Years of overspending has left Spain's economy an absolute mess. The government recently announced cutbacks of 3,000,000,000 euros in Public Education and 7,000,000,000 in Public Health. That's leading to very strange measures (for Socialist Spain) such as having retirees on pensions of under 1,000 euros per month pay for part of their own medication and inspectors having to OK certain expensive medications, so there's no telling just exactly what crazy, desperate measures schools will be taking.
To begin with, the number of students per class in public schools is expected to go up to about 40 very soon. There are also rumors that upwards of 3,000 teachers will be laid off just in the Community of Madrid. Moreover, there have been and will be serious cutbacks in grants and scholarships for university students. There are probably far too many universities in Spain and there have been and are likely to be far more cutbacks in that area as well.
February 8, 2012 update:
The public system of
education is in the process of being reformed and is a bit chaotic at the moment. Two stories in 20Minutos today illustrate this. First, (Temario Oposiciones Docentes) the topics on the state exams for public school teachers have been changed to the ones used in 1993 and 1996. This will come as quite a shock to any teachers who have been prepping other topics for years - it's around 80 I think. It's no joke. It'll fall on them like a ton of bricks.
Second, (Libre elección de colegio proximo curso) parents will have more choice as to where to send their kids. There's a point system that's being replaced. When parents solicit to send their children to a certain school, schools have a competitive point system that they must use to choose which children will be able to attend their school.
It will now go something like this:
- One or more siblings already enrolled at the school or one of the parents works in the same school: 8 points.
- Near the person’s home or work place: in area - 4 points, rest of community of Madrid - 2 points.
- Family income: parents receiving minimum guaranteed income – 2 points.
- Handicapped student, parents or brothers or sisters: 1.5 points.
- Large family: general – 1.5 points, special – 2,5 points.
- The school has one point to allot for miscellaneous reasons. (I got this from 20Minutos.)
Certain schools, such as bilingual ones, are in demand. Some parents start the process of selecting their children's schools before their children are even born, so the competition is really stiff.
The Spanish system of education as of Sept. 2011.
(In these texts I analyze the system here - both public and private - for English teachers who are either working in Madrid or thinking of coming to teach here. I think that it’ll help you to get an idea of what you’re up against. Frankly, it’s all blunt opinion, so if you can stomach it, enjoy!)
"Manifestación en defensa de la educación pública 20S Madrid."
Amateur video of the crowds of people on Sept. 20, 2011, striking/protesting against 80 million euros in cutbacks in public education. La Sexta's coverage
Note: One interesting thing I've noted over the years is the piss-poor reporting from the mainstream press (and government), which I assume must be politically motivated (just like Fox News' "impartial" reporting back in the States). Aguirre's Community-of-Madrid government reports 5,000 people participated in the strikes, slightly-left-leaning "El Pais" (only in the sense that it supports the left-leaning "PSOE" party as far as I can determine) reports 40,000, while the Unions themselves report 80,000. Arghh! None of the papers that I could find, except ADN.es, took photos from the top of buildings and most took photos of small groups. Most right-wing papers I could find reported only that "1,000s" of people took part in the protests.
(Note: - "speak of the devil" - in late September the Board of Directors of RTVE voted to grant themselves direct access as "editors" to the TV channel's news editing programs. Wow!!! I wonder why they felt so confident about it. Was it because they felt everyone knows they're in charge anyway and no one would resist their making it official?)
In the article below I mention Aguirre, the President of the Community of Madrid, several times. Watch her laughing and talking to the current Minister of Education at: Aguirre/Gabilondo. In the video (smiling all the while), she repeatedly asks Minister Gabilondo to resign. Fifty-three seconds into the video, she says, "Quiero que dimitas por alentar a la huelga politica. Pero si te viene fenomenal dimitir . . . que te viene colosal dimitir a ti." More or less in English, she says, "I want you to resign for encouraging the strikes. It'll be good for you to resign . . . it'll be great for you to resign." I hope that'll give you an idea of her character (bless her heart!), which is not altogether uncommon type amongst the "señorito/a" classes here. I've had more than one boss like that. That's no joke, let me tell you! Some Spanish people, presumably right-wing ones, tend to see that sort of thing as strength of character.
