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Local Government Education Policy: Developments Concepts and Perspectives
Wolfgang W. Weiß
Local Government Education Policy: Developments Concepts and Perspectives
1. Education in the City
1.1 Obsolete Control Structures in the School System
1.2 New Challenges
1.3 Local Authority Responsibility for Education
2. Programmes and Projects
3. Conceptual Framework
3.1 Different Educational Processes
3.2 Networking in Local Authority and Region
3.3 Steering Educational Processes on Various Levels
4. Areas of Tension
4.1 School and Out-of-School Education
4.2 School and the State Authority: The “Self-Responsible School”
4.3 Local Authority and State Authority: “Extended Responsibility for Schools”
4.4 State and Federation: Federalism Reform
5. Local Education Landscapes – A Political Mission
Abstract:
Responsibility for education is increasingly being transferred from state government, which has sovereign power to control and supervise schools within state territory, to local authorities and individual schools. “Local education landscapes” are hence developing in cooperation with new, including non-school partners. This article discusses what has caused this devolution, how it has developed, what forms it has taken, and what tensions it has provoked. The concepts developed in the course of this reform movement are discussed in relation to the educational ambitions pursued. The “municipalisation” of education policy is shown to offer considerable advantages in practical orientation, flexibility, and regional fit, but only if overall responsibility remains with the state.
1. Education in the City
“Local government responsibility for education in a changing society” was the subtitle of the conference “Education in the City” organised by the German Association of Cities and Towns (DST) in Aachen in November 2007. The unusually large number of participants bore witness to the importance of the issue. In the unanimously adopted “Aachen Declaration” (cf. Deutscher Städtetag 2008, 18), the more than 1000 delegates – politicians, administrators, and educational practitioners – called for cities to play “a key role” in developing local education landscapes.(1) In particular, the “scope for action by local authorities in the schools sector is to be expanded and responsibility for internal and external school matters is to be reorganised in favour of local authorities” (ibid.).
1.1 Obsolete Control Structures in the School System
The distinction between internal and external school matters current since the Weimar Republic is difficult to justify today. In the interim, our society has been profoundly transformed whereas, despite all system discontinuities and reforms, our education system has yet to undergo any comparable changes, especially in administrative and control structures. Basically, the distribution of powers between state and local government still follows the pattern laid down by Article 144 of the Weimar Constitution, which stipulates that: “The entire school system shall be under the supervision of the state; it may involve local authorities.” This discretionary provision continues to operate in the federal system of the Federal Republic: school policy is “incumbent on the states,” and the constituent states of the federation decide “in sovereign responsibility” how local governments are to participate (2) – a basic structure still in effect in various forms in all 16 states.
- By virtue of Article 7 (1) of the Basic Law, state governments exercise supervisory powers over the school system and are also responsible for internal school matters. They decide on structures, courses, and admission arrangements, on timetables and class sizes. They set the syllabus, authorize school experiments, appoint teachers, and oversee the content, legality, and administration of school activities. In brief: state governments bear responsibility for the entire formative setting within which the school system operates.
- Under Article 28 (2) of the Basic Law, local authorities have the right to manage all the affairs of the local community on their own responsibility, exempt from direction and subject only to supervision of the legality of their administrative activities. They are responsible for “external school matters,” notably for providing school premises, furniture and equipment, teaching and learning materials, school transport, school district structures – in other words for the administrative implementation of state government requirements.
Until three or four years ago, local education authorities (Schullämter) were staffed almost entirely by administrative personnel, whereas education experts were to be found essentially in state departments of education (Kultusministerien).
This consensus, which had held until recently, reflected a common, state-centred understanding of school administration and supervision. Under the motto “constitutional law passes, administrative law persists” it appeared to survive all waves of educational reform. Essentially, it has treated the school as a protected zone and haven regulated by decree where children were to be prepared for life and work.
1.2 New Challenges
This long obsolete model had lost its relevance by the 1980s at the latest. The particularly tight financial situation focused attention on the primary duty of the school, namely to provide adequate instruction. At a time of far-reaching cuts and recruitment freezes for teachers, this ultimately meant pruning the educational and social mandate of the school. The protests of parents and teachers against the progressive deterioration of the school and learning situation, often reflected in the desolate state of school buildings and learning materials, were to bear fruit only much later, so to speak between “PISA” and “Erfurt.”
- The PISA international comparative studies (3) published from 2000 revealed both the considerable shortcomings of the German school system and its selective effects.
- Erfurt, where a pupil ran amok, shooting 17 people, mostly teachers from his school – provoking no less than 18 copycat offences in Thuringia alone – threw a spotlight on the seeming educational inadequacies of German schools.(4)
The media hype triggered by PISA and Erfurt found a later focus in “Rütli,” which stands for an admission of failure in education policy by teachers at the eponymous Berlin school, who declared they could not continue working under the prevailing conditions.(5)
Anyone reading the studies with care and who is still in contact with the realities of school life is well aware that the reports of catastrophe do not reflect these realities. But they do clearly indicate that the German education system is undergoing radical changes. And these changes particularly affect the conflictual relationship between state and local government in educational policy.
It is evident that – despite all the reforms undertaken – our traditional education system faces growing, ever new challenges generated by accelerating, dynamic changes in society. The keywords are familiar: the loss of functions for the family, new media, a changing working world, globalisation, multiculturality, etc. And the more these changes advance without adequate response from the education system, the greater will be the tensions generated and the more serious will be the conflicts and problems on the ground. It was accordingly the appeals for help and the reports of crises, mainly from teachers in Hauptschulen (general secondary schools) that lent impetus in Germany to the community education movement originating in England in the 1980s (cf. Poster 1982) – initially in problem areas of Berlin and then in certain cities of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The concept of the “neighbourhood school” was soon popular throughout the country; the idea was for teachers and pupils to integrate the school environment into practical teaching, cooperating with associations, project initiatives, and municipal institutions such as adult education centres, museums, municipal archives, and theatres, and with the youth welfare office, family aid, and the police, etc. (cf. Rossmeissl 1986).
