All you have to do is drop a few keywords and we're right back in the middle of the federal bustle of education policy.
“Air filter” is one such keyword, “quarantine regulations” another, “educational injustice” a third (“This is the matter”).
This directly leads to the question of how well the federal states have prepared for the new school year.
Did you use the summer holidays?
Are there any new ideas in schools for the coming weeks?
("Debate of the Week")
We hope that you have found your way into the school year - or, if you live in Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg, that you can still enjoy the last few days of your vacation.
Have a good week to all of you!
Silke Fokken, Kristin Haug, Armin Himmelrath and Miriam Olbrisch
That's going on
1. The quarantine thing
What the ministers of education can do (namely, fail to reach an agreement), the ministers of health have been able to do for a long time: There is also a federal patchwork quilt in their area of responsibility. For example, Berlin announced that it would only send children and adolescents with a positive PCR test to quarantine - and then had to quickly bury the plan again. Different countries, different regulations: sometimes whole school classes are sent into quarantine, sometimes just the people sitting next to them, sometimes nobody at all, because tracking contacts is too time-consuming.
All of this should work differently and better in the future. On Monday, the Conference of Health Ministers therefore decided to abolish quarantine for entire classes - at least in principle. In addition, the insulation arrangement should also be shortened, and free testing is possible after five days. It remains to be seen how uniformly the new regulations will actually be implemented: on Monday there was talk of “guard rails” - and that the local health authorities can also make different decisions in individual cases.
In any case, one sometimes has the feeling that in the state governments, the schoolchildren are not necessarily high on the priority list when it comes to Corona.
In any case, one case from Duisburg is remarkable: The state of North Rhine-Westphalia refused to cover the costs for bus trips with which older schoolchildren are brought to the corona vaccination center.
The rationale is remarkable.
Virologist Christian Drosten positioned himself appropriately: "We cannot go into autumn with this vaccination quota," he said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk.
With regard to schoolchildren under the age of twelve, Drosten said that there was a lack of scientific certainty »to in principle, if one would like to put it so casually, free the children for a thorough infection.
There is no way you can do that. "
And if you want to read a little more detailed information in order to have a statistical say about the current increase in the number of infections, then we recommend a text by Holger Dambeck from our data team.
He looked at where the high incidences at school start come from - spoilers: It's not classroom teaching.
You can find the whole text here.
2. The matter of educational equity
In the past week, we were concerned with the issue of educational equity twice - once directly, once indirectly. On the one hand, Klaus Klemm, one of the most important educational researchers in the republic, examined for the German Federation of Trade Unions what the social divide in school classes looks like two decades after the Pisa shock. His devastating conclusion: "No real progress can be seen." You can read the details of the study here.
And then there are the current figures on the digital pact.
Perhaps things are looking pretty good at your school in terms of digital equipment, but overall there is little to be seen of the "crazy catch-up" that the Conference of Ministers of Education promised a few months ago.
Those pupils who cannot find high-quality technical equipment at home are particularly affected.
What else?
If the school stays closed because of the pandemic, digital lessons at home should be compulsory.
This is what a majority of the population calls for, according to a survey.
Overall, however, the opinion on Corona school policy is divided.
And another completely different topic: In Saxony, the Ministry of Culture does not want to tolerate any special gender characters in schools.
An asterisk, colon or underscore should be dispensed with there in the future.
Good to know
School and administrative law decisions are often a thematic treasure trove.
This time it's about a student who, because of the infection, asked to be taught at home.
But the administrative court in Düsseldorf rejected the request.
Even if the seven-day incidence is above a value of 100, pupils have no right to distance learning, but have to appear for class.
Debate of the week
There is little disagreement about the fact that face-to-face teaching is probably the best form of school learning.
But probably about how face-to-face lessons in the fourth half of the school year with corona effects can be guaranteed.
We are interested in how you see it: Do you feel well protected?
Has your state government or school management developed a useful concept?
What's going on at your school?
What is missing?
What do you wish?
Please tell us about your experiences and write to bildung@spiegel.de.
That's it for this time.
The “Small Break” team thanks you for your interest - see you next time!
