Teacher recommendation
The teacher recommendation is the recommendation of the teacher or a teaching staff of the type of secondary school a child should attend after primary school. Parental suffrage refers to the parents' right to deviate from this, in particular the choice of a school with a higher level of performance.
A distinction must be made between the recommendation of the sending school and a recommendation of the receiving school, some of which can be requested in addition.
Transfer regulations in Germany
In some German federal states, the teacher recommendation is compulsory for attending grammar school or secondary school . In others, it is only used to help parents choose a school. There are differences in the extent to which pupils with insufficient learning success can stay at the chosen type of school in the long term.
Transfer to high school
| state | Regulations for the transfer to grammar school according to the Standing Conference (KMK), February 19, 2015 |
|---|---|
| Baden-Württemberg | Primary school issues binding high school recommendation; No longer binding since 2012, parents decide independently. Basis: Achievements in German and mathematics (average at least 2.5) as well as learning and work behavior, entrance exam possible. |
| Bavaria | Primary school issues binding high school recommendation; required average 2.33 (in German, mathematics, local history and specialist knowledge); otherwise trial lessons possible; Parents have the right to vote against the recommendation of the trial lesson, as long as grades from there are not worse than 4 |
| Berlin | Parents decide whether to attend high school |
| Brandenburg | Elementary school gives grammar school recommendation, required average of 2.33 (in German, mathematics and first foreign language), trial lessons possible |
| Bremen | Parents decide whether to attend high school |
| Hamburg | Parental suffrage |
| Hesse | Parents decide whether to attend high school |
| Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania | Parents decide whether to attend high school |
| Lower Saxony | Parents decide whether to attend high school |
| North Rhine-Westphalia | Parents decide whether to attend high school |
| Rhineland-Palatinate | Parents decide whether to attend high school |
| Saarland | Parents decide whether to attend grammar school (since 2010 teacher recommendation no longer mandatory) |
| Saxony | Primary school issues recommendation for high school; Required grade point average 2.0 (in German, mathematics and subject teaching, whereby none of these subjects may be graded 4 or worse), performance assessment possible if the grammar school registers differ. If the grammar school itself does not make a recommendation for a grammar school either, the parents can declare in writing that they will adhere to their registration. |
| Saxony-Anhalt | Parents decide whether to attend high school |
| Schleswig-Holstein | Parents decide; however, no child with a recommendation for a secondary school can go to grammar school |
| Thuringia | Primary school issues binding high school recommendation; required grade "good" in German, mathematics, local studies and specialist knowledge; if not achieved, entrance examination possible |
Baden-Württemberg
At the end of primary school which is part of the school primary school recommendation issued.
For the transfer to Realschule, the child should have an average of at least 3.0 in the subjects of German and mathematics in the fourth year of school, for the Gymnasium of at least 2.5. The student's learning and work behavior should also be included in the assessment.
Since 2012, the decision about the future school career of the child has been the responsibility of the parents. A non-binding elementary school recommendation is made, an advisory process is possible at the request of the parents.
Up until the 2011/2012 school year, the following applied: if the primary school recommendation did not correspond to the parents' wishes, a consultation procedure was carried out which, based on standardized tests on talent potential and perseverance , resulted in a joint educational recommendation. As a third stage of the procedure, a nationwide entrance examination was also possible. At this took z. B. 2004 about 2,500 students participated. Of these, 20% passed the entrance examination for secondary school, and every twentieth participant passed the entrance examination for high school.
Bavaria
At the beginning of May , the pupils of the 4th grade of primary schools will receive a transfer certificate containing a summary assessment of their suitability for transfer. What is decisive, however, is the average of the annual graduation grades in the three subjects of German , mathematics, and home and general studies . Aptitude for the grammar school is certified up to an average grade of 2.33, for the secondary school up to 2.66 (the third decimal place is rounded down). Exceptions can be made for pupils with a non-German mother tongue if weaknesses in the German language appear to be remediable. There are different rules for transferring from higher grades.
Pupils who were not qualified by the school from which they were sent can take part in a 3-day trial lesson at the receiving school, in which written and oral performance in German and mathematics is assessed, with the written assignments being standardized across the country. Anyone who achieves at least grades 3 and 4 or vice versa will be certified as suitable for the corresponding type of school. Parents have the right to choose if the student has achieved a grade of 4 in both subjects. Successful attendance of the trial lesson at a grammar school also entitles you to transfer to a secondary school.
