The decree intervenes on the covered face; the political debate that accompanies it is a topic that cannot be addressed with an emergency decree, as it deserves a broad public discussion, with times and perspectives that start from the voice of women, girls and young women and the experience of those who work in schools and for the freedom and rights of all women.
Real emergencies
Our school's emergencies are different. Starting from our small example: for four years the Di Donato school building in Rome has been affected by seismic adaptation works that have not been completed, with daily inconveniences for girls, boys and teachers; the nursery school is still waiting to have its spaces and courtyard back. Many of our teachers come from other regions and choose our school for its proximity to Termini station: they live as commuters, because in Rome they cannot find a house they can afford and after a year many give up. We need a finished and safe building and a stable teaching staff, not a roof over the presence of some children in the classrooms. And we are not an exception. In Italy only two schools out of five are accessible to girls and boys with motor disabilities; more than nine out of ten buildings do not have cooling systems and this year too, in many cities, the return to class has been postponed or reduced due to the heat; the school year is based on approximately 118 thousand substitutes; school dropout, although decreasing, remains very high in some areas of the country.
Yet, the same decree, when it deals with school construction, limits itself to extending the procedures for the PNRR construction sites, without allocating new resources. For this reason we believe that the rules on class composition respond to a propaganda intent, rather than to a real need of the school.
The emergency decree is used once the school year has started for a measure that will apply to first grades only from 2027/28. We declare that we want to intervene on the language, but citizenship is used as a criterion. And the Government has not made any data public: in how many schools would these rules take effect, and how many have asked for it? How many teachers give up a job outside the region every year because they can't find accommodation? How many school buildings are up to code today?
The Constitution betrayed
We are faced with a constitutional emergency because the equal dignity of people, substantial equality and the principle according to which school is open to all are being called into question. For these reasons, we ask the President of the Republic to exercise his guarantee prerogatives in examining the decree-law, evaluating with particular rigor the compatibility of the provisions on the composition of classes with:
- article 3 of the Constitution, which affirms equal dignity and entrusts the Republic with the task of removing obstacles to equality,
- with article 34, according to which «the school is open to all».
We ask that the existence of the extraordinary conditions of necessity and urgency required by article 77 be also assessed.
Should Parliament approve a conversion law with the provisions proposed by the Government, we ask the President to consider exercising the power of reasoned referral to the Chambers provided for in Article 74 of the Constitution.
We ask the Deputies, Men and Women Senators not to convert rules that distinguish students based on citizenship and their previous path.
We ask that school communities be listened to and the provisions that set a threshold for the presence of certain children in classes be abolished.
Articles 3 and 34 indicate another direction: guaranteeing each and every individual the right to attend school and investing the resources necessary for that right to be effective.
We will not accept that in the Republic school a child should have to wonder which side of the line he will be counted on.