This movement also gave birth to “RAAs,” regional agencies supporting immigrant children and young people, which were established in cooperation with Comed, the association for the promotion of community education, and the Freudenberg Foundation. The RAAs, which engage in educational neighbourhood and integration work in 46 cities, are only one of the major reform projects of that period (cf. Kollberg/Wenzel 2004). These initiatives were also instrumental in establishing the “culture shops,” project offices, libraries, and pupil cafés, etc. in schools open to pupils, parents, and the neighbourhood as a whole. They showed the way forward in assuming competence for education in the community and have taken on important steering functions in this field.
The thrust of the community education movement is to “open up the school and let life in!” (cf. Zimmer/Niggemeyer 1986; Weiß 1989). This was also reflected in the so-called GÖS Decree in North Rhine-Westphalia on “The Organisation of School Life and the Opening Up of the School”(6) (cf. Gomolla 2005, 112 ff.). What was then developed has not only borne fruit to this day but also lent particular drive to the cause.
Unexpected support also came from the Cooperative Association of Municipal Authorities (KGSt), which appealed for greater cooperation between municipal institutions, especially in the school and youth fields (cf. KGSt 1996). However, their motives differed from those of Comed or the RAAs: they were primarily interested in synergy effects, and thus in cost-cutting.
PISA lent this debate new impetus, as did the – initially controversial – cross-party compromise to establish new all-day schools. They act, as it were, as rallying points for this movement. For additional personnel is needed over and beyond the teaching staff, in particular social education workers and educators; new investment is needed, new equipment, staff operating on a fee basis, etc. – an enormous financial effort, which local authorities have to shoulder alone as long as municipal and state school personnel are kept separate as required by the distinction between internal and external school matters. In the long run, local authorities are quite unable to master this task.
1.3 Local Authority Responsibility for Education
The conclusions to be drawn from the PISA studies were intensively discussed at the Aachen conference, especially the effects on the community of deficiencies in quality and social selection in German schools – the two main findings that were difficult to reconcile with an efficient, export-oriented economy and repeated but unfulfilled political pledges of equal opportunities.
In an impressive evaluation of two comparable studies carried out in 1970 and 2003,(7) Klaus Klemm (2008b, 8 f.) shows how little the German education system has succeeded in solving the key problems, despite immense efforts at reform. They show that, as 30 years ago, children from the “upper service class” are much more frequently recommended for Gymnasium education, and thus given the opportunity to qualify for higher education, than children of skilled workers (basis cognitive abilities and reading competence being controlled for): policy input to intensify segregation in the city.
In the course of demographic development and under the given conditions, this trend will become even stronger. According to Klemm, “there will be a shift in the stratum and immigrant-specific composition of the coming generation” (ibid.) and towards greater socio-spatial segregation, particularly affecting larger cities. To quote Klaus-Peter Strohmeyer, there will be “neighbourhood divisions between poor and rich, between children with and without an immigrant background, between families with and without children” (quoted ibid.).
This is one of the main reasons why local authorities face a stiff challenge in education, especially where differences in quality between neighbourhoods are exacerbated by quantitative changes, namely opposing population trends. The population of certain districts in large cities has already shrunk by 15, 20, or even 30 per cent while that of others has increased.
This development confronts local authorities with immense integration problems and also causes considerable costs, threatening to throw the performance of other local government tasks off balance – not only financially. For highly complex measures are needed to cope with these problems, especially in the schools sector (cf. Sikorski 2007, 292 ff.). For example, it can be useful “to bundle education policy initiatives in individual urban areas and to focus particularly on integrating families with an immigrant background”(8) (Hauf 2007, 311). Appropriate target-group and neighbourhood-specific services, projects, and support measures, which, moreover, are expected to interconnect with other local educational service providers, cannot be adequately initiated and accompanied by a distant state department of education. People on the spot who are in charge and involved are needed.(9) Municipalities are hence demanding greater powers in education, in other words, greater scope to organise this sector locally.
Moreover, it is difficult to understand why local authorities should be responsible for almost all the educational institutions of a city – adult education centres, libraries, music schools, child and youth services, school equipment, etc. – but not for what happens in school, for internal school matters. They have no powers of intervention whatsoever although they are particularly affected by decisions made in the area. At the Aachen DST conference there was therefore much discussion about “extended local authority responsibility for schools.” The best attended forum at the conference was entitled “From school maintaining body to regional education landscape – organising education locally.”(10)
It is clear that cities are no longer willing to accept responsibility above all for the “losers of the school system.” As we have seen, this causes immense costs and integration problems for local authorities, posing financial and other threats for other areas of local government. The resulting conflicts between local and state authorities have been described in detail elsewhere, for example in DST position papers, which speak of “one of the most important unsolved problems” (Deutscher Städtetag 2006, 7) and accordingly link the demand for greater local government powers in education with a call for the “fundamental reform” of the school financing system, a reform that should bring “forward-looking redistribution of costs and burdens between state and local government” (ibid.).
