It is intended to be the largest education initiative by the federal and state governments in German history, the beginning of the “turnaround in educational policy”. This is how Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP) put it in a press release on the Startchancen program, which began in August. In figures: A total of 20 billion euros are to be invested over ten years. 10 billion euros will come from the federal government, and the same amount from the states. Children at around 2,000 schools are now benefiting from this. A total of 4,000 schools are to be supported.
Research by CORRECTIV.Lokal shows that several federal states are hardly providing any additional funds. Instead, existing funding programs are being credited towards the Startchancen program – in other words, they are simply being reclassified. The program is also off to a chaotic start: at the start of the program, some federal states were not even able to communicate the criteria they would use to distribute the funds to the individual schools and how much money each of them would receive.
Numerous studies show that our education system is in crisis. A quarter of children in fourth grade in Germany cannot readevery fifth child does not calculateChildren from poor families and those with a migration background are particularly affected. They are more likely to leave school without a qualification, less likely to go to high school and less likely to go on to university.
The Startchancen program is intended to support schools with a particularly high proportion of students with these backgrounds. The schools are to be better equipped. And with more staff and individual support, more students should be able to read, write and do math correctly by the end of the program. Or as the Ministry of Education puts it: “The goal is to halve the number of students who fail to meet the minimum standards in German and mathematics at the Startchancen schools by the end of the program.”
Background to the Start Opportunities Programme
How were the schools selected?
At the start of the 2023/24 school year, 2,125 schools will initially receive funding. An overview of the schools receiving funding is available on the Ministry of Education’s website. The states were able to select the schools based on their own criteria. The federal government only stipulated that the disadvantage dimensions of “poverty” and “migration” must be taken into account in the selection process. Around 60 percent of the students receiving funding will be primary school students. In addition to primary schools, secondary schools and vocational schools in particular will benefit from the Start Opportunities program.
What is money spent on?
In total, the federal and state governments are investing 20 billion euros in equal parts. The program is primarily intended to promote basic skills such as arithmetic, reading and writing. The funds are divided into three funding pillars:
Pillar I: Investments in a modern and supportive learning environment
Pillar II: Opportunity budgets for needs-based solutions in school and teaching development
Pillar III: Personnel to strengthen multi-professional teams
In concrete terms, this means that with financial aid from the federal government, the states should equip their schools with modern equipment, provide individual support to students and hire additional specialist staff.
How is implementation monitored?
During its term, a research network will provide scientific support for the Start-Up Opportunities program. It will be led by Kai Maaz, Managing Director of the Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education.
At the same time, an external institute (not yet named) is monitoring the program as a whole for its economic efficiency, impact and achievement of objectives. For this purpose, the Ministry of Education has put out a tender that runs until September 2, 2024.
At first glance, the two billion euros per year for the Startchancen program reads like a major investment offensive. However, inquiries from CORRECTIV.Lokal to the state ministries of education show that several states are simply shifting hundreds of millions of euros and not investing additionally in schools. How much new funding from the states actually flows into the Startchancen program every year remains unclear – neither the federal government nor most states provide any information on this.
Information in four federal states shows that large amounts of funding are often taken into account
In Lower Saxony Around 80 of the almost 100 million euros that the state is to pay in the first year of the program come from eligible measures. The state is primarily counting funding for advisory services and for more staff at schools. The Lower Saxony Ministry of Education writes that, as things stand, “measures of the same scope” will be counted in the coming year.
The Saarland In the 2024/25 program year, around three quarters of the eleven million euros to be paid will be financed through credits. The Ministry of Culture did not answer whether funds of the same amount will be credited in the following budget years.
In Thuringia There is a tendency for more additional funding to flow in. In response to an inquiry, we were told that of the 23 million euros in annual state funding, on average only “around 2 million euros from existing programs” are taken into account.
Bremen did not answer CORRECTIV.Lokal’s question, but estimates of the scope of the eligible measures are available on the town hall’s website (PDF-Download): During the entire duration of the programme, the country must contribute around 100 million euros, of which around three quarters of the funds are to come from existing measures.
These countries remain silent about how much additional support they provide to disadvantaged children
The responses from other countries only suggest that a large part of the state funds for the Start-Up Opportunities programme have long since been earmarked.