By the way, apparently, FAPA, the NGO which is basically the core organization which organizes another 800 local parents' organizations, is being persecuted by Aguirre's right-wing government because it has been organizing protests against the cutbacks. This drama has been reminiscent of the Keystone Kops comedies. Key plot events have included the withdrawal of funding and accusations of fraud by Aguirre, while FAPA has had to go so far as to request protection from the U.N.
As a young student in Spain, why bother to get an education when unemployment stands at 46% amongst the young (according to the Economist)? Unemployment has always been rather high here amongst those who aren’t “enchufados” (those who have gotten their jobs due to their contacts, usually family ones of people who's children go to private rather than public schools) in Spain and even when people did find employment it tended to be of the “mil-eurista” type (1,000 euros per month salary).
Excellent teachers may try to instill a culture of excellence and merit amongst their students in Spain, but it’s really difficult for them to fight against the realities of this particular job market. Even students who do manage to make it to and through university will likely find that their degree does just about nothing for them. In an article in the Economist (Sept. 10, 2011 – part of their “Special report: The future of jobs”) titled “The jobless young - Left behind”, one young student said, “I trained for a world that doesn’t exist.” The article also says, “She has one degree from Britain and is about to conclude another in her native Spain. And she feels that she has no future.”
This is a common sentiment and situation in Spain (now and as long as I've been here). Everyone knows people like this. People know that many majors have “no salida” (or no career/jobs prospects) and there are plenty of stories (example) out there of people trying to navigate their way through the system to get a degree of some kind only to have the government move the goal posts 2 metres from the goal line. I have even personally had students like this who have returned from very successful careers abroad only to find their valuable skills and experience so poorly valued here as to be absurd. There’s even a TV program titled “Madrileños por el Mundo” which depicts the lives of people from Madrid as they lead successful lives somewhere around the world. They tend to cry about not being able to come back.
In general, when it comes to the world of work, Spain is demoralized (it was so even in the best of times). People tend to see this all too clearly perhaps: it’s not what you know that matters, it’s who you know. This is this way of Spain despite all the reforms (or “destabilizing” reforms or futile attempts at reform) that have taken place over the years.
As far as I can determine, the schools systems, both public and/or private are amongst the worst rated in Europe. Everyone knows, for example, that Cambridge University, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, M.I.T. etc. are the best universities in the world. Spain comes in on one list at 240-something with a public University (Complutense in Madrid) that could use a makeover right away. It’s in a sad state! (in my humble opinion) And I seriously doubt it has even 1% of the scientific/financial/cultural impact of institutions such as Cambridge University.
By the way, recently a public university in Barcelona announced cutbacks to the tune of about 500-600 professors.
In addition, it’s not like Spanish people are big readers (half of teenagers very rarely read, there are just a few bookstores and libraries are very poorly stocked). And continuing education is shamefully inadequate. Their distance universities for adults such as UNED are laughable (again “in my opinion”). Also, their companies try to invest as little as possible in training so productivity is consequently shamefully low as well. It’s no wonder then that Spanish students perform so poorly when compared to other countries in Europe. Their problems go well beyond any fault of the teachers' as a group.
The private system of education obviously isn’t any better off than the public one. Again, in my opinion, if they were any less demanding of students, they’d not even ask them to show up to classes. Woe betide any professor/teacher who fails any but the most idiotic/absent of students! It’s a business after all. Notice that the best university in Spain is “PUBLIC”, not private (according to the list I mentioned). The students have to either know enough to pass the exams, or fail. Failing too many students can still get teachers into trouble, but much less so than in private schools.
In any case, if things were bad before, now they’re getting even worse fast. Apparently, the public system of education is under attack by politicians on the right (Popular Party) ostensibly looking to save some money, but maybe they're just sending their friends in the private sector a bone to boot (teachers from the high school corresponding to my child published a letter to the parents saying that it "seems the reason for the cuts is not is 'NOT' savings."). Basically, while 80 million euros is being saved by the government on the one hand (60 million in the Community of Madrid according to the letter), reports are saying 90 million (74 million in the Community according to the letter) are being indirectly handed over to the private sector via tax benefits ("ventajas fiscales") together with or including land grants for new private and subsidized schools.
They say "Spain is Different" around here. Let me reiterate: Oligarchic/Aristocratic Politicians such as Aguirre (who is married to a Count, which makes her a Countess, doesn't it?) who have likely never attended a public school in their lives themselves (or their children) - nor who have likely never had to make ends meet from month to month on a "mil-eurista" salary - are now pulling a "Robin Hood" (in reverse) to the tune of 90 million euros!
