The most important thing you can give a child is a good education, but what do you do when the public system is letting kids down?
As in the UK, and probably in other countries as well, middle-class parents in Spain who consider themselves to be "progressive" are being faced with a dilemma: their principles tell them their children should be educated in the public system, but with the public system in such a mess, they are being forced (though of course its their choice) to pay for a private education.
Some blame the mess of the public system on the fact that the teachers are intocables – untouchable in the sense that they cannot be fired, having once passed a one-off public examination, and who are therefore unmotivated. Some would call them overpaid and underworked. Some people, more controversially, blame it on immigration; others on government policies that mean that children of all abilities are lumped together: the somewhat idealistic notion behind this is that the strongest students will pull the weakest up to their level, but of course in reality the reverse is true.
Most parents agree that the public system needs a thorough overhaul, and therefore send their children to concertados – government-subsidized religious schools. The parents may not be religious, but again they are prepared to sacrifice their moral principles if it means giving their children a decent education.
There are not as many concertados, and now they are all full: and since acceptance into state schools and concertados depends on a rigid, inflexible points system, it's generally accepted that to get your child into a concertado, you need an enchufe (contact), especially if there are no good ones in your area. I know three people who have had to move moral mountains to get their children into a concertado: some people even move house.