The success rate in trial lessons at grammar school fluctuates around 50%; however, the proportion of trial lesson participants in those who crossed over is low at 3%. In the Realschule the success rate is only around 30%; the share of trial lesson participants in those who crossed over is, however, at 14%, significantly higher than in the grammar school. The success rate at the end of the 5th grade in secondary schools is 98% for students without trial lessons, 97% for successful trial students and 96% for students whose parents have used the parental option after failing the trial lesson. At grammar schools, more trial students remain unsuccessful in the long run, but here too it was only less than 5% in the 2007/2008 school year.
North Rhine-Westphalia
The recommendation was binding from 2006 to 2010 and was issued together with the class 4 semi-annual report. Although the parents decide on the further education path of their child and thus on the choice of the school type in Section 11 (4) sentence 3 SchulG, the decision of the school was put before the parents' will, because the choice of the school type was based on an educational prognosis by the class teacher / in took place. If the parents did not agree with the school recommendation, the child could take part in a three-day prognosis lesson, which can exclude the desired type of school. The prognostic instruction was given jointly by a primary school teacher and the desired secondary school teacher. Since the recommendation was made through an administrative act, it was contestable by an objection within one month. If the objection was not accepted, an action could be brought before the administrative court within one month.
However, children were only obliged to take part in the three-day forecasting lesson if the primary school had restricted the school recommendation to one type of school - Hauptschule, Realschule, Gymnasium. The School Act (SchulG) granted an exception to this compulsory participation in Section 11, Paragraph 4, Clause 3: "If the elementary school believes that a child is suitable for another type of school with restrictions, this is also named with the addition mentioned." was regulated in § 8 of the administrative regulations for the 'Ordinance on the Education Course in Primary Schools (AO-GS)'. After a consultation, the parents themselves decided whether to register the child at a school for which the elementary school had only made a limited recommendation. Since the end of 2010, the teacher recommendation has only been non-binding in NRW.
Parents reaction to the recommendation
Nationwide it can be stated that the majority of parents follow the teacher's recommendation. This also applies to the federal states in which it is not binding. The percentage of parents who follow the teacher's recommendation is slightly higher in the southern federal states than in the northern ones. In Lower Saxony, around 15 percent of parents choose a higher-performance type of school than provided for in the recommendation.
Parents' decision for different types of school, in the federal states in which the teacher recommendation is not binding:
| Parents' decision | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| secondary schools | secondary school | high school | Comprehensive school | |
| Teacher recommendation for secondary school | 74.7% | 16.1% | 1.4% | 7.9% |
| Teacher recommendation for secondary school | 10.1% | 66.0% | 14.5% | 9.3% |
| Teacher recommendation for high school | 0.2% | 7.1% | 90.7% | 2.0% |
Criticism of the teacher recommendation
Constitutional concerns
Little is known of a judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court from 1972, according to which the parents' right to determine also includes the power to freely choose the educational path of their own child: "The possibility is even accepted that the child may suffer disadvantages through a decision of the parents, which could perhaps be avoided within the framework of a selection of the talented according to objective standards. ”Critics therefore consider the Bavarian regulation of transfer to lower secondary level to be unconstitutional.
Entry into force of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities , to which the Federal Republic of Germany acceded in 2009, requires inclusive teaching for pupils with a disability. In particular, a transfer to a special school is no longer permissible against the will of the parents, not even after the end of primary school.
The case of "Henri" caused a sensation, a boy with Down syndrome who, according to his parents' wishes, was originally supposed to attend high school. In fact, in 2015 he switched to a secondary school, where he was taught differently . The case exemplifies the problematic of a procedure of “talented selection”, which according to the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court quoted above should certainly exist. The process is intended to discourage “only pupils who are only suitable for secondary school” from attending a grammar school, but on the other hand it is not able to exclude students with massive cognitive impairments from the (here: secondary) school.
Endangering child welfare and domestic peace
Article 3, paragraph 1 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides:
- "In all measures that affect children, regardless of whether they are taken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child are a priority that must be considered."
The binding nature of the teacher recommendation in some federal states is also controversial because, according to some critics, it puts students and parents under too much pressure and thus both harms the child's well-being and disrupts domestic peace .
