Abstract
This chapter further develops the analysis of France and Germany’s education policy by exploring what regional governments do with their capacity to autonomously devise policy. It suggests that regional governments’ main concern is to develop or secure their policy capacity and that this may result in a deliberate sidelining of distinctive policymaking in the form of the active cultivation of policy similarity. Specifically, the chapter argues that the adoption of this strategy is contingent upon two requirements: a countrywide public preference for policy uniformity in the policy area of concern, in this instance education, and the presence of a threat posed to regional policy capacity by various political entrepreneurs, including the central state, who blame regions for providing divergent policies and thereby challenging territorial equality. The chapter thereby engages with the literature on horizontal coordination and the “shadow of hierarchy” argument in cases where both strong (Germany) and weak (France) institutions of non-hierarchical coordination are in place. It thereby develops an explanation for policy convergence that emphasizes regional governments’ agency.
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Notes
- 1.
We are not suggesting here that no divergence in regional policies has been empirically documented, but rather that this divergence was not the systematic and unique result of decentralization processes and of (quasi-)federalization in Western Europe.
- 2.
In Brittany and Lower Normandy, specialized businesses were retained to produce complete diagnostics of each part of the buildings—the roofs, walls, floors, and so on. In other regions the description of the state of buildings and the evaluation of the costs to refurbish buildings were not as systematic. In Burgundy and Nord Pas de Calais, the description of the state of buildings focused on ranking the renovations to be completed in the short and middle term over a five- to ten-year period. The Centre and Limousin regions saw the weakest effort to systematically collect data. Thus, in the Centre, the regional council simply asked principals to provide a list ranking their requests and needs, and an engineer hired by the regional council was dispatched to buildings that encountered difficulties.
- 3.
Internal document from the Centre’s regional council, “Enquête état du patrimoine” (State of property survey), statistics on the basis of 94 high schools, vocational high schools, and EREA, 1987. Archives from the Centre’s regional council, carton 3587.
- 4.
Document from Brittany’s regional council, “Décentralisation de l’enseignement” (Decentralization of teaching), 2nd ordinary meeting, May 1985. Decentralization reports on generalist high schools and vocational high schools. Archives from Brittany’s regional council, carton 569 W 39.
- 5.
Internal document “Bilan et perspectives du transfert de compétences en matière d’enseignement” (Overview and outlook for the transfer of educational responsibilities), Archives of Limousin’s regional council, carton 1299 W 76. This document is undated, but it was found in a folder in which most of the documents were dated 1987 or 1988. Many of these were preparatory documents for ANER meetings, or minutes from these meetings.
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
As well as of the General Council for agronomy, for agricultural high schools.
- 11.
75% of the total was allocated to regions proportionally to the gross surface of school buildings, which corresponded to the sum of each level’s floor space, roof-terrace, and deck areas, and unenclosed areas located on the ground floor; 12.5% proportionally to the gross developed surface of school buildings built before 1973; and 12.5% proportionally to the surface of temporary structures.
- 12.
School buildings were divided into 4 groups in the report on the “cost of rehabilitating high schools” of the advisory board on the assessment of charges: traditional construction before 1920, concrete construction, and metal construction. The weighting coefficients determined by the mission were applied to each region’s property. Coefficients measuring the gap between average costs for each of the construction categories were applied.
- 13.
There were four: bringing facilities and workshops into alignment with the health and safety rules, eliminating temporary buildings, creating study halls, rooms for meetings, and associative life, and libraries (documentation and information centres, CDI), and renovating boarding schools.
- 14.
On 29 April 1987.
- 15.
INSEE data.
- 16.
This is the regional share of the four taxes known as the “four oldies”, that is, the tax on unbuilt land, the tax on built land, the professional tax, and the housing tax.
- 17.
The EPI is meant for internal use by the services of the Ministry of National Education. When the State was still in charge of high school buildings it provided the elements needed to calculate operating grants for school that depended on their physical characteristics. Since decentralization, it has been used by State services to calculate the decentralization grants, which also depend on these characteristics. School principals complete the survey annually. They are supposed to amend a questionnaire prefilled with data from previous years. The survey does not necessarily record all the changes, because the principals do not necessarily report them every year. The EPI survey, nonetheless, provides a good approximation of the school buildings’ physical characteristics.
- 18.
The average per capita area is larger in the case of vocational education, given the place needed for the machines and workshops of some of the trainings that these buildings provide.
- 19.
This survey is the product of the international organization’s “comparative turn” following the evolution in member interests and in staff profiles (Martens, 2007).
- 20.
Here we are referring to the title of a book edited by Bernd Fahrholz, Sigmar Gabriel, and Peter Müller, 2002, Nachdem PISA-Schock, Francfort-sur-le-Main, Hoffman und Campe Verlag GmbH.
- 21.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, 2002, “EinGesetzfüralleSchulen. Pisa und die Konsequenzenfür das deutsche Schulsystem”, Die Zeit, vol 27.
- 22.
This request followed the WRK/HRK’s move to generally limit access to higher education (Fuchs, 2004). At the end of the 1960s, the WRK first criticized the opening of Gymnasium education as well as the increase in the number of students and graduates. Rather than indicating less social segregation in access to the Gymnasium, university president representatives saw these increases as the sign of the falling level of Gymnasium students—and they would need to deal with the consequences of this decline once the graduates became students. But this discourse, in stark opposition to the evolutions in access to the Gymnasium, changed at the beginning of the 1970s. University president representatives then switched to emphasizing universities’ limited capacities (Fuchs, 2004).