Private schools (including subsidized ones) tend to cost between 3,000-10,000 per year per student (the closest one to my house, "Amanecer", costs around 300-350 per month plus lunches, extracurricular activities, books, and whatever else they can add to the price tag of up to around 500 euros per month) and many parents have multiple children in the same private school. I just can't imagine "mileurista" parents being able to handle a private school of any type with or without a subsidy. Some of them can't even handle the school lunch and school books.
(Some) of the subsidies apparently work like this: a parent might pay 150 euros per month for a private school and get back 75 euros on their income tax return. That's the understanding I'm getting, for example, from a neighbour who sends their kid to a private school.
About 5,000-6,000 teachers in the public system of education have been laid off in the past few years, 3,000-3,200 of them in just the past couple of months. The average school has lost around 10-12 teachers of various subjects. (The ESO school that my own child's supposed to go on to has lost 10 teachers from last year.) The quality of education has already deteriorated and it's going downhill fast.
Here’s a letter a Spanish technology teacher wrote on a blog (see La enseñanza en España) I’ll translate a bit for you. Basically, he claims he’s going to have 270 students this year, including several “intellectually handicapped” students, at least one hyperactive student, one partially paralyzed student, 30 immigrants, 30 students with serious behavior problems and 50 students who are repeating this year and, on top of it, he’s not going to get any support from the system. Some of his colleagues even have deaf-mute students. (My own child's high school has up to almost 40 students per class now and they've eliminated "grupos reducidos" - reduced-size groups - in English and French classes.)
By the way, my kid's elementary school no longer has a library. Apparently, they have too many children for the size of the school and they had to use the room for another classroom.
According to the law (LOE) he’s got to individualize the students’ education so that he’s got to put together at least seven individualized programs (“programas adaptadas”) besides his other general ones. On top of this, this year he’s got to correct around 2,000 exams. (He didn’t mention correcting notebooks maybe because given everything else he’ll have to do, he’s already given up on that one. By the way, some teachers will take up to 30 minutes per exam or notebook on some of them – just how many hours would that add up to given 2,000 exams and another 2,000 notebooks?)
Also, the law prevents this teacher from throwing out any of his 30 students with serious behavior problems of his classes. Only the Principal ("Director") can do so, but it’s an extremely difficult and slow process. So, who's teaching the classes when he's taking time out to deal with the "problems".
He also says that politicians indirectly pressure him to give “fictitious passes” (“aprobados ficticios”) with the threat of inspections (for any situation with over 30% failures) so that the percentages of students who pass the classes will improve the statistics. He says that failures in Spain in obligatory secondary school are around 30%, but that it would be around 50% if that particular threat wasn’t hanging over him and other teachers. (By the way, another teacher I know who works in the public system tells me it would probably be more like 60%.)
This teacher would have to be Superman to pull that one out of the hat. They're not cyborgs, for Pete's sake! This is the messed-up "Education world" English teachers from abroad stumble into. These are the types of reasons why there will always be work for us English teachers here, but that it will always be a bit inexplicably messy. Your students will come from that mess and, just so you know, it’s bound to affect them in your classes. They just won't be able to help it.
I just love this story: Profesora de Francés no sabe Francés. A French teacher who doesn't speak French. Apparently, many public schools don't have enough work that's specifically for their Spanish language teachers and so they have to give them other classes to get up to the full 20 hours per week. (The same goes for other subjects: biology, etc.) The teachers themselves apparently tend to be afraid to report the problem lest they be sent off to another school on the other side of the Community of Madrid. The end result: quality's sliding and we'll have work in Spain for the next century at least.
Maybe this type of situation might motivate "funcionarios" (civil servants) to up their game a bit? . . . doubtful . . .
Ana Noguera habla del fracaso escolar en la Comunitat Valenciana
This politician (obviously not right-wing) speaks in Spanish about the sorts of problems teachers are faced with in the public schools' system in Valencia. She says that teachers are overwhelmed because lands that were zoned for the construction of public schools were turned over for private schools by the right-wing Popular Party leaving too few public schools to handle all the students.
