IMPACTS OF THE LEGAL CHANGE OF SCHOOL GRADUATION CLASSES ON SCHOOL RELATED ISSUES AND THEIR INFLUENCES ON SCHOOL QUALITY

IMPACTS OF THE LEGAL CHANGE OF SCHOOL GRADUATION CLASSES ON SCHOOL RELATED ISSUES AND THEIR INFLUENCES ON SCHOOL QUALITY

- CASE STUDIES AT TWO GERMAN SCHOOLS -

Master Thesis, MSc BA, specialization Organizational and Management Control University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

January 20, 2015

JAROSLAW BODNAR Studentnumber: 2640570

Rosenweg 32

59320 Ennigerloh (Germany) e-mail: jbodnar@gmx.de

Supervisor:

Elma van de Mortel

Words: 20.040

1 Abstract

The present thesis deals with the G8 implementation in the German education system.

This means: Instead of passing 13 years at school to do the A level, pupils now need to

acquire the same amount of educational content in 12 years. This paper examines the

effects of the G8 implementation on three particular school related issues (financial

aspects, educational aspects, school development) and the influences of these school

related issues on school quality. Therefore six propositions are derived from the

literature. All propositions are tested and confirmed by case studies and interviews at

two academic high schools. So this thesis shows that the G8 implementation triggered

a lot of major changes and clarifies the influences of these three school related issues

on school quality.

2 Introduction

In general, ‘G8’ is the meaning for “The Group of Eight (G8) Industrialized Nations”.

(Council on Foreign Relations, 2014) However, in recent years this abbreviation is used in another way in Germany. The new abbreviation G8 stands for the adjusted education system of the A level (German: Abitur). This means that an adjustment from graduating academic high schools with an A level in 9 years (G9) to graduating after 8 years happened. (Der Tagesspiegel, 2014) Instead of passing 13 years at school to do the A level, pupils now need to acquire the same amount of educational content and knowledge in 12 years, so that they spend 8 years in the secondary education system at their high schools.

The education system in Germany is organized by its 16 states. In 2000, the first German states introduced the new concept for doing the A level in 8 years in the upper secondary education level. (Sofatutor-Magazin, 2014) The minister of education and cultural affairs of each state determines individually whether the education system will use the G8 or the G9 concept. (Aktuelle Sozialpolitik, 2014) After intensive conversations with teacher unions, parents unions and pupil representatives regarding instructions for optimizing the new G8-concept, the state government of the German state ‘North Rhine-Westphalia’ (German: Nordrhein-Westfalen) settled for the mandatory implementation of this new concept in academic high schools.

(Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2014 a)

In 2013, the first pupils graduated from high schools in 8 years in North Rhine-

Westphalia. (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung des Landes Nordrhein-

3 Westfalen, 2014 a) In this year, pupils doing their A level in 9 years as well as pupils doing their A level in 8 years graduated, so that North Rhine-Westphalia had 50 percent more graduates than in 2012. (Die Glocke, 06.03.2014)

This introduction section continues with a more detailed description of the new G8 law and its consequences. Afterwards the derivation of the research question and the contribution to the literature is presented. This section ends with a short overview of the thesis structure.

The change and the consequences

The official reason for the change from G9 to G8 is the convergence towards other European countries’ education systems, their duration of working times and the ages of job entrees. (Deutschlandfunk, 2014) Not only teachers and parents in Germany, but also German media criticize the implementation of G8, so that they disagree with approaches saying that the government introduced this adjustment not for educational but for financial reasons. Germany already belongs to the countries that offer less school lessons to their graduates (Germany: 9.400 full time hours; average of OECD industry states: 11.500 full time hours). (Die Glocke, 11.06.2014) Furthermore, Germany abolished the conscription and community service, which enables high school graduates to start one year earlier into their professional life.

