Green-red Baden Wuerttemberg
by Karl Müller
In the coalition agreement of the red-green government of Baden-Wuerttemberg it says that a “policy of an equal footing with the citizens was the trademark” for the red-green government and the parliamentary majority.
“The representative parliamentary democracy would be completed to a greater extent by elements of direct democracy. […] The strengthening of the cooperation and participation of the people is to become an essential feature of a new political culture in Baden-Wuerttemberg.”
The actual policy of the state government, however, looks quite different. The opposition party in the state, the CDU, had jumped at the opportunity given by the coalition agreement, and District Chairman of Southern–Wuerttemberg, Thomas Bareiss, had demanded a referendum on the introduction of the “Gemeinschaftsschule” (community school) by the end of June: “The community school will change the educational landscape to such an extent that this cannot happen without people’s participation. It is all about the question in what ways we are going to position ourselves in educational politics in the following decades.”
The state government`s opinion on more direct democracy, has however been revealed by the statement of the Minister of Education on the claim for a referendum. In an interview with the “Southwest News” from Ulm (3 July), she avoided the question, and she considered the call for a referendum as nothing else but the “expression of the CDU’s condition”. Furthermore, the minister declared that already the elections of March 2011 had been a referendum – a revealing statement on the content of what the government in Stuttgart understands by a “referendum” and more direct democracy.
The minister’s statement was not just an error. On visiting events on the subject “Gemeinschaftsschule” (community school) in Baden-Wuerttemberg you see immediately the great controversy the central project of the new state government has provoked.
In public discussions the state government is hiding itself behind empty phrases thus avoiding an open and concrete debate on the educational concept and the political consequences of the community school project. Instead, the local education authorities, especially in the rural areas specific of the federal state, are increasingly put under pressure to either apply for a “Gemeinschaftsschule” (community school), or to abandon the school site sooner or later.
“We are being blackmailed by the State Government to request for the establishment of a sick type of school, no local councilor could politically afford to completely abandon its school location, irrespective of the type of school.” Such a statement of a local councilor from the Southern Baden area reflects the opinion of many local councilors confronted by the choice between two evils.
Despite all this the red-green government keeps telling us that there is no intention to decree “Gemeinschaftsschulen” (community schools) from above, and that the local education authorities can decide “freely”, an obvious propaganda formula to convince all the communities threatened by the loss of their school location. “Opt for the “Gemeinschaftsschule” (community school)!” this is all these communities get to hear from the government. Alternatives to both school closure and community school, such as school associations (with closer cooperation between different types of schools) are not approved of by the responsible ministry.
The degree of manipulation applied by the green-red state government in generating a certain atmosphere, is demonstrated by a survey of the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (Institute for election research) commissioned by the state government-(reported by Welt online on 10 July). According to this survey, 69 percent of respondents pronounce themselves in favour of the “Gemeinschaftsschule” (community school). Further down you learn that the respondents were confronted with just two alternatives, either the closing of the school in their town or the “Gemeinschaftsschule” (community school).
There is another important point which has not been discussed in public yet. Whether a school can continue to exist in a municipality, depends on the so-called public demand. Demand means above all: There must be a sufficient number of pupils in the place. The community school has been exempted from this rule. While all other types of school have to fight for their existence, the “Gemeinschaftsschule” (community school) has obtained a guarantee for its existence by law. It is easy to explain why. The red-green government wants to give preference to the new type of school by all means, while the other school types are to vanish step by step. That also goes with the fact, that the state government has now announced its plan to redistribute several hundreds of teaching posts from high schools to “Gemeinschaftsschulen” (community schools) – although there are expected to be more pupils in high-schools for the new school year.
For the rest, the question remains, whether there also exists a hidden political agenda of the state government. Fact is, that the red-green educational policy in Baden-Württemberg has led to great uncertainty and disturbance at the schools and among the parents of the state.
About one week before the end of the school year, the schools, especially the vocational schools still lack a reliable basis of staff planning for the next school. The state is not ruled “with a steady hand” but by using a kind of “shock”-doctrine. The latest “shock” is the government’s announcement, that in the years to come more than 8,000 teaching posts in the state will be frozen with the official explanation that also in schools, one would just had to economize.
Schools and teachers’ unions, even the “Educators’ Union (Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft, GEW)”, who was up to now in agreement with the government, are standing on their heads. The GEW’s chair woman of the state said that the promises of the government`s coalition agreement to provide for better education were evidently “no longer worth the paper they are printed on.”
Is this only proof of the political ‘incapacity’ of Kretschmann and Co? Or is there more to it? Fact is that Green-Red in Germany plays a leading role in annihilating the national democracies in Europe – also in Germany – and in establishing an undemocratic EU ‘state’. Those who want to abrogate democracy on a grand scale are not interested in a school where children are educated to become responsible citizens willing to corroberate democracy. To reach their aim they are causing turmoil and a feeling of uncertainty. •
* A type of school where ability-mixed and age-mixed groups of pupils learn together, however in an individualized manner, i.e. every one with his own special teaching aids.
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