2. Programmes and Projects
The Aachen DST conference was only one indicator of the growing trend towards greater local government collaboration in education (mostly discussed under the heading of “municipalisation”). Hardly any major institution involved in education has failed to contribute to the debate. But “municipalisation” is also enjoying pride of place in party platforms, scholarly publications, and statements from professional organisations, although in connection with a wide range of issues, concepts, and intentions. Examples that, over and beyond individual local initiatives, could develop a more widespread impact include the following:
- In 2007, the German Association for Public and Private Welfare, drawing on the 12th federal government Report on Youth, published a discussion paper on “The Development of Local Education Landscapes” designed as a “stimulus to overcome thinking and action in institutional categories and isolated responsibilities in order to realise a coherent, overall system of education and care at the local level.”(11)
- Many local authorities, in cooperation with their state education authority and often with the Bertelsmann Foundation have adopted the leitbild of the “local education landscape” and have developed the necessary content and concrete planning for a “network in the region” (Bertelsmann Foundation). A pioneering role has been played by North Rhine-Westphalia,(12) where back-up research findings on the “Autonomous School” pilot project are now available (Holtappels et al. 2008). Other states followed.(13) With this concept, Baden-Württemberg, Bremen, Hessen, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Schleswig-Holstein are also pursuing the goal of stronger networking between schools in the region (cf. Hessisches Kultusministerium 2009, 8). There is now a vast range of initiatives and projects on “school development in networks” in various local authorities and regions, which to some extent go beyond established state programmes (14) (cf., for example Solzbacher/Minderop 2007; Berkemeyer et al. 2009 (15)).
- Some cities (16) have published “local education reports” covering the entire range of local education from the elementary to the tertiary levels, based on key figures and indicators and addressing the specific situation of the city. Together with accompanying structural measures (school coordination conferences or education councils, training services, school development funds, education partnerships, etc.), the concept of the “networked education landscape” is implemented in concrete steps.
- The local education report is to be seen in the context of “regional education monitoring” (cf. Vorndran 2008) as a systematic procedure for observing and developing educational processes on the basis of differentiated indicators. On 2 June 2006, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) adopted a general strategy to this effect.(17) Since then, workshops and training courses have been held everywhere for representatives of local authorities, sometimes in the context of the relevant “local comparison circles.”
- From 2000, the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) together with state governments carried out the programme “Learning Regions” (cf. BMBF 2008; Ambos et al. 2002).(18) The “Learning on the Spot” programme recently launched by the BMBF and a consortium of 29 donors is to be seen as a further development, providing financial support for “development partnerships” in 23 county-free cities and 17 counties and rural counties for an initial three year period.(19)
- In the BMBF-sponsored project “Local Education Landscapes in Cooperation between All-Day School and Youth Welfare” in six pilot regions, the German Youth Institute (DJI) is examining “various strategies and developments towards a genuinely local education policy to eliminate educational disadvantages arising from a person's origins” (Deutsches Jugendinstitut 2008).(20)
- Together with the Jacobs Foundation, the German Child and Youth Foundation (DKJS) is carrying out the development programme “Lifeworld School,” which seeks to “develop a local network of responsibility”(21) and to link up local educational institutions and their resources.
- In this context, the “Weinheim Initiative” launched by the Freudenberg Foundation should also be mentioned, which in a 2007 declaration set out seven theses for “local responsibility for education and training.”(22) The aims are “the consolidation and broadening of local and regional approaches to effective cooperation between local authorities and civil society to ensure the reliable occupational and social integration of young people.”(23)
3. Conceptual Framework
This by no means exhaustive overview of current “municipalisation” trends in education shows not only that the topic is very much on the agenda but also that the programmes and projects mentioned operate with a wide range of concepts that partly overlap and partly imply differences. Their content is seldom clearly defined and therefore has to be inferred from the approach involved and the state and local government context. On the basis of the general goals and areas of action addressed by “municipalisation” a conceptual framework can be outlined as below.
3.1 Different Educational Processes
The integrative education approach and the extended concept of education underlying the intended reforms lend structure to these processes. Three educational processes interact (cf. Autorengruppe Bildungsberichterstattung 2008, S. VII f.; Bock/Otto 2007, S. 205 ff.):
- Formal educational processes generally take place in educational and training institutions and are directed towards the acquisition of recognised qualifications.
- Non-formal educational processes take place outside these facilities and do not lead to the acquisition of a recognised qualification.
- Informal educational processes are not didactically organised; they proceed in the context of everyday life. Learners do not necessarily see them as expanding their knowledge and skills.
Even though clear boundaries cannot be drawn, these different processes can be assigned to different institutions.
- Formal educational processes in the form of publicly organised learning arrangements leading to “formal qualifications” take place in schools and training facilities.
- Informal or non-formal learning, experience, and educational arrangements are offered in particular by the child and youth welfare system.
- Informal learning, mostly without purposive arrangements, generally occurs in the social milieu of origin, in the family and the circle of friends.
The municipalisation debate addresses the interaction between these different educational processes and the institutions involved in the region and local authority. Two directions of cooperation need to be considered: horizontal and vertical.
3.2 Networking in Local Authority and Region
The horizontal perspective covers cooperation and networking between the various institutions for formal, non-formal, and informal education, for example between schools, youth centres, and families.
Three stages or concepts can be distinguished in the type and degree of networking (cf. Lehmpfuhl/Pfeiffer 2009, 195 f.; Lohre 2007, 46 ff.; Solzbacher/Minderop 2007, 8 ff.).
- Cooperation between at least two partners or educational institutions that have hitherto operated more or less side by side, but mostly for a limited period and without involving other organisations or institutionalisation. In the event of cooperation between specific partners over a longer period, school or education networks can develop that are generally organised on a more permanent basis.(24)
- Regional school landscapes in which systematic, i.e., organised and institutionalised relations are established between all actors relevant to the schools sector.
- Regional education landscapes, in which all, including non-school education providers and services cooperate and become increasingly interlinked.
The degree of networking thus increases from school landscape à education landscape.
The term “local education landscape” is used mostly in connection with links between school and non-school education with explicit reference to local authority service providers (and including independent providers operating in the municipality). Unlike the NRW concept of the “autonomous school,” it does not concentrate on a graduated system covering school (“school landscape”) and child and youth welfare (“education landscape”); the point of reference is the educational career of the individual child. Because each child has been involved from birth in various educational processes (informal, non-formal, formal; see above), which vary in importance from one stage in life to another, a range of educational institutions in the community cooperate from the very beginning, each in its own function and specialisation, depending on the age of the child.
