Foreign Pupils, Bad Citizens - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 87

an italian passport, the opposite solution was proposed: put a cap of 30 percent
on the number of foreign children in each individual class.
This objective was pursued at the same time by Rampelli—who declared on
5 february 2009 that “it is necessary to establish a reference point, a maximum
percentage of foreign children in each class” (Rampelli 2009a)—and by the coun-
cilor marsilio, who on the same day summoned the representatives of the sixth
borough, Department Xi (the regional education office for lazio), and the pri-
mary schools of the sixth municipio with the intention of jointly signing a “net-
work agreement” that would put a definite and quantified limit on the presence of
foreign children in school classes. but the agreement, thanks to the joint efforts
of school principals and local left-wing politicians, once signed, actually steered
toward the opposite solution, with a recommendation that italian parents in par-
ticular should be incentivized to enroll their children in neighborhood schools,
given that (as noted by Giammarco palmieri, chairman of the sixth municipio ):
The municipality has received a request to fulfill the requirement for a more
balanced composition of italian and non-italian pupils in our schools. pre-
cisely because of the great importance of the contents of the agreement the
Sixth municipio , supported by the great majority of head teachers of scholastic
institutions, has rejected the insertion into the agreement of an upper limit on
the presence of non-Italian children . . . (abitare a Roma 2009, emphasis added)
some weeks later on 17 march, Rampelli harshly criticized the network
agreement: “The maximum quota was not approved, owing to its boycotting in
the sixth municipio and by certain head teachers.” according to his reading of the
facts, the ever-smaller number of italian children enrolled in the primary school
was attributable not to previous causes or the provocatively anti-immigrant at-
titude of the moms for integration committee, but to the management of the
school: “it is the failure of a presumed utopian and stupid model arbitrarily im-
posed on citizens by a presumptuous and ideologized school board. . . . There are
two possible explanations if only 21 children are enrolled at pisacane with only 2
italian children: incompetence or malice” (Rampelli 2009e).
but by now it was clear that a local solution was no longer possible. The pi-
sacane issue would have to be resolved by bringing in the most weighty insti-
tutional hierarchies, and the task of galvanizing the minister became more ur-
gent. During that same month of march, the news that some mothers had asked
permission to move their “italian” children from pisacane to other schools had
“forced minister Gelmini to announce a cap on the number of foreign children
in schools, fixed at 30 percent” ( Roma Today 2009).
indeed, the next move was the involvement of the government with a deci-
sion taken in the Committee for Culture, science, and education on 1 april 2009.
Rampelli was the first signatory of this resolution, which obliged the govern-
ment to introduce “a maximum quota of 30 percent for foreign pupils” as soon as