Freeing the Italian school system

• The bad performance of the Italian school system is not due to the lack of funding.
• Italian schools should be more autonomous in their teachers and curriculum management.
• The priority is to improve the quality of expenditure, not to increase its quantity.
• Our proposal is inspired by a 1988 UK reform and by USA Charter Schools experiences.

The disappointing performance of the school system in Italy is one of the likely factors that reduce growth in this country. We take it as a case study with interesting implications for other European countries with similar school systems. Lack of funding is not the answer. The Italian school system needs to move in the direction of more autonomy given to individual schools, in the management of teachers and in the curriculum. The paper discusses a reform proposal that can achieve this goal, while at the same time learning from international experiences. Specifically we adapt to the Italian environment a similar reform introduced in the UK in 1988 and the best of the Charter Schools experiences in the USA.