Money alone does not reduce learning backlogs

Enlarge image

Corona has increased inequality in schools - now it's about effective countermeasures

Photo: Marcel Kusch / dpa

After Federal Education Minister Karliczek submitted one billion euros, Federal Family Minister Giffey quickly followed suit with the same amount.

It is about money for the reduction of learning backlogs that have built up due to the closure of schools in the pandemic, especially among children and adolescents from educationally disadvantaged families.

The fact that people and parties want to be elected in different elections and functions is certainly not a disadvantage at this point.

Because the problem is huge - and accordingly the need for support.

But: Money alone does not reduce learning gaps.

To person

Photo: Bente Leipoldt / Wübben Foundation

Dr.

Markus Warnke

has been Managing Director of the Wübben Foundation since June 2013.

Before that, he worked in the NRW Ministry of Children and Youth in Düsseldorf and in the Catholic Family Association in Berlin.

Warnke studied law in Marburg, Hanover and Speyer.

The concepts and further money that the ministers have been talking about since then must now come from the federal states. You can't leave schools to do it again after the summer break. A systematic recording of the learning and development deficits is imperative - so that the children and young people can be promoted in a targeted manner, concepts can be refined, human and financial resources can be better adjusted and the effectiveness can be questioned.

Nobody knows at the moment how big the need to catch up is.

One thing is clear: it is definitely a long-term challenge.

A current study by the Ifo Institute shows that the learning time during school closings has more than halved and that there are large differences between the school types in distance teaching.

While grammar schools offered daily online lessons relatively quickly, other types of schools sometimes did not have regular personal contact with the teacher.

More than half of the underachieving students had less than once a week online lessons together.

No data, no concepts

The knee-jerk call of some associations for more money can therefore only satisfy a perceived need.

Such a requirement is not serious at the moment, especially since there is not only a lack of diagnostic procedures, but also of coherent, mutually-based concepts for making up for learning and development deficits.

more on the subject

• Corona politics: where does the hatred of children come from? A column by Margarete Stokowski

• Educational justice in the pandemic: How a former pub became the place of hope for these childrenBy Silke Fokken and Armin Himmelrath

There are now quite a few suggestions from experts.

These are sometimes short-term and relate to the holidays, sometimes medium-term, for example when it comes to working in small groups with students or retired teachers in the so-called core subjects.

All of this is necessary, yes.

But the compelling expectation that the federal states have already adjusted to this challenge and developed concepts, apparently threatens another disappointment.

Every suggestion for repair hits like an arrow on a target on which all long-known problems of the education system are written.

In essence, it is about the disadvantages of origin for children and young people whose parents have little money and little education.

Corona as a burning glass

Because of this, the German school system has failed with reliable regularity for many years. And the pandemic acts like a burning glass here. The revealing term "homeschooling" shows how important the parental home is for school - even before Corona, by the way. In the days of closed schools, this shortcoming became visible and noticeable to everyone. Those who had no substitute teachers at home with their own parents have lost touch even more than was already the case in the days of open schools.

The parental home decides on the children's educational success. Schools, as they are aligned today, support this effect. Just as there is no one solution for reducing the learning and development deficits after the school closings, this naturally also applies to reducing the injustice of opportunities. However, it is astonishing that there are few structurally anchored approaches in schools that specifically involve parents and families.

This is exactly where the concept of family primary school centers comes in.

First and foremost, these centers offer a common point of orientation and a goal for further development for the many different actors in the primary school - from school management to teachers to school social work: How can the parents who are different at each school be actively addressed?

That offers are made to them and that a bridge can be built in the families?

Uneducated families as educational partners

It's about parents who may not have had positive school experiences themselves.

The school has to approach them - detached from the usual problem discussions, which otherwise often offer the only reason for direct contact.

In a very low-threshold way, they are invited to parents' cafés and asked what the school can do for them.

There are meetings on topics such as media use;

When cooking and baking together, school topics are addressed, the organized sewing and relaxation courses are flanked with childcare and the fathers go on excursions with their children.

more on the subject

Generation Corona: What we have to do now for our children

The offers are as diverse as the people, the opportunities in the school environment and the wishes of the parents. It is ideal if both teachers and school social workers are present for all offers or are at least available for talks on the door. Mutual understanding grows and the school culture changes. The school opens up into the social space and cooperates with other partners.

The municipalities, which in most cases are not only the school authorities but also responsible for the many other family-support measures in the social area, play a decisive role in setting up the family primary school centers.

For the municipal administrations, there is added value if they organize a contact point at the school and thus get a direct and more personal line to the families.

This is where interfaces to the offices are organized, from which everyone benefits.

We need courage and the will to change

The point is that the schools, supported by the municipalities, ask themselves how they can address, take along and support the parents in their environment. The state government in North Rhine-Westphalia has been supporting this approach since last year and the number of primary schools that are becoming family centers is steadily increasing. The new state government in Rhineland-Palatinate has also anchored the implementation of such a concept in the coalition agreement. Other federal states are showing great interest.

Both for the reduction of learning and development deficits and in general, the family elementary schools are to be seen as a contribution to more equal opportunities, the spread of which is desirable in other countries. In addition to the planned two billion euros for short-term measures, the corona crisis, which has so relentlessly brought the education crisis into everyday awareness, should be used to equip schools in the long term so that the educational gap is finally closed.

This requires courage, willingness to change as well as human and financial resources that go far beyond the catch-up package.

This is where the federal, state and local authorities are called upon.

If educational opportunities depend primarily on social origin, we need to focus more closely on them.

That is why parenting is so important.

Education researchers say that the influence of the parental home is three times as strong as that of all educational institutions combined.

One cannot blame the educated parents for that.

But you have to offer support to the uneducated parents.