In the education policy debate, the terms “local,” “local-authority/municipal,” and “regional” education landscapes are used in various contexts, mostly without differentiation. The terminology can be clarified as follows:
- Local: cooperation between schools and educational institutions “on the spot,” for example in the same district or neighbourhood with a similar clientèle often developing on the basis of shared problems and goals. As with the “Weinheim Initiative” (see above), this can give rise to joint “local responsibility for education”, although the territory affected can usually not be clearly defined.(25)
- Local authority: local authorities include counties, county-free cities and municipalities, the lowest tier of territorial authorities providing local services and performing local functions. The territorial boundaries of local authorities, the smallest administrative entities in the structure of government are politically and legally clearly defined.
- Region: the term “region,” in contrast, has many sides to it; its meaning depends on the given context. Regional boundaries vary in terms of the perspective adopted (geographic, cultural history, political, ecological, social, economic). Nor can concepts such as landscape, area, economic or social space be clearly defined.
In connection with school and education, region is often used synonymously with county-free city or rural county.(26) However, terms such as “regional union” and “metropolitan region” indicate that the area referred as a “region” is usually more extensive than a local authority,(27) let alone the area covered by a local project initiative.(28) Regional planning is hence involved when projects have to be coordinated across local authority boundaries, mostly in the fields of construction and economic development, but also in cultural and educational matters. The Saarbrücken Regional Planning Association (29) established in 2008, for example, covering the state capital and a further nine local authorities with 75 schools, is one of the biggest local government school authorities in Southwest Germany.
School and education landscapes can accordingly be defined as local → local-authority → or regional, depending on their reach and on the number of institutions and actors involved.
3.3 Steering Educational Processes on Various Levels
The vertical perspective on collaboration between educational institutions, especially in the schools sector, focuses on the steering and organisation of educational processes. The state controls schools, which the Basic Law places under its supervision, firstly through primary and secondary legislation, regulating the curriculum, teaching hours, teacher training, teaching and school management staffing, etc. (input control), and secondly through state school supervision, which is divided into various tiers depending on the size of the state in question.
In the larger states there are three tiers.(30) Control is top-down, with, for example, the “supreme school supervisory authority” in the state department of education instructing lower-tier local education authorities via the “higher school supervisory authority”(31) to examine certain matters, to initiate and accompany reforms, to find pragmatic solutions (from the point of view of the education department) to problems and conflicts, and to report on progress and results through official channels.
Responsibility and organisational autonomy (reflected also in the number of institutions and people concerned) thus diminish from state → region → school.
The structure of school supervision differs widely from state to state. At present there are 16 supreme and 20 higher school supervisory authorities and 202 county and local education authorities. But these figures (status February 2009) change frequently. For the largely obsolete structures of school supervision are in flux. This is evidenced by the recent spate of restructuring,(32) and the many efforts to strengthen the advisory over the supervisory function of state education authorities,(33) for instance by establishing “school inspectorates” to some extent institutionally separate from the supervisory authority.
This development has to do with the shift in paradigm towards output control, which found its way into almost all local authorities with the New Steering Model (New Public Management) propagated by the Cooperative Association of Municipal Authorities (KGSt) in the 1990s (see above). Goals and framework conditions continue to be set, but the prime focus is on the results achieved, on “product quality,” on the question “What has been accomplished?” (for example school quality measured by, among other things, pupil performance) and only secondarily on the “How?” (e.g., teaching behaviour).
As a consequence, local discretionary scope was enhanced by devolving decision-making powers (keywords: “school autonomy,” “autonomous school,” “self-responsible school” and the like), schools were required to develop their own profile; they were given the power to make decisions in financial and staff matters, encouraged to cooperate with other local educational institutions, to constitute networks, to collaborate in the development of local education landscapes, etc. At the same time, new control elements were introduced such as educational standards, external evaluation, and quality management.
It was logical that this complex process could not be organised top-down; the motivation, practical experience, and professional competence of local actors were needed, in keeping with the spirit of the New Steering Model. Experience with community education and the neighbourhood school had already shown that reform initiatives and networks that developed at the school and local authority level also had a considerable bottom-up impact (cf. Solzbacher/Minderop 2007, 8 ff.), with schools exerting influence via school supervisory authorities (and through the media and political channels) on the state, which reacted with various pilot schemes, special resource allocations, ordinances, etc. to expand the local scope for collaboration and organisation in schools.
Local authorities play a key role in this process of growing school autonomy. Not only because at an early date they extended the scope of schools, e.g., through budgeting, to participate and decide in financial and (non-teaching) staff matters, but especially because they are responsible for the most important partners schools cooperate with, the child and youth welfare services – without which the concept of biography-oriented promotion of the individual child would make not sense. Not least for this reason, the local education landscape concept has been developed essentially from within local authorities, which accordingly urge that their discretionary scope in education and education policy be broadened (see above).
The devolution or relocation of the relevant powers and decision-making from state to local government is referred to as municipalisation. The extended responsibility for schools is the outcome of this process, in the course of which local authorities have mutated from mere pay clerks for operational expenses or “school administrators” into “shapers of the school” in the community.
In local authority schools, which many have advocated,(34) but which have hitherto been established only in Bavaria and Bremen, the teaching staff is employed by the municipality, which also exercises administrative supervision, whereas the state department of education remains responsible for legal and substantive supervision. This arrangement appears to enable flexible and practical local authority control of schools, but only where adequate funding is made available (cf. Lanig/Weiß 2008, S. 305 ff.) and where the two education authorities involved (local education authority, state school supervisory authority) accept joint local/state responsibility for education.(35)
4. Areas of Tension
Obviously, the processes described produce friction. Both horizontal and vertical tensions arise between the cooperating institutions.
