3. The Politicization of Regional Educational Policies

The analysis focuses on these two parties. Indeed as Hans-Werner Fuchs underscores, “given the distribution of responsibilities at the federal level and the constellations of power at the regional level, the SPD and CDU/CSU are particularly influential on social and educational issues. With few exceptions they form majorities in the regional parliaments, and therefore of heads of government and ministers of education” (Fuchs, 2004, p. 299).

In the second half of the 1960s, the CDU’s renewed focus on educational issues, which had previously been dominated by the SPD (Schmidt, 1980), resulted from a strategic positioning. It can be explained by the party’s perceived need to close a platform gap vis-à-vis the SPD and the FDP at a time when educational issues had come to the forefront (Schmid, 1990a). But it is also attributable to the party’s internal evolutions, generational turnover, the church’s decreasing influence, and a transformation in the dominant actors. Two ministers of education, Wilhelm Hahn and Paul Mikat (respectively in Baden-Württemberg and in North Rhine—Westphalia) played a central role in the new conception of education within the CDU. Holding key positions on committees in charge of education within the party, they worked to conceptualize education as a policy considered in terms of human capital and infrastructure. Their influence within the party marked the end of an approach to education centred on the Christian approach (Schmid, 1990a).

The explanation must also take into account the hardening of relations between the Bund and the Länder, and the more general party repolarization that characterized the beginning of the 1970s.

This is only a proxy. We concur with criticisms of the literature, which studies the effect of political parties on the basis of total spending (notamment von Beyme, 1984).

We cannot isolate the results for our period of study (1969–1975) with the available data (Schmidt, 1980).

Wolf explains this result by pointing to the fact that in international studies, educational spending includes spending on vocational training, which “inflates” educational spending totals (2006). But in Germany, this spending is largely business-funded. Furthermore, this result is attributable to the fact that overall, Christian-Democratic parties support the development of social policies more than conservative and secular parties (Huber & Stephens, 2001).

This particularly refers to the emphasis placed on education by all regional political actors during the years of expansion of schooling (1965–1975). In effect, student enrolment increased across all regions (Schmidt, 1980; von Below, 2002).

See in the appendix the summary table that presents the party composition of regional governments since the end of the 1960s.

As underscored by Josef Schmid, the implementation of the KMK decision on Gesamtschulen followed party lines. Of the 81 integrated Gesamtschulen, 42 were in SPD-governed Hessen. In 1974, of the 140 schools of this type, 64 were located in Hessen (1990).

They were introduced in this form following the 1969 KMK decision.

In 1979, 17% of students were enrolled in these schools in Berlin, versus 5.3% in Bremen. Similarly, in 1989, 22.3% of students were enrolled, and 8.8% in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Susanne von Below built this typology on the basis of two dimensions: the regulation of school system structures on the one hand, and of their content on the other, with a particular focus on the curricula and students’ evaluation (2002). The structural dimension designates the school system’s structure itself, the different types of schools, the terms for transitioning from one to another, and enrolment rules in each region (the length of enrolment in Grundschule, the existence of Gesamtschule or of a type of school offering under one roof the curricula of the Hautpschule and of the Realschule in an integrated or cooperative form; the period of mandatory schooling, the share of students attending Gymnasium in Sekundarbereich II, in particular). The dimension pertaining to the content refers to school programmes (the emphasis placed on the humanities and classical content relative to that placed on the needs of the modern world, for example: mandatory religion classes or not, mandatory philosophy classes or not in Sekundarbereich II, a mandatory foreign language until the Abitur, the option of choosing Turkish or Greek as a foreign language on the Abitur). This dimension is also based on students’ evaluation, and also focuses on the responsible authorities (the regional school administration, the Schulkonferenz, teachers, etc. (existence of a regional exam for the Abitur or not, with tests decided on a school by school basis, parents’ decision for choosing the type of school at the end of Grundschule, oral exams in Sekundarbereich II, among other things.)

Critics, notably the Court of Auditors (1995), spoke of “prestige high schools”.

This dividing line is largely congruent with the different degrees of formalization of state measures to assess the state of buildings and of the costs to upgrade them, implemented by the regional councils 1985–1986. See Chap. 4.

This service partly consisted of technical staff, since elected officials had refused to allow the regional council to use State technical services (DDE, DDA).

And thus refuses the classical alternative between “the political hypothesis”, whereby the party composition of governments is one of the major determinants of public policy choices and their results, and “the null hypothesis”, whereby economic constraints, globalization, and demographic pressures predominate (e.g., Castles, 1982, 1998; Hibbs, 1977; Schmidt, 1996; Tufte, 1978).

An examination of a number of policy domains in the French case reinforces these analyses, which emphasize the weakness of the party variable in explaining regional policies. This is the case for support for higher education and research (Aust, Crespy, & Vézian, 2011) and for occupational training (Berthet, 2011). Only regions’ authority over railways appears to leave room for a certain policy differentiation according to the political affiliation of the vice president in charge of regional express transportation (Barone, 2011).