Additionally, the duration of the different study paths are shortened due to the implementation of the bachelor and master system. (Die Glocke, 20.03.2014)

According to a representative survey 76 percent of citizens in North Rhine-

Westphalia are for the reintroduction of doing the A level in 13 years. (Die Glocke,

4 30.04.2014) Almost all states form initiatives with parents, students, teachers, doctors and psychotherapists to protest against the G8 system. (Die Glocke, 14.03.2014) They are against more stress and afternoon classes for their children. (Die Glocke, 14.03.2014) Instead, their children should have more spare time for sports, friends and culture, and particularly more time for learning values as well as developing personality traits. (Die Glocke, 14.03.2014) With the G8 system being established, the pressure to perform increased and studying material left less time for creative learning. (Die Glocke, 20.03.2014) Furthermore, weak pupils have greater difficulties to keep abreast. (Die Glocke, 20.03.2014) Against the background of these negative aspects, the state “Lower Saxony” is the first state which will return to the G9 system in summer 2015. (Die Glocke, 21.03.2014) Lower Saxony wants to lower the schedule and thereby the stress at school for the pupils. (Die Glocke, 21.03.2014)

North Rhine-Westphalia won’t return to the A level in 13 years. (Die Glocke,

04.11.2014) This was decided by the majority of the convened commission of experts,

consisting of representatives of schools, politics, parties, churches and the school

minister in November 2014. (Die Glocke, 04.11.2014) However, they are eager to

lower the stress for pupils by limiting homework, subject matters and afternoon

classes. (Die Glocke, 04.11.2014) The fact that the G8 change is still highly debated so

many years after its implementation shows its impact and urgency in the German

education system.

5 Research question

The financing of all schools in Germany is made up of the various units of the German federal government, the states (e.g. North Rhine-Westphalia), local authorities and private donors. (Bildungsxperten, 2014 a) Due to changes regarding the number of pupils, class hours, the need of teachers, further teacher education and resources needed, schools are confronted with financial and managerial issues, in particular regarding educational as well as strategic development and orientation.

The government is ambitious to invest in the future of the children. Someone who has experienced a good education will get a well-paid job and will need to pay many taxes. The state will reinvest this money in the educational institutions, which will in turn train well, so that people earn a lot of money again. (Bildungsxperten, 2014 b) Since the education budget has become scarce, political authorities are often calling for a more efficient school management. Most likely they want to see the adoption of economic management principles into the school system. (Drubs, 1992) Drubs (1996) suggests that politicians have to deal with the effectiveness of the school from an financial and an educational perspective, as the nation suffers from longer- term financial constraints. (Drubs, 1996)

The conversion to the G8 concept implicates a lot of major changes for schools

in North Rhine-Westphalia. Many schools changed for example their schedule concept

from lessons that are 45 minutes long to 60 or 90 minutes long lessons and

implemented a whole-day-concept for pupils. With this implementation, schools need

to provide lunches for pupils, so that they build canteens with required staff. So it

becomes obvious that the conversion has not only an influence on educational, but

6 also on financial, managerial and developmental aspects. The media in Germany has dealt superficial with this issue and questioned what impact the change has for students, schools, companies and universities. However, no one has dealt in detail with the affected school issues and their effects on school quality yet. This leads us to the research question of this thesis:

Figure 1. Research question.

The present thesis is limited to academic high schools, because the new G8 law affects only academic high schools. The research question includes two relationships. On the one hand it determines the implications of G8 on school issues in terms of financial &

educational aspects and school development. On the other hand the research question

examines the effects of these three school issues on the quality of an academic high

school. For determining the research question, this examination includes case studies

in two academic high schools in the German state North Rhine-Westphalia. These case

studies comprise not only interviews with important persons but also the review of

the school’s educational, financial and strategic data. The review of the school’s data

makes it possible to find out objective and real changes. Especially a comparison of

particular elements before and after the implementation of the new G8 law reveals

real effects. Furthermore the case studies enable deeper insights into the effects of the

schools’ development and financial & educational aspects on school quality.

7 Literature approach

Many authors have already determined non-profit organizations and their special characteristics, but the current literature research shows that only a few researchers dealt with the very important non-profit organization school. For example Forbes (1998) asserted that performance measurement for non-profit organizations is extensive but generally inconclusive. (Forbes, 1998) They have difficulties to develop

“surrogate quantitative measures of organizational performance [...] because [they]

frequently have goals that are amorphous and offer services that are intangible”.