4.1 School and Out-of-School Education
The consensus that gradually developed in the course of the PISA studies to establish new all-day schools without delay in the interests of furthering pupil performance as well as personal and social development has thrown light on a well-known but nonetheless neglected problem area, namely the relationship between school and youth. This area of potential conflict, also reflected in the distinct professional identities of teachers and social education workers, has been placed firmly on the agenda when it comes to planning the new all-day schools in the community – for instance when local education authority and youth welfare office sit down together to decide on the general principles, framework conditions, and working structures for the new school. And, of course, this latent conflict shows itself repeatedly in the practical work at school.
Since the development of all-day schools involves not only local education departments and child and youth welfare offices but also day-care and after-school centres, health departments, non-school educational and cultural institutions (adult education centres, municipal libraries, music schools, art centres, municipal archives, theatres, etc.) and other, mostly private organisations, the local “vibrations” produced in education policy can well be imagined: a wide-ranging, highly complex field that is developing enormous drive.
Quite a few cities are attempting to respond to this development with appropriate departmental structures (school, youth, social affairs) and the corresponding “concentration of responsibilities in a joint local authority committee” (Hebborn 2008b, 56) and through moderation processes.
4.2 School and the State Authority: The “Self-Responsible School”
The concept of the “independent,” “decree-free,” “(semi-) autonomous” school has a long tradition in the education policy debate (cf. Pfeiffer 2008, S. 17 ff.). While the terminology often changes, the goals remains.
Writing as long ago as 1954 of the “administered school”, Hellmut Becker noted that it had “developed more and more into the lowest tier of administrative hierarchy; it is now on a par with the inland revenue office, the employment office, the local police and in stark contrast to the self-governing municipality” (quoted from Becker 1993, 130).
Becker calls for “greater autonomy for the individual school” (ibid.), a demand taken up only in 1970 by the education commission of the German Education Council, which recommended greater “independence for educational institutions.” To this end they should be “partially liberated from dependence on government education authorities” (Deutscher Bildungsrat 1970, 262). “To fulfil these tasks, educational institutions require their own financial resources and their own supernumerary staff, as well as certain discretionary powers in staffing and financial matters” (ibid., 264).
But these demands came to bear only much later with the paradigmatic shift provoked by the New Steering Model in the schools sector, as well. With a time lag of decades, the “administered school” was gradually replaced by the notion of an enabled, autonomous school – firstly in a few local authorities in the early 1990s (cf. Neumann/Weiß 1992) then at the state level in 1995 in a memorandum by the North Rhine-Westphalian Education Commission, which attracted attention throughout the country. The commission recommended the “concept of the semi-autonomous school” as a system of graduated responsibility (cf. Bildungskommission NRW, 64 ff.).
In collaboration with the Bertelsmann Foundation, the NRW Ministry of Education thereupon launched the pilot project “School & Co.” (a predecessor to the “Autonomous School” project). One of the chief aims was to “eliminate the distinction between internal and external school matters in favour of effective cooperation between supervisory bodies and school authorities in a community of responsibility between state and local government”.(36)
“The aim was hence not the reorganisation of responsibilities in the technical administrative sense nor the formal redefinition of the relationship between state and local government functions.” The intention was to redesign control structures for the education sector within the existing system of competencies and to develop these structures in concerted responsibility” (Lohre et al. 2008, 100).
As we have seen, other states soon followed suit,(37) and “from 2002 at the latest 'school autonomy' had inspired nation-wide reforms borne by a similar conceptual understanding throughout the country” (Rürup 2007).
Although this development initially caused a great deal more work for staff, it often boosted motivation because the teamwork and further training it entailed not only produced new ideas for practical work but also enable the staff themselves to make practical decisions on acquisitions, remuneration, repairs, etc.
But the concept of the “autonomous school” and the strong emphasis placed on the independence of schools can lead to misunderstandings. For state supervision remains. And this is the way it should be, because in their educational work schools cannot constantly take account of the interests of society as a whole nor those of the entire school system in a region. A controlling authority is needed at the local government level. That, for example, the abolition of school districts for primary schools has exacerbated segregation trends in urban districts shows how important this is (cf. Klemm 2008a, 278).
The essentially positive trend for individual schools to build a profile needs not only to be coordinated among schools but also requires local authority guidance. In day-to-day operation, this can mean, for example, short-term staffing solutions (where several teachers are on sick leave in one school) or collective purchases by schools (e.g. in the IT field), or cooperation agreements between the local education authority and the chamber of commerce and industry, employment agency, cultural institutions, etc. The needs of the individual school must also be weighed up and prioritized, for instance in the case of urgent rehabilitation measures. It is particularly important not to lose sight of the medium-term development of pupil numbers and other quantitative indicators of school development and to relate this development to local and state government decisions on school quality issues, submitting reports to the council to enable informed decisions to be made on the future of the school system.
What is needed is thus unity in planning and control embracing the entire education system of a region while avoiding the impracticality and inflexibility of regulation by the state department of education.
4.3 Local Authority and State Authority: “Extended Responsibility for Schools”
With the spread of the all-day school, a hitherto latent point of conflict between local and state government arrived on the agenda: the remuneration of non-teaching educational staff.
Traditionally, the state has paid only teaching staff. Everyone else has been paid by the local authority. But the programmatic extension of the educational and social mandate in the all-day school gives rise to a new problem. It is no longer a matter of “one or two social education workers in a difficult school” but of a whole range of specialised personnel for school social work, care, education, psychological counselling, and so on, for every single all-day school and for many other schools, too, especially Hauptschulen, where the problems accumulate.
The additional costs cannot be met by local authorities with their tight financial resources, especially considering the considerable costs they will have to meet in the educational sector for expanding day and after-school care, area-wide preschool language testing, free lunches for needy pupils, training for educators and day-care workers. The intentions are doubtless praiseworthy but their implementation is likely to be impossible without new models of financing.
