5 ms·

It is a combination of an immigrant issue with the refusal to make a distinction between different pupil populations. One could e.g. teach additional remedial G

by c00lio 3y ago

It is a combination of an immigrant issue with the refusal to make a distinction between different pupil populations. One could e.g. teach additional remedial German lessons, or split the class and teach German to those who don't know enough German, English to the rest. But this is intentionally not done, several states emphasize identical curricula for all their pupils. The intention is to give everyone "the same chance". But this severely holds back brighter pupils as well as those who are e.g. more knowledgable in German or other subjects. Thereby lowering the overall educational outcomes, because everything is lowest-common-denominator by law.

tfourb 3y ago
It is also the unwillingness to spend the money required for the necessary number of teachers to have a differentiated curriculum. If 1 teacher = 25 students, everyone of course has to learn the same stuff. Edited to add: this also has nothing to do with some students being “brighter”. Different kids have different learning requirements, and not speaking the local language is an obvious one, though not at all correlated with intelligence.
- c00lio 3y ago
  The "brighter" distinction isn't relevant in this case, yes. It just comes up in the overall discussion about whether to have a 3-, 2- or 1-branch school system, that is whether to have different branches of schools after primary school that cater to more-brainy-less-handy or more-handy-less-brainy types. And I don't think money is an issue. The problem with lots of immigrant children is mostly one found in cities, where there is typically more than one "second grade" per school. So you could easily, with the exact same amount of teachers, give English lessons to classes 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d and German lessons to 2e and 2f.
  - tfourb 3y ago
    Just to share some insights from our local rural primary school (where I am the head of the parent's association and have regular conversations with the school principal about personnel) and from a primary school in Berlin Kreutzberg (where my sister is a teacher): Schools get a number of "teaching hours" allotted based on the number of children attending that school (some children might be classed as requiring more hours, i.e. those with certified special learning requirements). It is universally accepted (except by the politicians setting those hours) that these are insufficient to actually provide the supervision and support to have the learning outcomes that are desirable and demanded by government/parents. They also do not cover additional (but foreseeable) requirements due to illness, etc. No school actually has all of these teaching hours covered because there are simply not enough teachers to go around. Even if, by some miracle, 100% of hours are covered at the beginning of the year, every teacher that leaves during the year due to illness, pregnancy, etc. is pushing down coverage. Because of the lack of actual teachers, the hours are also increasingly covered by people transferring from other professions. These are counted as full teaching staff, but are obviously not as qualified as actual teachers. Teachers are also expected to do a lot of stuff that is not teaching, i.e. school administration, social work, counseling, etc. My personal guess is that in most schools, you would actually need about 130% of the teaching hours currently allotted to provide a quality education for all pupils, while schools in special situations (i.e. large migrant populations) would need probably more like 150-200%. In reality, the typical school probably has only 80-90% of allotted hours available (some of which are covered by non-teachers) with schools in special situations often having even less, because they are typically situated in places with more budgetary constraints/not a desirable workplace.
    - tfourb 3y ago
      Maybe also interesting/important in this context: Schools have only very limited ways to do their own hiring. Teachers are usually allocated by state government administrations. This tends to be a bureaucratic and drawn-out process. Normal teaching positions usually require a few months to fill under ideal conditions, positions for principals/vice principals can take more than a year, even if a candidate is available. Our primary school has been without a principal for a year now and while the vice-principal has been confirmed to take over the position, it will take a few months more to make that official. And only then the position of vice-principal will be recruited. Most likely, the school will be without a full administrative team for two years or more when all is said and done.
      - G3rn0ti 3y ago
        > Teachers are usually allocated by state government administrations. This. Biggest issue in all variants of Germany’s education system. Schools should have their own budget which they can allocate as they wish and be allowed to freely raise additional budget from private of public sources for their projects. They should also have a say in the salary of the teachers they employ. In Germany, historically, all teachers are civil servants that can’t be fired and, hence, aren’t really held responsible for the outcome of their teachings. Especially in troublesome areas schools are left with often incompetent and lazy personnel make the situation for children even worse.
  - throw_pm23 3y ago