In this video Antonio Miguel Carmona of the PSOE party (Socialist Economist – PSOE lies on the left) claims that the educational model has changed and is changing in Spain. He quotes government official Lucia Figar of the PP party (Consejera de Educación - the regional Minister of Education Business person – the PP party lies on the right) as saying that her party chose to improve the outlook of private education with public funds. He further says that the PP is dismantling public education, dismantling the model of social mobility and preventing access to quality education. He says that the current political conflict goes back 200 years with support by the left for public education and support by the right for private education. He gives several alternatives to cutting the 80 million euros that have been cut from public education including cutting 53 million euros in advertising by the regional government.
He gives examples: For example, he says public schools in a local town of Moralzarzal (in a rich area of the Community of Madrid) had been requesting a vocational technology program for years and the town finally got one . . . a publically funded one in a private school. Also, he says parents who are making upwards of 100,000 euros per year are still receiving deductions on their income tax returns while poorer parents who are sending their children to public schools are no longer receiving their subsidized lunches because there aren’t any funds available.
A flashy presentation on Cutbacks in secondary education.
The Spanish public school system as of Sept. 2011.
In general, if you’re teaching young learner (YL) students after school in academies, your job will be to either support the school system’s English teachers indirectly or take them to a new level altogether (good luck). In any case, parents will want to see that their children’s grades in school are excellent because of your extra-curricular English classes.
Note that it’s usually very hard for students to fail for real in the Spanish system of education. Usually, when push comes to shove, students get passed on up to the next grade in collective teachers’ meetings subsequent to exams, etc. especially if they’ve already failed loads of other classes or if they’ve already been put back at some time in the recent past (especially if so the very last year). Unfortunately, there’s a section of the population which has learned how to work this system. They do little or nothing and just get pushed on through the system regardless. If parents send you these child-wonders to your classes in your academy, they’ll likely tend to continue to pull the same sort of thing they get away with in school. They even arrive in private universities with those very same expectations and as far as I've seen, it works for them. (In the sense that they can just purchase the degree with minimal corresponding effort.)
Note also that there’s not much flexibility in the system in the other direction either (forwards or upwards rather than backwards). For example, my own child attends public school and even though he has a good level in English, he must still work on numbers, colors, and simple verbs every year along with the other students in his class. There’s no option for testing out or learning another language. The same is true for extremely low-level students who are dropped into a class. They are either just expected to fend for themselves or you’re expected to magically pull it off whether it's 5 or 50 of them.
By the way, something else that might surprise U.S. parents who send their children to Spanish schools is the almost total lack of sports facilities and programs in the schools system as compared to U.S. schools. It’s a wonder that Spanish athletes do as well as they do on the world stage. I'm sure they're mostly coming from the upper-middle classes and over.
Then too, the system as a whole can be rather complex in other ways. For example, I live in a “dormitory” city (so called because it’s basically a suburbs of Madrid and people just come here to “sleep” I guess) of around 170,000 population called Alcorcón. The city is broken down into various school sectors and I more or less have to send my child to schools in my sector. There’s a point system that makes it hard to send him to any other sector in Alcorcón as children receive more points if they live in the same sector as the school, if they already have brothers and sisters in the school, if they have some sort of disease (especially stomach-related ones) that prevent them from staying for lunch, etc. You just tend to kind of discover some of these little bits of red tape here and there as you navigate through the system. Teaching in the system or trying to get work in the system is the same sort of experience. If you’re the type to dislike bureaucracy, this is enough to make you sick.
Pre-school for infants from 3-6 years of age.
Pre-school is totally optional, but students do tend do get a little exposure to English here (2-3 hours per week). There have usually been both public and private options in recent years.
As far as I can determine, parents' who I've known who have sent their children to nurseries earlier than the age of 3 have had problems with their children getting very dangerously sick all too often.
By the way, don't even consider sending your baby to a private nursery here. Here's a story about a baby that got left behind locked up in a nursery by the workers when they left: Bebe Olvidada. When it comes to people taking responsibility at work, Spain's just a barrel of laughs.
Elementary school from 6-12 years of age (6 grades: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th). (Primaria)
Subjects tend to include (translated loosely): “knowledge of social, cultural and natural environment”, mathematics, “artistic education” (music, and arts and crafts), “physical education”, “Spanish language and literature”, English (or another language such as French or German, but it’s usually English in the Community of Madrid), “Catholic religion” (this is optional, though it’s usually a choice between this and a study period in elementary school).