This is how the Saxon Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs that schools in Saxony are already supported by funding programs that are “credited as co-financing” and “far exceed the amount of federal funding for Saxony.” And a spokesman for the Hessian The Ministry of Culture criticizes that the program is “by no means a program for the century, as the Federal Ministry of Education likes to propagate,” too much is already happening in Hesse for that.
In Baden-Wurttemberg, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Rheinland-Pfalz No final answer can be given yet. The program is still being developed and negotiations have not yet been concluded, it was said in response to a query. Bayern, Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein Some did not answer the question even after repeated requests, although they are obliged to provide information to the press.
Start-up Opportunities Program: Too little money to achieve the program goals
Education experts are already criticizing the fact that more than the announced sum of 20 billion euros is needed anyway. One of them is Michael Wrase, an education lawyer at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). In order to actually reduce educational poverty, between “three and four billion euros per year” are needed, says Wrase, who as a member of an expert forum knows the details of the Startchancen program.
Wrase can understand that successful measures are credited to the program and continued. However, he believes that the way the Ministry of Education presents the Start Opportunities program is “eyewash.”
In addition to the state funds, which are simply being reclassified, the ten billion euros from the federal government must also be seen in proportion. Although this sounds “like an incredible amount of money,” says education lawyer Wrase, it must be remembered that 40 percent of the federal funds go towards building investments in schools: “This does not directly contribute to the goal of improving the core competencies of the students.” In addition, there is a further 150 million euros that the federal government will use over the entire term for scientific monitoring and evaluation, for example.
40 percent of federal funds do not directly contribute to the goal of improving core competencies. Credits: CORRECTIV / Sebastian Haupt.
Kai Maaz, Managing Director of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Research and Information, does not see the program’s goals as being threatened by this, even if the 20 billion euros in the program are “not all fresh.” He will be in charge of the scientific monitoring of the program throughout its entire term. It is important that it does not just count towards the credits: “Successful measures must be sensibly fed into the logic of the Start Opportunities program.”
The school support program for children gets off to a bumpy start
What this will look like in concrete terms has not yet been decided. And how much money the schools will receive for which measures and according to which criteria the money will be distributed to them was still unclear in many federal states at the start of the program. Brandenburg, for example, said: “The program is currently being developed; the planning, coordination and implementation processes are still ongoing.” The answer to the question of when the state will set the criteria for the allocation of money: “When the coordination processes are completed.” Saxony-Anhalt explains that an answer will only be possible at “a much later date.”
According to Maaz, a certain amount of “expectation management” is needed for the next few weeks and months: “The countries are in very different positions. Some have already started and are already working with external support, others are not yet.” This needs to be “synchronized” first, says Maaz. For this, scientists and ministries would have “liked more lead time.”
Nevertheless, the Startchancen program represents a “paradigm shift,” says Maaz: “Unlike other funding lines, a systemic view is taken of the development of schools and skills and the reduction of educational inequalities, which also includes the ministries of education and education administrations. Ideally in a cross-state funding and development logic.” This is – in view of German federalism – an “innovative approach.” And Wrase also sees potential, precisely because the Ministry of Education always speaks of a “learning program”: “It can be further developed – depending on how self-critically the Startchancen program is actually handled.”
We are sticking with the Start Opportunities program:
This text is the beginning – from now on, CORRECTIV.Lokal will stay on top of the issue with its Germany-wide local journalism network. We want to know: Is the money reaching the schools and children who need it most? What exactly is the money being spent on? Are the program’s goals being achieved? How much administrative effort is involved? And is there actually a positive change in the German education system?
We depend on you to answer these questions. We are interested in the experiences of school principals, teachers, parents, psychologists, social workers and other people who have an insight into the Startchancen program and the education system in Germany. Most recently, thousands of people who read our Spotlight newsletter took part in the “Uncovered Together” research. We want to build on this and look forward to a close exchange. Write to our reporter Miriam Lenz or use other contact channels, such as the anonymous mailbox.
Research: Sean-Elias Ansa, Stella Hesch, Miriam Lenz, Till Eckert
Editorial staff: Jonathan Sachse, Pia Siber
Fact check: Sean-Elias Ansa