(Forbes, 1998, p. 184) The success of non-profit organizations cannot be measured by

a variance analysis of their spending and budgeted amounts. (Kaplan, 2001) The lack

of financial data makes it difficult for potential donors to have confidence in their

investments. (Glassman & Spahn, 2012) As a result, the “success for nonprofits should

be measured by how effectively and efficiently they meet the needs of their

constituencies. Financial considerations can play an enabling or constraining role but

will rarely be the primary objective”. (Kaplan, 2001, p. 353) Schools can be assisted in

fulfilling their functions by material and financial contributions from third parties. The

school authorities are to ensure that individual schools are not unfairly advantaged or

disadvantaged. These benefits can not absolve the school authorities of its financial

obligations. The principal can make the decision of getting contributions in agreement

with the School Conference and the school authorities. (Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG,

2014) Furthermore, especially educational aspects and the schools’ development

were affected by the G8 implementation.

8 There are some media and analysts who dealt with G8 changes in school life. But quite no one focused on all three school related issues with respect to the G8 implementation in several schools. Further on there is no clear statement about the influences of the three school issues on the quality of schools. The literature gap which can be seen throughout this research paper is the effect of the above mentioned new law on the mentioned school issues. So in this thesis it will be examined and determined which measures and characteristics of the quality of schools need to be met. Furthermore, this thesis contributes to the literature by examining the impacts of financial & educational aspects and school development as school issues on the quality of German academic high schools.

Thesis structure

The thesis is structured as followed: In the next section the German education sector

with focus on academic high schools and the upper secondary education level will be

described. The third section discusses some theories regarding the non-profit

organization school, certain school related issues and school quality. This section will

be completed by propositions and a conceptual model. The methods of gathering data

from interviews, literature reviews and the school’s data, including brief background

information about the academic high schools as the cases, are then discussed. The fifth

section ‘Results’ presents the results from the case studies. Afterwards, results will be

discussed in order to check the proposition derived in section three ‘Theory and

propositions’. The final section provides concluding comments and suggests

limitations of this thesis. Furthermore, it reveals options for further researches.

9 Description of the sector

This section describes the German education sector with a strong focus on schools.

Furthermore, it entails the different types of schools and explains the organizational effects of the G8 law implementation on academic high schools in North Rhine- Westphalia. This section also deals with further aspects, so that the costs and responsibilities of schools, especially regarding school activities and headmaster’s tasks, are revealed. Finally, the school development planning is presented and insights in the evaluation of school performances are given.

Introduction into the German education sector

The German school system is divided into 16 federal states. Due to the cultural sovereignty of the individual states, the school systems differentiate slightly from each other. (Destatis, 2014 a) Although the federal states are responsible for the organization of the educational and cultural sector in Germany, the funding of the education sector is allocated to the federal government, states and municipalities. The proportions vary across the individual sectors of education. It can be seen that there are differences in the level of the amount the states invest in their educational establishments among the various states. (Bildungsxperten, 2014 b) In the years 2010 to 2012 the proportion of the federal government of the expenses for education was 15% - 17%, the states’ proportion amounts to 68% - 70% and the municipalities’

proportion was 14% - 16%. (Destatis, 2014 b)

10 In Germany tuitions are not charged and every young person has a right to receive school education, training and individual support regardless of his/her economic situation, origin or sex. The municipalities are the authorities of the schools. They are obliged to provide the grounds, buildings, facilities and teaching aids. In addition, they need to maintain as well as provide the necessary staff for school administration and the general supplies for the technology and information technology-oriented material resources that are necessary for a proper education in school. (Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014) Destatis shows that 3.122 academic high schools existed in the school year 2012/2013 in Germany with about 2.390 thousand pupils and about 180 thousand teachers. (Destatis, 2014 c)

Upbringing and educational mission of schools

The main objectives of the upbringing and educational mission in schools are the reverence for god, respect for the dignity of humans and the readiness for social actions. Pupils should learn to become autonomous, to represent their own opinion and to develop tolerance towards other people and their decisions. Furthermore, pupils should evolve their cognitive and expressive abilities. They need to experience how to study for themselves and how to study with their classmates. (Ministerium für Inneres und Kommunales Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2005)

Types of schools

The school system is divided by means of three different levels of schools which are

structured according to different grade levels. School levels are the primary, lower

11 secondary and upper secondary education level. The types of schools need to be structured in a form that allows them to engage and cooperate with another one.

(Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014)

The primary education level is the elementary school, which consists of the classes one to four and provides basic skills, knowledge and abilities, leading to more systematic forms of learning and building the basis for the pupil’s further education.

(Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014)

The lower secondary education level builds on the elementary school and includes the secondary modern schools, integrated schools, middle schools and some academic high schools from class five to ten. Usually, the lower secondary level in academic high schools goes up to class nine. All lower secondary schools provide only the lower secondary education levels with classes from five to ten, except academic high schools which encompass the upper secondary education level after class nine.

As part of the special education and educational mission of the lower secondary schools, they are responsible for giving the pupils a common basic education and enabling them to take up an apprenticeship or entering a full-time school with a general educational level or receiving a vocational education at upper secondary education level. (Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014)

The upper secondary education level includes the vocational college and the

academic high school from class ten (G9: eleven) to twelve (G9: thirteen). Of particular

importance in this education level are in-depth knowledge, skills and abilities in the

basic subjects German, foreign language (English) and mathematics. The upper

secondary education level aims at introducing well-grounded scientific questions,

12 categories and methods to pupils. Moreover, it provides an education that enables personal development and strengthens the personalities, so that all pupils can participate in the democratic society. (Beschluss der Kultusministerkonferenz, 2013)

Academic high school in North Rhine-Westphalia

The academic high school encompasses both, the lower and the upper secondary education level. It starts in class five and goes till class twelve (G8: eight years). The upper secondary education level includes the last three years (classes ten to twelve) and is structured by a one-year introductory phase and a two-year qualifying period.

The introductory phase of the sixth form maintains its bridging function for the transition in the qualification phase, so also with regard to the compensation of different conditions at the pupils before entering the qualification phase. The federal states shall ensure that only those pupils are admitted in the introductory phase, which are smart enough to experience a successful introduction phase. The A level is the school leaving qualification, which allows access to each course of study at a university and to a comparable professional education. (Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014; Beschluss der Kultusministerkonferenz, 2013) Academic high schools provide their pupils an in-depth education that enables them to continue their education at a college, but also in qualifying educational programs. (Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014;

Beschluss der Kultusministerkonferenz, 2013) Thereby, their performances, interests

and inclinations play an important role and have an impact on their decision.

13 Costs & responsibilities of schools

Education costs include both educational staff expenses as well as costs of materials.

The staff expenses for teachers as well as for the educational and socio-educational personnel are paid by the federal states. The staff expenses are determined in accordance with the regulations of the State Budget Law. They include the costs of training and the necessary travel expenses. Material costs involve the costs of the construction, operation and maintenance of the necessary school buildings. In addition, material costs comprise the equipment, the provisions of schools, the necessary liability insurances and the costs of learning material and the pupils’ travel expenses. The remaining personnel and material costs are paid by school authorities.

(Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014)

The federal state is allowed to assign schools – in accordance to the budget – personnel means for autonomous exploitation. The autonomous exploitation of material resources by schools are governed by the rules of the school authorities and budgetary funds regulations. In regard to that, school authorities may authorize the headmasters for transactions with effect for the school authorities to complete and respond to their obligations. (Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014)

Headmaster

The headmaster leads the school in the context of the laws, regulations and

administrative provisions of the directives of the school supervisory authorities as

well as the conference resolutions and the school's requirements in external school

affairs. (Kultusministerium, 1992) In external school affairs the headmaster and the

14 school boards work together very closely. The headmaster submits the necessary information for the school boards’ task completion. (Kultusministerium, 1992) In external school affairs the arrangements of the school authorities (the municipalities) are compulsory. (Kultusministerium, 1992)

The headmaster has the overall responsibility and final authority to decide.