Note that in primary school the exact number of hours of each subject tends (loosely) to be up to the teacher though, they’re supposed to get at least about 2-3 hours of English per week. However, if the teacher, for example, would rather do more natural sciences for a few weeks instead of, say, English, this will happen, and repeatedly possibly to the students’ detriment.
On the other hand, some schools, even public ones, are so-called “bilingual”. This means that usually at least half of the subjects are taught in English. There are about 30 of these bilingual public schools in Madrid largely thanks to Aguirre's efforts.
The number of hours of homework varies from school to school and teacher to teacher. My own child (in a public school) usually gets around 3 hours (plus or minus one) of homework per day. It hasn’t been easy to organize ourselves to make time for sports (1 hour per day plus 1 hour trip back and forth to a private sports facility). Parents’ organizations tend to organize some extra-curricular sports activities immediately after school, but in my experience, these have been inferior to other municipally organized sports activities. The privately organized activities (in private schools mostly) have been the best organized ones in my experience.
Obligatory Secondary school from 12-16 years of age (4 years, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th) (Escuela Obligatoria – ESO)
According to articles on 20Minutos, at the end of these 4 years there was a 30% failure rate in Madrid in 2009 and 31% in Spain in 2005. According to ABC, in 2009-10 39% of 400,000 students in 4th of ESO are repeaters (24% are repeating 1 year and 15% are repeating two). (In my experience, as I’ve already mentioned, statistics tend to be “relative” in Spain – there’s always a trick - and I’ve always heard that the numbers of failures are actually higher.) Notice that even with the shenanigans, that students only fail with grades under a 5 and there may be an informal agreement in some cases to do whatever possible to help students with, say, a 4.6 over the line.
Notice also that children in ESO usually don’t have a very clear idea what they want to do in life beyond sliding burgers like Spongebob on TV (any courses designed to develop or discover occupational interests are nearly non-existent and even if they did exist, it’s doubtful whether this society would be able to produce enough jobs for everyone). Historically, there have been very few "orientadores" (or a sort of high school counselor who is supposed to guide/counsel these kids) in the schools and I expect they tended to be overworked (they double as "psychologists" for kids having other problems in school, etc.) and underinformed themselves (this system is opaque, opaque, opaque). Now, there will be even fewer of them with the cutbacks.
In addition, in the past each student was assigned to one teacher who acted as the student's guide/counselor answering questions and so on. In my child's high school and others, these "tutorías" have been eliminated and those hours have been given over to other subjects. Also, teachers will have even less time to spend with parents.
ESO students, who are unable to reason at the level of the politicians who are manipulating their future, have very little "realistic" idea of what they're faced with in the world of work. Under the circumstances, it's hard to see how their eyes can be opened to this reality enough to motivate them in time to make the extra effort to get the education and training necessary to escape the ranks of the unemployed (40-50% of young men and women in Spain depending on the "flexibility" of the statistics).
It's easy to see, given the circumstances, how students' expectations of progress in education can be so low and, historically, students' expectations of progress in English have tended to be even lower. In my opinion, on an individual level this basically means that Spanish students tend to make less of an effort, make less progress, and therefore continue to study English privately for longer because they rarely invest but a tiny percentage of the time and effort necessary to do the job. They don't and won't understand this, not enough to change them anyway. This is bad news for them, but good news for English teachers unfortunately.