Scientific investigations
If, where there is still a three-tier school system , only the school leavers to secondary or secondary school are considered, the reliability of the teacher recommendation seems to be less prognostic than the will of the parents. However, if one examines underachievement and overachievement, then the will of the parents remains more problematic than the teacher recommendation, which is less selective according to social origin. In addition, there are tendencies that a certain continuity can be ascribed to the educational orientations of parents - also at transitions in the educational system. Thus, parental (formal) educational orientations can also put students under pressure and lead to the transition to a secondary school being difficult to manage.
IGLU study
In addition, the teacher's recommendation was also criticized with reference to the 2001 IGLU study . The teacher's recommendation only partially coincides with the competencies measured at IGLU (competencies in the area of spelling):
| Level 1 (very poor spelling) | Competence level 2 | Competency level 3 | Competence level 4 (very good spelling) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teacher recommendation for secondary school | 75.4% | 56.8% | 25.6% | 5.8% |
| Teacher recommendation for secondary school | 22.1% | 36.0% | 41.8% | 18.2% |
| Teacher recommendation for high school | 2.5% | 7.1% | 32.7% | 76.0% |
It is criticized that especially children of workers are disadvantaged because they rarely get the teacher recommendation for the grammar school or the secondary school.
The 2007 IGLU study complains that the disadvantage of working-class children has increased:
According to the IGLU study from 2016, the injustice of the recommendations of teachers is increasing continuously. According to the IGLU study, children from the so-called "lower" classes of origin ("working class") are less and less likely to receive a recommendation from teachers for high school if they have the same reading and cognitive skills. In 2016, with the same skills, children from the "upper" service classes were 3.37 times more likely than children from the "working class" to receive a recommendation from a grammar school. This means that children with the same skills are increasingly disadvantaged according to the IGLU study with "lower" origins.
| Model 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 4.18 | 3.49 | 2.63 |
| 2006 | 4.06 | 3.40 | 2.72 |
| 2011 | 4.48 | 4.07 | 3.14 |
| 2016 | 5.13 | 4.76 | 3.37 |
| Explanation of the models:
Model I: Without control of covariates. |
|||
Nevertheless, according to the IGLU study, the preference of parents is still more unfair than that of teachers.
| High school recommendations: minimum number of points for the transition to high school according to the opinion (values from 2001 in brackets) |
||
|---|---|---|
| the children's teacher | the parents of the children | |
| Upper-class children | 537 (551) | 498 (530) |
| Children from the lower service class | 569 (565) | 498 (558) |
| Children of parents in the field of routine services | 582 (590) | 578 (588) |
| Children of self-employed | 580 (591) | 556 (575) |
| Children of skilled workers and executives | 592 (603) | 583 (594) |
| Children of unskilled and semi-skilled workers and farm workers | 614 (601) | 606 (595) |
The result of the 2007 IGLU study regarding the recommendation for high schools points to social injustices:
- Teachers recommend children of parents from the upper service class to the grammar school with 537 points, but children of unskilled and semi-skilled workers have to achieve 614 points.
- Parents from the upper class already see their children as suitable for high school if they only achieve 498 points; Workers only see their children as suitable for grammar school with 606 points or more.
- Academics prevail over teachers better than workers when they want to send their children to high school.
The teacher's recommendations are therefore socially selective, but the parents' will is much more selective.
Study by the University of Mainz
According to a study by the University of Mainz, children from lower-class households are discriminated against through teacher recommendations. If you only consider the children with an average grade of 2.0, then the children from the lowest education and income group will only receive a recommendation for high school with a probability of 76 percent. In contrast, 97 percent of the children from the upper class received the recommendation for high school. In the case of poorer grade averages, the differences would become much clearer: "For example, with an average grade of 2.5, the probabilities of a high school recommendation diverge between 19.5 percent and 70 percent, depending on whether the child belongs to the lowest or the highest social class."
ELEMENT study
According to the ELEMENT study, which examined the transition recommendations from teachers in Berlin after the sixth grade , these recommendations are primarily determined by the level of performance of the children and only secondly by the class of parents: “The extent to which these Recommendations Preferences of subpopulations are involved that cannot be justified in terms of performance and may also be caused by prejudice in favor of children from families with high social prestige, is significantly lower than the status component in the parents' decision on early transition. "Boys can be disadvantaged prove. In contrast to other studies, no discrimination against lower-class children could be demonstrated, but rather discrimination against children from parents with “average” educational qualifications compared to children with parents with a low or privileged educational background.
