School Story

It's not a front-page story but it is rather political.

For those who aren't aware.....most German schools end at 1 PM.  It' been the standard for decades.  In the last year or two.....it was brought up to go and expand to a all-day program (meaning 3 to 4 PM). 

The CDU/CSU and SPD Parties?  They sat down as the 'Grand Coalition' and discussed the matter....approving it back earlier in the year.  The one key issue?  Well....they needed two billion Euro (roughly 2.5 billion dollars). 

This pops up in the news today because the Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) came out in public and canceled the 2019 budget item of two billion euros for this program.

A campaign promise?  For the SPD?  Yes, an enormous promise made and they will have to do some damage control.  For the CDU-CSU folks?  Less so.  You see.....most of this education business, because of the way the Constitution mandates it.....is state-business, NOT federal-business.  However, only the federal government can go and tax folks.....giving the states the money to appropriate as they might feel like.

My guess is that Scholz monitored the incoming tax funding and just doesn't see the money there to cover this.  One issue is that once you start something like this.....you can not come up in three years to cancel it and rip the program apart.

There's a good piece on Focus (the German news magazine) which discusses the political chatter on the topic.

What were the schools going to do with the two-plus additional hours?  Unknown.  I hate to suggest it but it might have ended up as social behavior time, or study hall for homework, with marginal gains for the kids. 

Is this the end of the topic?  No.  It'll likely come up again in the spring of 2019.