    This sounds good in theory, but in practice 2e and 2f will be the problem classes that everyone will be trying to escape, including those immigrant kids whose parents are more upwards-mobile and who pay attention to their kids education.
    - c00lio 3y ago
      Yes, but on the other hand, the same thing is currently happening, just on the scale of parents moving out of school districts with "problem schools" that are mostly determined by a higher migrant percentage. Thus accelerating the formation of migrant and lower class neighborhoods and upper class suburbs. Providing different classes at the same school would at least allow some contact of those different groups of children, and in a similar fashion, contacts between the adult population.
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      Would not that be a good thing because they have incentive to perform better?
- achenet 3y ago
  It isn't necessarily a money issue. Here in France we also got rid of classes with different levels in favor of a "one size fits all approach", for ideological reasons. As such a school can have 3 teachers, but they'll all teach the same thing, rather than having one teach a slightly more advanced curriculum, and one teach a slightly simpler one. The end result is actually pretty bad. The more advance kids are bored, the ones who need a bit more help are completely lost, and only those who happen to be exactly in the middle actually get something. The original idea was to level social distinctions, but in practice it just broke the school system and in doing so increased inequality.
yorwba 3y ago
> refusal to make a distinction between different pupil populations. One could e.g. teach additional remedial German lessons There's no such refusal and your suggestion is the status quo. https://www.bamf.de/EN/Themen/Integration/ZugewanderteTeilnehmende/DeutschKinderJugendliche/deutsch-kinder-jugendliche.html https://www.bamf.de/EN/Themen/Integration/ZugewanderteTeilne...
- c00lio 3y ago
  No. What you are linking to is exactly what I was talking about, and you should carefully read what you are linking to: This only applies to some states. In the typically more conservative, right-wing southern ones, pupils with deficiencies in German are required to attend German lessons. In the typically more left-wing northern states, such requirements tend to be frowned upon, and even a voluntary offering of remedial German lessons is often not provided. Also, the agency you are linking to is responsible for recent immigrants. That is relevant because some states offer German lessons only to refugees, asylum seekers, etc. But not to children born in Germany, sometimes even with citizenship, who nonetheless do not speak sufficient German because their parents don't. This group is a significant part of the problem.
  - yorwba 3y ago
    I only have experience with left-wing Berlin, where some of my classmates would occasionally attend a mysterious subject called "DaZ", and that's all I noticed as someone unaffected. But they certainly did graduate speaking fluent German. My source says all Länder carry out proficiency testing, can you name a specific Land that doesn't have remedial classes for children who perform poorly on the test?
    - c00lio 3y ago
      https://www.bildungsserver.de/deutsch-als-fremdsprache-in-den-laendern-3226-de.html https://www.bildungsserver.de/deutsch-als-fremdsprache-in-de... https://www.bildungsserver.de/innovationsportal/bildungplusartikel.html?artid=401 https://www.bildungsserver.de/innovationsportal/bildungplusa... It's complicated, because everyone likes to "look good", so publications always emphasize what they are doing, not what they aren't. E.g. in NRW, there are no classes for all pupils, just in grade 5 and 6 at some schools that have been selected for higher migrant population. So there are 180 remedial classes in NRW, which is laughable for a state of over 10 million.
throw_pm23 3y ago
You make a good observation, but it can also go the other way. There are bright immigrant/expat kids who don't speak German well initially, but by being treated the same as native speakers, they catch up by third or fourth grade sufficiently, and in addition also learn English to comparable levels (or better) as the German kids. This leads to good integration, and they would not be well-served by being put on a "dumbed down" track. The curriculum is by and large so light anyway (compared to e.g. Eastern European countries), that sharper kids coast through without much challenge.
- valval 3y ago
  In the event of either or, who should take priority - citizens or immigrants?
  - throw_pm23 3y ago
    Keeping immigrants down usually does not benefit the majority population -- at least on the long term.
LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
Splitting classes requires more rooms and teachers. Which propably won't happen, because the (school) system is in shambles. Not everywhere to the same degree, but the general trend is downward. OTOH I'm surrounded by Kindergardens, 1 expanded and overhauled with nice and enlarged playgrounds, another expanded, and one being built right now into a former ALDI, which moved into a small mall. So...shrug? Btw... > But this severely holds back brighter pupils as well as those who are e.g. more knowledgable in German or other subjects. Thereby lowering the overall educational outcomes, because everything is lowest-common-denominator by law. This is nothing new. Happened 40+ years ago also. (To me. While being one of the https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36275943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36275943 Imagine!1!!)