(Kultusministerium, 1992) His main task is to accomplish the upbringing and educational mission as described in section ‘Upbringing and educational mission of schools’ (p. 10). (Kultusministerium, 1992) Further tasks are to ensure good working conditions in the school, which also imply the encouraging of the professional development of teachers. (Kultusministerium, 1992) The headmaster is responsible for the organization and monitoring of accident prevention in the inner school area and for the collaboration with other schools. (Kultusministerium, 1992) Additionally, the headmaster needs to ensure the proper use, preservation and maintenance of the school building, school grounds, facilities as well as equipment and manages the school assets under the arrangements of the school authorities. (Kultusministerium, 1992) All in all, the headmaster has many diverse tasks, which require financial needs to fulfil them properly. Due to the diverse areas and financial needs, the headmaster needs to have the ability to lead, control and monitor the school and provide the school authorities with necessary information for the school development planning.

School development planning

In Germany there exists a school development planning. As far as municipalities,

counties and regional associations have to fulfil school authority tasks, they are

15 obliged to do a school development planning for their area, which is coordinated by plans of neighbouring school authorities. The planners are obliged to both building and continuing schools provided that the minimum number of pupils in their territory is ensured and a school is needed. The school form needs to be achieved within an acceptable distance. The education authority advises the school authorities and gives them recommendations. (Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014)

Educational offerings of all types of schools should be considered, so that education in schools is perceived as a common learning process which happens under the same conditions. In close cooperation with neighbouring school authorities and in mutual consideration of the schools, school authorities are obliged to ensure a regionally balanced, diverse, inclusive and comprehensive offer, which can be affected by these plans. (Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014)

The school development planning of municipalities considers:

 The current and future school offer regarding school types, locations of common learning, school sizes (number of pupils, number of classes in different forms) and school sites

 The medium-term development of the number of pupils, the determined school choice of parents, the number of pupils according to different school types, varieties of common learning and grades in school

 The medium-term development of the stock of school rooms following types of schools, places of common learning and school sites

As part of an approval process it needs to be approved by municipalities in

accordance with the school development planning of schools. Afterwards, the

16 municipalities have to collect and analyse all school development plans of their area and will decide which school will get a certain amount of financial support.

(Schulgesetz NRW - SchulG, 2014)

Performance of schools

Against the background that schools are institutions with the mission of teaching and learning pupils, the process of imparting knowledge and skills to pupils is of great importance. Schools are non-profit organizations with education and upbringing targets for the development of life skills. (Brockmeyer, 1999) Primarily schools do not have to consider financial aspects. Consequently, the performance of a school cannot be expressed by ratios like turnover, gross margin or net profit. An important aspect in evaluating the performances of schools is their quality. (Adams, 1993; Jansen, 1995)

Schools and school supervision authorities are obliged to develop and assure the quality of schools’ work. (Schulgesetz, NRW - SchulG, 2014) Quality development and quality assurance extend to the entire educational work of the school.

(Schulgesetz, NRW - SchulG, 2014) Primarily, in the context of schools the keyword

‘quality’ addresses the effect of pedagogical action at the education level. (Kuper,

2002) The self-perception of a highly responsible school is committed to undertake a

quality monitoring and quality assurance process by means of self-evaluation and

external evaluation and by means of targeted and result-oriented development

planning and innovation. (Brockmeyer, 1999) Thereby, a continuous and secure

development planning and review are prerequisites. (Brockmeyer, 1999) The

17 development areas of planning organizations can be seen as the central entrance range for a systemic active progress. (Brockmeyer, 1999)

The headmaster leads the school in the context of regulations and administrative provisions and is also responsible for the school quality and development. (Kultusministerium, 1992) The headmaster is faced with high challenges, so that it is not sufficient only to have a good professional qualification.