These are the subjects students study in ESO:
Obligatory secondary school 1 (ESO CURSO PRIMERO)
Natural sciences
Social sciences, geography and history
Physical education
Arts and crafts
Spanish language and literature
Foreign language (usually English)
Mathematics
Music
History and culture of religions
Catholic religion
Optional: ................................... (Options: French, Applied technology, Social change and gender)
Obligatory secondary school 2 (ESO CURSO SEGUNDO)
Natural sciences
Social sciences, geography and history
Physical education
Education for citizenship and human rights
Spanish language and literature
Foreign language (usually English)
Mathematics
Technology
History and culture of religions
Catholic religion
Optional: ................................... (Options: French, Scientific Method, Social change and gender)
Obligatory secondary school 3 (ESO CURSO TERCERO)
Biology and geology
Physics and chemistry
Social sciences, geography and history
Physical education
Arts and crafts
Spanish language and literature
Foreign language (usually English)
Mathematics
Music
Technology
History and culture of religions
Catholic religion
Optional: ................................... (Options: French, Classical culture, Social change and gender)
Obligatory secondary school 4 (ESO CURSO TERCERO)
Social sciences, geography and history
Ethics- civics education
Physical education
Spanish language and literature,
Foreign language (usually English)
Mathematics A [ ] B [ ]
History and culture of religions
Catholic religion
3 options to be chosen from different branches: liberal arts or science and technology
(Options: Biology and geology, arts and crafts, physics and chemistry, computers, Latin, music, second language, technology)
Post-obligatory secondary school (11th, 12th)
The last two years of “high school” are not obligatory. After obligatory secondary school, Students have a “voluntary” choice between 2 years of vocational/occupational training (“Formación Profesional” or "FP", which can be followed by university, say, electronics-related) or 2 years of prep-school for University (“Bachillerato”). Vocational training includes courses such as “administration” (eg. clerk or office worker), “electrician” and health care (eg. “orderly”). These 3 make up about 50% of the students doing FP courses. Other courses can be gardening, agriculture, physical activities and sports, graphic arts, telecommunications installer, etc. (maybe 100 more). But, the FP classes are not an automatic given and, apparently, as many as 40,000 students were left out last year and, again, the red tape can be horrendous in anything like this. Students trying to take advantage of what could be seen as loopholes in the system have been known to get them legislated out at the last minute leaving them stranded.
University prep-school (“Bachillerato”)
Students who wish to attend a university straight out of high-school study some of the same basic core subjects, and then choose other optional courses from one of three areas which they wish to specialize in: arts (by the way, only 1 of 13 high schools offers the “Arts” branch in my city), sciences and technology, or humanities and social sciences (4 of 25 hours of the specialized courses the first year and 12 of 25 hours the second) depending on what they want to study in university. So, by the time they enroll in this “University prep-school” they probably need to have a pretty good idea of which area they want to specialize in.
At the end of these two years (or after FP), students take a series of 6 exams (which are part of the “PAU” or “Pruebas de Acceso a Estudios Universitarios”). These 6 exams are split into 2 sets: 3 core exams common to all students regardless of the area that they specialized in, and 3 exams for their particular specialties. The common exams include (Spanish) language and literature, foreign language (English at more or less a B2 First Certificate level), and History of Philosophy or History of Spain.
It’s common knowledge here that about 97% of jobs that require a university degree also require a good level of English and as the university entrance exams include the English exam as one of the three common exams, high-school students have tended to take English seriously and now that the ability to speak is going to be tested starting this year, students will hopefully no longer neglect this aspect of English as they have in the past (because it wasn’t going to be on the exam).
Here are the exams for the specialized fields of study in Bachillerato:
Arts:
- Drawing
- History of art
- Choice of Techniques of graphic-arts expression, Image, Fundamentals of Design or Technical Drawing II Liberal arts (“letras”):
- Latin II
- History of art
- Choice of: geograpy, Greek II, Universal Literature, History of Music Social sciences:
- Mathematics as applied to Social Sciences II
- Economics and organization of companies or History of Art
- Geography Technical Sciences:
- Mathematics II
- Physics
- Choice of: chemistry, technical drawing II, Industrial technology, electrotechnology, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Mechanics II Health Sciences:
- Chemistry
- Biology
- Choice of: Mathematics II, Physics, Technical Drawing II, Earth and Environmental Sciences Double way (“doble via”): Technical and Health Sciences.
- Mathematics II
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Biology
Note that 88.2% passed the “Selectividad” or “PAU” exams in 2009, but note also that as far as I know, teachers tend to try to fail out any students who they think are sure to fail before they even get out of Bachillerato so that they won’t lower their school’s averages. (This is true in both public and private schools.)
After this, in order to get into certain majors, say, medicine, that students need to make a minimum score on their exams, which is usually incredibly high for the majors which are in demand. This total grade not only depends on the grade they get on the “Selectividad” exams (40% of the total grade), but also on the grades they got in their Bachillerato high school (60% of the grade - the grade for each must be at least a 4 and the two together must average 5). This is where the private sector (people with money and power to “buy” their high school diplomas in Spain – again, in my opinion) have a distinct advantage.
(By the way, in all fairness, the parents I speak to who have their children in private schools tend to claim that they're better. But, I've taught in many private schools and unless they're talking about the two or three elite schools in Madrid, they're not! But, I can understand that if you're spending 1,000 euros a month for your two kids to attend a private school, you'd tend to really need to believe that it's better.)