The smouldering conflict repeatedly breaks out, most recently on the occasion of the “Education Summit” on 22 October 2008 in Dresden, to which representatives of local authorities such as the German Association of Cities and Towns were not invited. In view of the many achievements and obligations of local government in the educational field, this omission was described as “outrageous” by the mayor of Munich Christian Uhde.(38) The German County Association also demanded that “in future more state functions in the education sector should be devolved to local authorities.”(39)
4.4 State and Federation: Federalism Reform
At issue is whether and to what extent the 16 states with their jurisdiction over the school system can fulfil their mandate, and how cooperation between the different tiers of government (local, state, federal) ought to be developed to improve collaboration and coordination in education and – above all – to ensure equivalent conditions in education as required by the constitution.
The shortcomings are obvious to anyone comparing the state of school buildings and teaching and learning materials or the provision of non-teaching staff (e.g., social education workers) in “rich and poor communities.” Some states are clearly not in a position to remedy these deficiencies.
But there is also little objective equality of educational opportunity between states. This is evidenced alone by differences in class size, timetables, teacher training, development programmes, etc. In times of financial crisis and teacher shortages, the general conditions for schools and education are likely to diverge still further. Differences in the public service status of teachers, in pay and benefits (e.g., reimbursement of removal costs for young teachers) etc., as well as attempts by better-off states to attract teachers away from less fortunate states suggest that certain regions will no longer be able to satisfy the demand for teachers.
In order to establish equal conditions in the German education sector, central educational planning is needed within a framework set by the federal government to be implemented by the states and especially by the regions and local authorities. But the “Federalism Reform”(40) that came into force in 2006 sets out in the opposite direction. It assigns education policy almost entirely to the states. The federation retains few powers, e.g., in higher education. The joint “Education Planning” programme introduced in 1969 has been discontinued. The competent federal/state commission now focuses on other tasks (cf. Rürup 2007, 365).
The states have also been granted a “right of derogation,” allowing them to adopt their own legislation in derogation from federal law. As the German Association of Cities and Towns remarks (2009, 4), this “has rendered cooperation and collaboration in education almost impossible between the federal and state government in the interests of ‘devolution’ and assigning responsibility for education to the states.” Further: “Under the Federalism Reform I, the federation has practically no power to establish the constitutionally required equality of educational conditions in Germany. The federal government has no say in matters of importance at the national level, such as ensuring a high-quality educational infrastructure, the up-to-date technical equipment of schools, or the comprehensive provision of all-day schooling, since they are now within the exclusive remit of the states. Nor is direct cooperation between federal and local government possible any longer under the Basic Law” (ibid.).
These problems are likely to provoke greater discussion in the near future when the lack of national control over our education system leads to an increasing imbalance in the conditions prevailing in the educational sector throughout the country.
5. Local Education Landscapes – A Political Mission
In sum, there is an undeniable trend towards devolving decision-making powers in education. Responsibility and discretionary scope are increasingly being transferred to local authorities and individual schools and integrated into “local education landscapes.” Given the areas of friction, it is understandable that conflict and fierce discussion arise.
Meinhard Abel of the Lower Saxony Association of Towns and Municipalities recently issued a memorandum entitled “Municipalising teachers remedies no shortcomings in education.” In particular, he addresses the issue of staffing schools in rural areas: “How can we ensure the balanced provision of schooling in all parts of the country? How are the discrepancies between 'poor' and 'rich' communities to be balanced out? ... How can we prevent educational standards from diverging between local authorities?” (Abel 2008, 108). He declares indispensable a central steering body with the power to transfer teachers throughout the state. Otherwise, “the municipalisation of teaching staff” would constitute “a programme that favours large centres over rural regions” (ibid. 106).
And indeed, if municipalisation and school autonomy merely devolve responsibility for education to lower tiers without forming part of a new structural concept for decision making, the resulting local education landscape would change things for the worse. Education policy would risk deteriorating into a “system of organised irresponsibility” (KGSt).
If “comprehensive structural competence for education at the lower tier of government” (Luthe 2009, 28) is to be established, guaranteed procedures are needed for interaction between state and local government. “Municipalisation” could then bring a considerable gain in flexibility, practical orientation, and regional fit in education policy – but only without “unwanted side-effects” if the development of local education landscapes is integrated into a “holistic approach to governmental responsibility for educational structures” (ibid., 34).
This municipalisation process is accordingly not a matter of reorganising the distribution of competence in the technical administrative sense but of developing new structures for sharing responsibility between different tiers of government (cf. Lohre et al. 2008, 121) that can overcome the obvious shortcomings of centralised top-down control. For “central government has neither the competence nor the material capability to address education in the local and regional social context, to coordinate educational resources with local skills as required by the economy, to bring together schools and out-of-school learning venues and supporting services, including civil society – let alone to ensure transparency in local service structures by providing information and advice, to manage the transition between levels of education and to include the family in the educational frame of reference in such a way that all milieu are reached” (Luthe, 216).
This speaks in favour of shifting powers (and the necessary financial resources (41)) to the local government level, but without calling in question the overall political responsibility of the state as a whole.(42) What is decisive is to achieve a balance between autonomy and overall responsibility at the various levels of decision making; a problem that had been recognised by the German Education Council in its “Structural Plan for the Education System”: “The overemphasis placed on centralised action can, like overemphasis on autonomy, produce specific dangers. Implementation must ensure that the tension between central planning and autonomy is made fruitful in a spirit of responsibility for the whole” (Deutscher Bildungsrat 1970, 264).