- 23.
The Deutscher Philologenverband is one of the oldest teacher unions representing Gymnasium teachers. It is known to be a conservative union committed to defending the three-tiered structure of school systems, which ensures higher remuneration for Gymnasium teachers than for their colleagues from other school types, and higher social prestige. Most Gymnasium teachers are unionized. It has around 90,000 members.
- 24.
The Verband Deutscher Realschullehrer, VDR union brings together Realschule teachers. It supports maintaining the three tiers of the school system, which maintains the Realschule as distinct from the Hauptschule. Indeed, the image and attractiveness of the latter have sharply fallen over the past decades. This union thus strongly emphasizes the specificity of the training that the Realschulen offer. It has around 15,000 members.
- 25.
The Education and training union (VerbandBildung und Erziehung, VBE) brings together teachers from the Grundschule, from the Hauptschule, from the Realschule, and also from the Gymnasium and the Gesamtschule. It has around 150,000 members at the federal level. It supports a lengthening of the education of German students within a same school. Its positions are often presented as less clear-cut than those of the GEW. Indeed, the VBE generally defended a change in the three-tiered school structure in the form of a system organized into two branches rather than its repeal, as does the GEW.
- 26.
The Education and science union (Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft, GEW) represents teachers from the Grundschule, from the Hauptschule, from the Realschule, from the Gymnasium, and from the Gesamtschulen. It currently has close to 270,000 members nationally. It supports the elimination of the segmentation of school systems in Germany and promotes the establishment of a single type of school for all students. This union is often presented as having a highly hierarchical organization dominated by the federal level, contrary to other teacher unions.
- 27.
However, this has been the case since 1969 for university statistics or with regard to learning.
- 28.
Indeed, it is very difficult to change the data collection programme in the short term, since any change would involve obtaining approval from each of the ministries of education, and then to accord and coordinate the approaches of the statistical services of the Länder.
- 29.
Thus, in 1971, generalist schools and vocational schools were distinguished for the first time. It is also during this decade that students who left the school system were labelled according to the type of degree they obtained.
- 30.
Based on the collection of all the decisions made by the KMK since its creation in 1948 through 2007 (KMK, 2007), we counted all the decisions related to schools (Gruppe II: Schulwesen), focusing on general education (e.g., excluding Sonderschulen) in public schools. Decisions related to teacher training, financial aid, and the administrative dimensions of school operations were not taken into account. It is a simple count that does not consider the content of decision, beyond the school type involved. Both “big” and “small” decisions were equally considered.
- 31.
Jutta Stern’s count is different from the one presented above in two ways: we counted the KMK’s decisions (which are more numerous than the agreements, since the latter can consist of several decisions, and not all decisions are part of agreements) on school issues (courses and degrees), while Jutta Stern considers all the KMK’s activities.
- 32.
See Chap. 2.
- 33.
Press communication from the KMK of 4 December 2001, “Schulisches Lernen muss starker anwendungsorientiert sein”.
- 34.
The KMK is presided by one of the Länder’s ministers of education. The presidency changes every year. Dagmar Schipanski was at the time the minister of education of Thuringia, a region that was part of the German Democratic Republic. The minister underscored the advantages of the federal organization of education as opposed to a centralized organization many times. Notably, on 25 June 2002: “Those who, like me, come from a centralized system where everything is regulated from the top without the possibility of feedback from the field, are grateful for federalism every day […]”.
- 35.
Statement der Präsidentin der Kultusministerkonferenz und Thüringer Ministerin für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst, Prof. Dr. Dagmar Schipanski, zur Vorstellung und Bewertung der PISA-E Studie am 25. Juni 2002.
- 36.
National standards for class 4 in German and mathematics had already been adopted at that time, like those in German, mathematics, and foreign languages (English or French) for the Hauptschule degree, and those in German, mathematics, first foreign language (English or French), chemistry, physics, and biology for the Realschule degree.
- 37.
It is worth mentioning another criticism frequently levelled at the KMK, whereby the focus of its operations on regional executives leads to the bypassing of regional parliaments. Indeed, it is the members of regional governments and administrations who participate in the negotiations and working groups, whose discussions are confidential. Some, therefore, speak of a “parliamentary no man’s land” (Stern, 2000, p. 81).
- 38.
In other cases, the KMK’s decisions do not seem to have had any effect on the evolution of regional policy divergence. This is apparent when the result of negotiations within the KMK is the mutual recognition of regional situations in all their diversity. The KMK’s 1991 measures aiming to integrate the regions of the former democratic republic into the national territory illustrate this. A KMK programme was established to replace the East German school system, which was unified and characterized by the pervasiveness of Marxist ideology, and to enable, after a transitional phase, comparability and equivalence in the trainings and degrees obtained throughout the regions of the federal republic. The types of schools that only existed in the former regions of the democratic republic were thus recognized as equivalent to the Hauptschule, Realschule, Gymnasium, and Gesamtschule. This was particularly the case for the Mittelschulen in Saxony, the Regelschulen in Thuringia, and the “secondary schools” in Saxony-Anhalt (Münding, 1995).
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Dupuy, C. (2020). Cultivating Similarity in Regional Policies. In: Converging Regional Education Policy in France and Germany. Comparative Territorial Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40834-3_4
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