Big-fish-little-pond-effect
According to a study, children with a migration background are not discriminated against when recommending teachers, but there is a big-fish-little-pond effect : “With a higher proportion of pupils in the class whose school test results and basic cognitive skills are high and their parents have a higher educational orientation, the relative chance of changing to a secondary school or a grammar school instead of a secondary school decreases. "
See also
Web links
- Eva Julia Lohse: Child welfare - right to education - parental and state educational decisions . Iurratio . December 8, 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://www.bildung.sachsen.de/blog/index.php/2016/11/23/neue-bildungsempfänger-staeckt-elternwillen/
- ↑ swp.de ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Printed matter 13/4003 of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg, landtag-bw.de ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 51 kB)
- ↑ Recommendations for teachers: Experience in Baden-Württemberg . ( Memento of March 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) wdr.de, December 13, 2005
- ↑ § 29 Primary School Regulations ( Memento of the original from May 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The transfer at a glance ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture
- ↑ §§ 26 ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and 27 ( Memento of the original from May 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Realschulordnung, §§ 26 ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and 27 ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. High school regulations
- ↑ Bavarian Education Report 2009 ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , State Institute for School Quality and Educational Research
- ↑ Primary school recommendation . ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. schulministerium.nrw.de, accessed on September 8, 2012.
- ↑ Joachim Tiedemann, Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha: How successful are high school students without a high school recommendation? The gap between school career recommendation and choice of school type by parents . In: Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft , 13, 2010, pp. 649–660
- ↑ Bos et al .: First results from IGLU: Student performance at the end of the fourth grade in an international comparison . Waxmann, Münster 2007. p. 132.
- ↑ BVerfGE 34, 165 <184>
- ↑ Expert opinion: “Elementary school diploma” in Bavaria violates the constitution - parents must be able to choose freely . news4teachers . September 6, 2016
- ↑ Law on the United Nations Convention of December 13, 2006 on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities . Federal Law Gazette, Volume 2008, Part II, No. 35, Bonn, December 31, 2008 (PDF file; 264 kB)
- ↑ Lena Greiner: Student with Down syndrome: What happened to Henri, who was not allowed to go to high school? ( Memento of the original from October 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Spiegel Online . May 10, 2015
- ↑ UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Art. 3, Paragraph 1
- ↑ More and more students fail in high schools . In: Die Welt , August 18, 2008
- ^ Rainer Block: School law over parental law? New empirical findings on the reliability of transition recommendations from primary schools . ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 88 kB) University of Duisburg, 2006
- ↑ Johannes Uhlig, Heike Solga , Jürgen Schupp: Unequal educational opportunities: What role do underachievement and personality structure play? (PDF) April 2009
- ↑ Michael Hermes: Educational orientations in the family experience space. Reconstructions at the interface between qualitative education, family and transition research . 1st edition. Writings of the KatHO NRW, No. 32 . Barbara Budrich Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8474-2144-3 .
- ↑ Bos et al .: First results from IGLU: Student performance at the end of the fourth grade in an international comparison. Waxmann, Münster 2007, p. 248.
- ↑ IGLU 2006 press conference ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ( MS Word ; 7.1 MB) accessed December 28, 2007
- ↑ Ruven Stahns, Svenja Rieser and Eva-Maria Lankes: Classroom management, social climate and cognitive activation in German lessons in fourth grades, in: Anke Hußmann, Heike Wendt, Wilfried Bos, Albert Bremerich-Vos, Daniel Kasper, Eva-Maria Lankes, Nele McElvany , Tobias C. Stubbe, Renate Valtin (Eds.): IGLU 2016. Reading Skills of Primary School Children in Germany in International Comparison, p. 245
- ↑ School transition: Children of less educated and lower-income parents are discriminated against . University of Mainz, press release, September 10, 2008
- ↑ Alexander Schulze, Rainer Unger, Stefan Hradil: Project Group Social Report on Educational Participation, Educational Opportunities and Learning Conditions at Wiesbaden Elementary Schools at the Transition to Secondary Level I. Project and results report on the full survey of elementary school students in 4th grade in the 2006/2007 school year . (PDF) p. 45
- ↑ Rainer Lehmann, Jenny Lenkeit: Survey on reading and mathematics comprehension. Developments in grades 4 to 6 in Berlin . ( Memento of the original from November 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) Final report on the studies in 2003, 2004 and 2005 at Berlin elementary schools and elementary high schools
- ↑ Joachim Tiedemann, Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha: On the influence of migration and school class membership on the transition recommendation for lower secondary level (PDF)