(Brockmeyer, 1999) Instead, enhanced methodological, communicative, social and planning skills are required. (Brockmeyer, 1999) In this context, one of the biggest challenges besides the willingness to undertake self-assessments and external assessments will be the ability to critically face conversion processes and to check the results of these processes constructively. (Brockmeyer, 1999) Therefore, the headmasters’ new leadership roles include: (Brockmeyer, 1999)

 a cooperative leadership style

 the development of a functioning staff

 the development of an organization that guarantees education

 the development of a program for schools

 quality management

 skills to plan and manage a school

Decisions of headmasters and school supervisor authorities must be considered as

individual elements in the interaction of different structural dimensions in the school

system. (Kuper, 2002) The aspects of the school’s quality will be discussed more

detailed in the next section.

18 Theory and propositions

This section starts with an introduction into non-profit organizations, especially schools. It goes on with descriptions from the literature of the single items of the research question. Each subsection ends with a proposition derived from theories from the literature. This section ends with a conceptual model with all propositions.

The propositions are separated into two different blocks. As already mentioned in the first sections, the research question includes two relationships. On the one hand the G8 implementation and its consequences on the schools’ financial & educational aspects and the schools’ development are analysed. On the other hand the impacts of the schools’ financial aspects, educational aspects and the schools’ development on school quality are examined.

Non-profit organization - school

Non-profit organizations are special organizations that differ from traditional for- profit organizations in one main objective: business goal. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) The composition and ascertainment of the business goal is a very important management function. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Goals are standards against which future actions can be measured. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Furthermore, goals help to evaluate how good or bad actions are and to what extent they differ. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) You need goals to identify optimal actions: optimal decisions are goal-appropriate decisions.

(Wöhe & Döring, 2010)

19 According to the traditional economic theory which is oriented towards the long-term profit maximization, this has to be considered as the main business goal. (Wöhe &

Döring, 2010) For-profit organizations primarily focus on economic business goals, but can also have social and ecological business objectives. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Non-profit organizations are far away from the typical economic explanation and mainly focus on social, cultural or ecological business goals. Thereby, they neglect economic objectives. (Grimalda & Sacconi, 2005; Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Actors of non- profit organizations do not follow the traditional paradigm of homo-economicus, which is a much-debated issue of their particular attributes and functions. (Grimalda

& Sacconi, 2005)

In recent years, the importance and recognition of the non-profit sector to the nation’s society grew. (Salamon, 1995, 1997; Smith & Lipsky, 1993; Weisbrod, 1998) Anheier (2000) proposes in his research that non-profit organizations are in tendency multiple organizations and argues that they differ from business because they are more complex and have multiple bottom lines. (Anheier, 2000) Researchers have several definitions and characterizations for non-profit organizations. Salamon and Anheier (1997) identified five core characteristics: organized, private, non-profit distributing, self-governing and voluntary. (Salamon & Anheier, 1997) Other researchers suggest that ambiguity is the centre of non-profit organizations (Billis, 1989) or that trust and voluntarism are the essence of non-profit organizations.

(Tonkiss & Passey, 1999) Additional characteristics of non-profit organizations are

“their dependence on but lack of control over external resources and their need to

manage multiple and often conflicting constituencies”. (Stone, Bigelow and Crittenden,

20 1999, p. 379) In the end every suggestion is applicable for some non-profit organizations, but not for others. (Anheier, 2000) All in all, non-profit organizations pursue social, cultural or ecological objectives, but not necessarily economic ones.

(Wöhe & Döring, 2010)

A school is a non-profit organization that pursues social and cultural objectives. It is an institution for the development of life skills through knowledge- building, the development of methodological skills, the stabilization of attitudes and behaviours and through the development of learning skills and social competence.

(Brockmeyer, 1999) The area of teaching and education needs to be regarded on its own. (Brockmeyer, 1999) This is about the main area of school work in which quality assurance and quality-related innovation are essential in the main proceedings.

(Brockmeyer, 1999) In particular, it is expected to understand the areas of responsibility not in terms of technical management, but as a central function in building a learning culture in which management as well as pedagogical-didactic culture of a school have to be integrated. (Brockmeyer, 1999)

Economic issues are not the main business objectives of schools, but are

necessary and important for a good quality of schools. (Drubs, 1996) As already

mentioned in the introduction, German schools are financed by money of the federal

(Germany), state (e.g. North Rhine-Westphalia), local authorities and donations of

private donors. Drubs (1992) asserts that schools cannot be managed like economic

companies. Therefore, he mentions four essential differences: (Drubs, 1992)

21 1. Teachers have their own personality profiles, highly individualistic and claim wide spaces of freedom. Therefore, they respond - even to modern - leadership philosophies and management principles rather badly.