Notes
(1) For the most part, the term “local (authority) education landscape” was employed at the conference “in the sense of an interconnected system of education and care” (Deutscher Städtetag 2008, 18), and it is also to be understood as such in the Aachen Declaration. But there was also talk of “regional school landscapes,” “regional education landscapes,” “local education networks,” “local responsibility for education,” etc. without these concepts being clearly defined or differentiated (see section 3 below). However, all these concepts point in the same direction, namely towards the devolution of decision-making powers in education and the strengthening of local authority responsibility for education. (back)
(2) On the “tensions between state and local government in education policy” and the effects in individual states, see also Lanig/Weiß (2008), 300 ff. (back)
(3) In 2000, 2003, and 2006, basic pupil performance in reading, mathematics, and the natural sciences was empirically examined in studies organised by the Max Planck Institute (cf. Deutsches PISA-Konsortium 2001). The results, published in detail and subjected to in-depth analysis in the years that followed, provoked lively discussion about the future of the German education system. (back)
(4) On the events surrounding the spree killing in Erfurt on 26 April 2002 see the “Bericht der Kommission Gutenberg-Gymnasium,” Freistaat Thüringen, 19 April 2004. Other school massacres by pupils such as those on 20 November 2006 in Emsdetten and on 11 March 2009 in Winnenden also provoked horror and mourning, but also many copycat offences. (back)
(5) Cf. http://www.gew-berlin.de/documents_public/060228_erklaerung-ruetli.pdf (last accessed on 5/10/ 2009). It should be mentioned that, owing not least to the considerable attention the political and administrative authorities consequently devoted to the problem, the school is once again fully functional – with an apparently completely new image. (back)
(6) The framework concept “The Organisation of School Life and the Opening up of the School” was published by the NRW state government in 1988. In the initial period, two dozen local pilot projects and 200 individual schools were supported by the programme. In 1996 the GÖS was converted into a “development programme with state-wide tendering. Almost every third of the some 6700 schools have meanwhile participated with at least one project” (Gomolla 2005, 112). (back)
(7) By Otmar Preuß (1970) and Wilfried Bos et al. (2003), cf. Klemm (2008b), 8 f. (back)
(8) It should be taken into account that “city” always implies diversity and heterogeneity, urban co-existence in different types of neighbourhood. “Voluntary ethnic segregation” (Dilger/Fürst 2007, 102), which is difficult to avoid anyway, can be a positive element in urban development from the point of view of enhancing community diversity. What counts is achieving the right balance, which has to be repeatedly adjusted as conditions change (cf. ibid. 102 ff.). (back)
(9) Cf. e.g. the project “A Square Kilometre of Education” successfully initiated by the Freudenberg Foundation in various cities (Berlin, Mannheim, Herten, Wuppertal) (cf. Wenzel 2009). (back)
(10) Well over 200 people attended this forum, which had been announced in the flyer of the German Association of Cities and Towns as follows: “In many communities, a shift in paradigm has taken place since the 1990s: towns and cities see themselves not only as responsible for meeting operating expenses: they offer schools support in coping with the complex and diverse situations of children and young people in life. They can draw on far-reaching educational experience with children and young people. The aim of local authority engagement is to ensure in joint responsibility with the state that children and young people are given the best possible opportunities for education and thus for their future. To achieve this, the wide-ranging local educational services need to be developed into a 'regional education landscape' in the sense of an interconnected, overall system.” (back)
(11) Deutscher Verein für öffentliche und private Fürsorge e.V.: Diskussionspapier des Deutschen Vereins zum Aufbau Kommunaler Bildungslandschaften, DV 43/06 AF II, 13.6. 2007. (back)
(12) Drawing on experience with the GÖS Decree and RAAs (see above), the first regional education office in Germany was set up in Herford County in 1997 in the context of the “School & Co.” project. In the successor project “Autonomous School” (see below), new forms of regional control in the schools and education sectors were tested in 19 regions of North Rhine-Westphalia with the aim of developing or promoting regional education networks (cf. Lohre et al. 2008). (back)
(13) Examples are Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania (“Responsible School”), Berlin (“School Autonomy and Responsibility”), Rhineland-Palatinate (“Self-Responsible School”), Hessen (“Self-Responsibility Plus”), etc. But the current state of affairs varies considerably (from declaration of intent to pilot scheme or state-wide introducation), and the focus can differ (cf., for example “Synopse Eigenverantwortliche Schule“ der Konferenz der Schulaufsicht, in: http://www.ksdev.de). (back)
(14) For example the Mannheim school pilot project on “Raising Personnel Resource Competence in Schools”/EPiSch. (back)
(15) Particularly because of the many reports and comments available only as “grey literature.” See also the special issues with reports and analyses that have recently been published by almost all the relevant journals, such as Zeitschrift für Pädagogik 3/2007, Zeitschrift für kommunale Selbstverwaltung 2/2008, der städtetag 1/2008, Die Deutsche Schule 3/2008, Pädagogische Führung 3/2008, Pädagogik 7–8/2008. (back)
(16) Best known examples are Stadt Dortmund (2008) and Munich (Schul- und Kultusreferat 2006). (back)
(17) Gesamtstrategie der KMK zum Bildungsmonitoring. KMK-Beschluss vom 2.6. 2006. Cf. http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/2006/2006_06_02-Bildungsmonitoring.pdf (last accessed on 5/10/ 2009). (back)
(18) The development of regional networks is demanded in which schools providing general, vocational, and secondary education and educational establishments cooperate permanently across organisational boundaries with firms, employment agencies, business promotion organisations, chambers of commerce and industry, local authorities, social partners, and other education providers and customers. The programme started in 2000. 72 regions and the nation-wide exchange of results were supported. Cf. BMBF (2008); Ambos et al. (2002). (back)