This is what students tend to study in 1st of “Bachillerato”:
Bachillerato - 1º de BACHILLERATO
Spanish language and literature (3h)
Sciences for the contemporary world (3h)
Physical education (2h)
Philosophy (3h)
Foreign language (usually English) (3h)
Religion (2h)
Project (1h)
Tutor (1h)
1 option subject offered by the school (i.e. forget the arts in most cases).
These are the specialties:
ARTS Arts, design, image Audiovisual culture (4h)
Art, drawing (4h)
Technical drawing I (4h)
Volume (4h)
ARTS Music, dance, drama Audiovisual culture (4h)
Musical analysis I (4h)
Applied anatomy (4h)
Language and musical practice (4h)
SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY Sciences Biology and geology (4h)
Physics and chemistry (4h)
Mathematics I (4h)
SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY Technology Mathematics I (4h)
Physics and Chemistry (4h)
Technical drawing I (4h)
Industrial technology I (4h)
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Humanities Latin I (4h)
Greek I
History of the contemporary world (4h)
Means of Communication (4h)
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Humanities Economics (4h)
Geography I (4h)
History of the contemporary world (4h)
Mathematics applied to social sciences (4h)
Bachillerato - 2º de BACHILLERATO
History of Spain (3h)
History of philosophy (3h)
Spanish language and literature (4h)
Foreign language (usually English) (3h)
Religion/History y culture of religions (1h)
Select 3 subjects from one of these: Arts, Sciences and technology or Humanities and Social Sciences.
These are the specialties:
ARTS Arts, design, image
Artistic Drawing II (4h)
Technical drawing II (4h)
Design (4h)
History of art (4h)
Techniques of expression of graphic arts (4h)
ARTS Music, dance, drama
Musical analysis II (4h)
Drama (4)
History of music and dance (4h)
Universal literature (4h)
SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY Sciences of Nature
Earth and environment (4h)
Physics II (4h)
Mathematics II (4h)
SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY Health
Biology (4h)
Chemistry (4h)
Mathematics II (4h)
SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY Sciences and engineering
Physics (4h)
Technical drawing II (4h)
Mathematics II (4h)
SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY Technologies
Technical drawing II (4h)
Electronics/electrical (4h)
Mechanical (4h)
Industrial technology (4h)
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Humanities
Latin II (4h)
Greek II (4h)
Universal literature (4h)
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Social sciences, geography and history
History of philosophy (4h)
Geography II (4h)
History of art (4h)
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Social sciences, administration and management
Economics of companies (4h)
Geography II (4h)
Mathematics applied to social sciences II (4h)
These are the optional subjects (choose 1):
Second foreign language II (4h)
Psychology (4h)
Physical education (4h)
Information and communication technologies (4h)
Audiovisual communication (4h)
One subject from any of the other branches (4h)
Note that a lot of the schools before (and now more than ever) are unable to offer many of the optional courses. As I think I've mentioned, only 1 of 13 high schools in my city of Alcorcón offers the ARTS branch. I've read of students studying some options by internet at a distance, but I don't know how extensive this practice is. I've often marvelled at how poorly the public schools system takes advantage of online learning. The immediate future looks bleak for this sort of thing because if they were unable to put these sorts of systems together in the good times (or "vacas gordas" - fat cows), I think it's unlikely they'll be able to do so now.
On becoming an English teacher in the public schools' system (to give you a taste):
In order to teach English in the public schools' system in secondary school, you have to do/have these things at the very least (about 6 years of preparation):
1. Have a degree in English ("Grado en Estudios Ingleses").
(This is a 4 year degree now as of the implementation of the
Bologna Accords.)
2. Get a Masters in teaching ("Formación del Profesorado de
Educación")
(This is a full-time 1-year course.)
3. Pass a State exam. ("Oposición")
(Part of it is to memorize 80 topics and present some at random to a jury of teachers.)
RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms
(Ha! Maybe we ought to throw it all out and start over.)
Translated to Spanish on Youtube
To begin with, the number of students per class in public schools is expected to go up to about 40 very soon. There are also rumors that upwards of 3,000 teachers will be laid off just in the Community of Madrid. Moreover, there have been and will be serious cutbacks in grants and scholarships for university students. There are probably far too many universities in Spain and there have been and are likely to be far more cutbacks in that area as well. 
February 8, 2012 update: 
"Manifestación en defensa de la educación pública 20S Madrid."
