Around a decade ago in Germany, a battle of sorts was started within the German political arena. The center of attention? Education in Germany.
ARD put up an interesting article over the issue and where things stand today with the battle.
Most German parents will agree that schools are in some way....decaying. Maintenance is haphazard and you go through a German state where some kids are in an ultra-modern building, and ten miles away....there are kids in some 1950s building.
The lack of teachers? This gets brought up in several states now because interest isn't that great to become a teacher anymore.
The ARD article does point out a recent survey where German poverty parents don't think they have the same level playing field as well-to-do parents.
Another dividing point is that education is generally regarded as a state by state issue. With sixteen German states.....there are sixteen programs. Some folks, especially in Berlin....want a national program, and for it to be led by German federal people (not the state by state authority as exists today).
About a decade ago, while living in the Kaiserslautern region and with my son in the local German school....I sat and watched the educational dimwits plan out their big solution. My son was in a building which was regarded as the last of the 1950s-style buildings in the entire district. For probably twenty years.....you could have watched various other school buildings going through renovation and the interest to bring this one building up....simply wasn't there.
So the day finally came....the master plan....probably half-a-million Euro to be poured into this building with new windows, new floors, etc.
It was planned in a haphazard way....the kids were supposed to go ahead and use part of the building while they did various sections.
In my son's case....he'd never see the end-result because this would take roughly three years to complete.
The day finally came and the school was done. It looked ultra modern. It looked great.
Then, the regional school board made the decision....they were hauling all of the kids out of this school and redistributing them to another building within Kaiserslautern. The newly renovated school? It was going to be for the high achiever school kids, who would be bused into the town (20 minute ride from Kaiserslautern). Virtually every single parent from this village was frustrated at how this all came about. You were basically shipping three-hundred-odd kids from this village into the city, and shipping three-hundred-odd kids from Kaiserslautern into this village....to a newly renovated building.
From my own observation, you've got various federal (Berlin), state, and local bureaucrats with varying agendas and unable to really connect to the students or the parents. In some ways, it's just like the US at this point with lots of people claiming to have the solution but never seeming to have a solution which really fits.
No comments:
Post a Comment