(19) A total of € 60 million from the federal government and the European Social Fund (ESF) are available to develop an “excellent learning location of nationwide repute” in collaboration with local foundations or a partner from the association of foundations. Cf. Lernen vor Ort. Eine gemeinsame Initiative des BMBF mit deutschen Stiftungen; www.Lernen-vor-Ort.info. (back)
(20) DJI, Projekt 596, cf. http://www.dji.de. The following pilot regions are involved: Lübeck, Hamburg, Arnsberg, Groß-Gerau, Jena, Forchheim. Cf. also Stolz (2008). (back)
(21) With the aim of optimising individual support for children and young people, especially in transition between school levels (elementary, primary, secondary). To achieve this goal, the programme supports the development of local responsibility networks covering schools, child day-care facilities, youth welfare, municipality, civil society, and business. On the basis of an analysis of local conditions, these actors develop a plan of action and steer its implementation. Since 2008, the programme has been implemented in four pilot communities: Bad Bramstedt/Schleswig-Holstein, Bernburg/Saxony-Anhalt, Weinheim/Baden-Württemberg, and Weiterstadt/Hessen. Cf. DKJS: Lebenswelt Schule – Vernetzung lokaler Akteure und Ressourcen für die individuelle Förderung von Kindern; http://www.dkjs.de/programme/bildungspartner-vernetzen/lebenswelt-schule.html (last accessed on 5/10/ 2009). (back)
(22) Cf. http://www.freudenbergstiftung.de/index.php?id=494 (last accessed on 5/10/ 2009). (back)
(23) Thesis 4 reads: “Local civic communities of responsibility are the basis and indispensable partners in local coordination. They are active and practical advocates for young people and young adults facing the difficulties of transition to the world of work” (ibid.). This initiative launched by the Freudenberg Foundation and supported by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research has meanwhile given birth to an intermunicipal working group with a steering group bringing together senior officials from Dortmund, Hoyerswerda, Kassel, Offenbach County, Mannheim, and Weinheim. (back)
(24) Voluntariness and self-organisation are defining characteristics of “networks.” They can “operate only with a limited number of members and only for a certain period of time” (Solzbacher/Minderop 2007, 8). (back)
(25) For example, the “Square Kilometre of Education” project initiated and sponsored by the Freudenberg Foundation in various cities (Berlin, Mannheim, Herten, and Wuppertal) has adopted a merely symbolic name for a “local community of responsibility” integrating all educational establishments in the area (cf. Wenzel 2009). (back)
(26) Cf. for example the 19 regions for “autonomous schools” in North Rhine-Westphalia. (back)
(27) In Lower Saxony, for instance (“self-responsible school”), the Emsland education region has been formed by five cities, one municipality, five joint municipalities, and four independent school authorities; the Braunschweig education region brings together three cities and four rural counties. (back)
(28) The Mannheim “Square Kilometre of Education,” a “local responsibility for education” project operates in the Rhine-Necker metropolitan region with an area of 5637 square kilometres. (back)
(29) It had been founded in 1974 under the name “Saarbrücken Municipal Union,” covering the former Saarbrücken Rural County amd the City of Saarbrücken. (back)
(30) One tier in Bremen and Hamburg, two tiers in the other states with regional education authorities under the state department of education as the supreme supervisory authority. (back)
(31) At the middle tier, higher school supervisory authorities varying in number and structure are attached to district administrations (NRW, BW), “regional offices” of the “education agency” (Saxony), “local sectoral offices,” to which in turn “local offices” of the “state school authority” are assigned (Lower Saxony), etc. (back)
(32) For example in Lower Saxony: the endeavours of the working groups to “restructure the departments/state education authority in 2008,” which had been set up only in October 2007, were stopped by the leadership of the authority. “Evaluation of the results and the continuation of the work need to be clarified,” according to a report by the Lower Saxony School Supervision Association dated 23 September 2008. – Baden-Württemberg: integration of the former higher local education authorities into the district administrator's offices and of the state local education authorities into the unitary authorities was revoked in favour of retaining independent school authorities. – North Rhine-Westphalia: the “centralisation” of administrative supervision for Hauptschulen and Förderschulen (general secondary and special needs schools) while substantive supervision remains at the local education authority level. (back)
(33) Cf. for example Lower Saxony and Bremen, where, however, this has since been reorganised. See also Maritzen (2008), 88 ff. (back)
(34) Cf. for example “Celler Thesen” (Niedersächsischer Städtetag 2007), “Strategiepapier zur Fortentwicklung des Schulwesens” (Hessischer Landkreistag 2008) and many party position papers, e.g., from the SPD and the Greens in Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Rhineland-Palatinate. (back)
(35) In Bremerhaven, for example, supervision of local authority schools is exercised by local education officers who are jointly appointed and paid by the municipality and the state senator for education. (back)
(36) Cf. http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/cps/rde/xchg/bst/hs.xsl/10117.htm (last accessed on 5/10/ 2009) (back)
(37) Concepts differed not only from state to state, e.g. Lower Saxony (“Eigenverantwortliche Schule”), Brandenburg (“Selbstständigkeit der Schule”), Rhineland-Palatinate (“Selbstverantwortliche Schule”); they were also changed within a state, e.g. in North Rhine-Westphalia (“Selbständige Schule“ → “eigenverantwortliche Schule”). (back)
(38) Press release by the German Association of Cities and Towns, 20 October 2008. (back)
(39) Press release by the German County Association, 24 October 2008. (back)
(40) Cf. Gesetz zur Änderung des Grundgesetzes vom 28. Juni 2006 and Föderalismusreform-Begleitgesetz vom 5. September 2006. (back)
(41) The German Association of Cities and Towns (2002) demands “the fundamental reorganisation of school financing.” (back)
(42) Cf. also the debate on the trend towards “de-etatisation” owing to the growing influence of private foundations on local school development under the “self-responsible school” concept (cf. Weiß 2009, 11 ff.; Höhne/Schreck 2009, 205 ff.). (back)
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