by c00lio 3y ago

tfourb 3y ago

It is also the unwillingness to spend the money required for the necessary number of teachers to have a differentiated curriculum. If 1 teacher = 25 students, everyone of course has to learn the same stuff. Edited to add: this also has nothing to do with some students being “brighter”. Different kids have different learning requirements, and not speaking the local language is an obvious one, though not at all correlated with intelligence.

c00lio 3y ago
The "brighter" distinction isn't relevant in this case, yes. It just comes up in the overall discussion about whether to have a 3-, 2- or 1-branch school system, that is whether to have different branches of schools after primary school that cater to more-brainy-less-handy or more-handy-less-brainy types. And I don't think money is an issue. The problem with lots of immigrant children is mostly one found in cities, where there is typically more than one "second grade" per school. So you could easily, with the exact same amount of teachers, give English lessons to classes 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d and German lessons to 2e and 2f.
- tfourb 3y ago
  Just to share some insights from our local rural primary school (where I am the head of the parent's association and have regular conversations with the school principal about personnel) and from a primary school in Berlin Kreutzberg (where my sister is a teacher): Schools get a number of "teaching hours" allotted based on the number of children attending that school (some children might be classed as requiring more hours, i.e. those with certified special learning requirements). It is universally accepted (except by the politicians setting those hours) that these are insufficient to actually provide the supervision and support to have the learning outcomes that are desirable and demanded by government/parents. They also do not cover additional (but foreseeable) requirements due to illness, etc. No school actually has all of these teaching hours covered because there are simply not enough teachers to go around. Even if, by some miracle, 100% of hours are covered at the beginning of the year, every teacher that leaves during the year due to illness, pregnancy, etc. is pushing down coverage. Because of the lack of actual teachers, the hours are also increasingly covered by people transferring from other professions. These are counted as full teaching staff, but are obviously not as qualified as actual teachers. Teachers are also expected to do a lot of stuff that is not teaching, i.e. school administration, social work, counseling, etc. My personal guess is that in most schools, you would actually need about 130% of the teaching hours currently allotted to provide a quality education for all pupils, while schools in special situations (i.e. large migrant populations) would need probably more like 150-200%. In reality, the typical school probably has only 80-90% of allotted hours available (some of which are covered by non-teachers) with schools in special situations often having even less, because they are typically situated in places with more budgetary constraints/not a desirable workplace.
  - tfourb 3y ago
    Maybe also interesting/important in this context: Schools have only very limited ways to do their own hiring. Teachers are usually allocated by state government administrations. This tends to be a bureaucratic and drawn-out process. Normal teaching positions usually require a few months to fill under ideal conditions, positions for principals/vice principals can take more than a year, even if a candidate is available. Our primary school has been without a principal for a year now and while the vice-principal has been confirmed to take over the position, it will take a few months more to make that official. And only then the position of vice-principal will be recruited. Most likely, the school will be without a full administrative team for two years or more when all is said and done.
    - G3rn0ti 3y ago
      > Teachers are usually allocated by state government administrations. This. Biggest issue in all variants of Germany’s education system. Schools should have their own budget which they can allocate as they wish and be allowed to freely raise additional budget from private of public sources for their projects. They should also have a say in the salary of the teachers they employ. In Germany, historically, all teachers are civil servants that can’t be fired and, hence, aren’t really held responsible for the outcome of their teachings. Especially in troublesome areas schools are left with often incompetent and lazy personnel make the situation for children even worse.
- throw_pm23 3y ago
  This sounds good in theory, but in practice 2e and 2f will be the problem classes that everyone will be trying to escape, including those immigrant kids whose parents are more upwards-mobile and who pay attention to their kids education.
  - c00lio 3y ago
    Yes, but on the other hand, the same thing is currently happening, just on the scale of parents moving out of school districts with "problem schools" that are mostly determined by a higher migrant percentage. Thus accelerating the formation of migrant and lower class neighborhoods and upper class suburbs. Providing different classes at the same school would at least allow some contact of those different groups of children, and in a similar fashion, contacts between the adult population.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    Would not that be a good thing because they have incentive to perform better?
achenet 3y ago
It isn't necessarily a money issue. Here in France we also got rid of classes with different levels in favor of a "one size fits all approach", for ideological reasons. As such a school can have 3 teachers, but they'll all teach the same thing, rather than having one teach a slightly more advanced curriculum, and one teach a slightly simpler one. The end result is actually pretty bad. The more advance kids are bored, the ones who need a bit more help are completely lost, and only those who happen to be exactly in the middle actually get something. The original idea was to level social distinctions, but in practice it just broke the school system and in doing so increased inequality.

yorwba 3y ago

> refusal to make a distinction between different pupil populations. One could e.g. teach additional remedial German lessons There's no such refusal and your suggestion is the status quo. https://www.bamf.de/EN/Themen/Integration/ZugewanderteTeilnehmende/DeutschKinderJugendliche/deutsch-kinder-jugendliche.html https://www.bamf.de/EN/Themen/Integration/ZugewanderteTeilne...

c00lio 3y ago
No. What you are linking to is exactly what I was talking about, and you should carefully read what you are linking to: This only applies to some states. In the typically more conservative, right-wing southern ones, pupils with deficiencies in German are required to attend German lessons. In the typically more left-wing northern states, such requirements tend to be frowned upon, and even a voluntary offering of remedial German lessons is often not provided. Also, the agency you are linking to is responsible for recent immigrants. That is relevant because some states offer German lessons only to refugees, asylum seekers, etc. But not to children born in Germany, sometimes even with citizenship, who nonetheless do not speak sufficient German because their parents don't. This group is a significant part of the problem.
- yorwba 3y ago
  I only have experience with left-wing Berlin, where some of my classmates would occasionally attend a mysterious subject called "DaZ", and that's all I noticed as someone unaffected. But they certainly did graduate speaking fluent German. My source says all Länder carry out proficiency testing, can you name a specific Land that doesn't have remedial classes for children who perform poorly on the test?
  - c00lio 3y ago
    https://www.bildungsserver.de/deutsch-als-fremdsprache-in-den-laendern-3226-de.html https://www.bildungsserver.de/deutsch-als-fremdsprache-in-de... https://www.bildungsserver.de/innovationsportal/bildungplusartikel.html?artid=401 https://www.bildungsserver.de/innovationsportal/bildungplusa... It's complicated, because everyone likes to "look good", so publications always emphasize what they are doing, not what they aren't. E.g. in NRW, there are no classes for all pupils, just in grade 5 and 6 at some schools that have been selected for higher migrant population. So there are 180 remedial classes in NRW, which is laughable for a state of over 10 million.

throw_pm23 3y ago

You make a good observation, but it can also go the other way. There are bright immigrant/expat kids who don't speak German well initially, but by being treated the same as native speakers, they catch up by third or fourth grade sufficiently, and in addition also learn English to comparable levels (or better) as the German kids. This leads to good integration, and they would not be well-served by being put on a "dumbed down" track. The curriculum is by and large so light anyway (compared to e.g. Eastern European countries), that sharper kids coast through without much challenge.

valval 3y ago
In the event of either or, who should take priority - citizens or immigrants?
- throw_pm23 3y ago
  Keeping immigrants down usually does not benefit the majority population -- at least on the long term.

LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago

Splitting classes requires more rooms and teachers. Which propably won't happen, because the (school) system is in shambles. Not everywhere to the same degree, but the general trend is downward. OTOH I'm surrounded by Kindergardens, 1 expanded and overhauled with nice and enlarged playgrounds, another expanded, and one being built right now into a former ALDI, which moved into a small mall. So...shrug? Btw... > But this severely holds back brighter pupils as well as those who are e.g. more knowledgable in German or other subjects. Thereby lowering the overall educational outcomes, because everything is lowest-common-denominator by law. This is nothing new. Happened 40+ years ago also. (To me. While being one of the https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36275943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36275943 Imagine!1!!)