2. As the success of a school is hard to measure, possibilities to enforce improvements in leadership and management measures are missing.

3. The institutional position of the principal is rather weak, so that the principal only has weak possibilities.

4. Teachers are able to frustrate a principal by destruction.

But that does not mean that schools could not learn and adopt anything from the modern business management science. (Drubs, 1992)

The structural characteristics of the school organization with its main focus on teaching and education have been described variously as a result of diffuse social technology at the operational level - the lessons - and as a result of mixing headmaster’s and colleges’ elements in internal school decision-making. (Kuper, 2002) The diffuse social technology of teaching prevents the development of school organizations according to the model of purposive-rational action. (Kuper, 2002) Requirements from the concepts of teaching are not deducible to let a specific organizational structure on objective reasons of schools appearing to be mandatory.

Besides, it seems not to be possible to dovetail the pedagogic activities of teachers in

schools in such a manner that particular patterns arise on the operational procedures

level for the optimization of organizational structures of schools. (Kuper, 2002) On the

contrary, a school has a large contingent of operational processes in the classroom, as

it can be expressed with the terms ‘loosely coupled systems’ and ‘cellular

22 organization’. (Kuper, 2002, Lortie, 1975, Weick, 1976) Thus, a look at the operational level can identify the autonomy of teachers as an important dimension in the description of organizational structures of schools. (Kuper, 2002)

As a result of this paragraph, schools cannot be structured and organized according to the logic of their operational processes. (Kuper, 2002) But the area planning organization represents a variety of instruments and methods of innovative development in schools. (Brockmeyer, 1999) Often the process of development and progress occurs in the context of changes and modifications like the implementation of the new G8 law. The new G8 law is the alteration in the development process of academic high schools and their pupils with several diverse effects in various areas.

School related issues – financial & educational aspects and school development

This section introduces into the impacts of the G8 implementation on school related issues. Due to the limited period of time and space for this thesis, the school issues will be narrowed down to financial aspects, educational aspects and school development.

Furthermore, the three mentioned school related issues will be analysed. Each school issue will be completed by propositions regarding their relationships to the G8 implementation.

Impacts of G8 on financial aspects.

The first school issue deals with financial aspects. Anheier (2000) argues that financial

resources “are a means and not the end for non-profits”. (Anheier, 2000, p. 6) Non-

profit organizations plan by funding sources if they are required to do so. (Bryson,

23 1988; Feinstein, 1985; Stone, 1989; Tober, 1991; Webster & Wylie, 1988; Wolch, 1990) The financial aspects in this thesis are structured in operative, tactical and strategic planning.

Operative planning: The subject of operative planning is a detailed planning on the basis of given capacities and encompasses at maximum one year. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Examples for operative planning are short-term financial planning or production plans for the next twelve months. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Operative planning is necessary because the forecasts of tactical planning won’t become true in reality. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) The operative planning has the task to minimize the negative impact of tactical miscalculation. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) In a school the headmaster does the operative planning in cooperation with some other staff. The headmaster prepares the annual school budget and manages the allocated school budget. (Kultusministerium, 1992) The school conference meets the decision on the school budget. (Kultusministerium, 1992) The report about the application of funds must be sent to the school conference. (Kultusministerium, 1992)

Tactical planning: As part of the tactical planning the broad frameworks of the

strategic planning become concrete and consider future changes in the business

environment. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) The headmaster pays attention to the proper

use, conservation and maintenance of school buildings, school grounds, facilities and

equipment. Furthermore, the headmaster manages the school assets under the

arrangements of the school authorities. (Kultusministerium, 1992) The capital

24 budgeting and medium-term financial planning are pivotal instruments for medium- term capacity planning. Both are substantial for realizing assimilation with the school’s changing environment.

When the budget encompasses more than one year, it is also part of tactical planning and a predetermined value which is observed by the budget officer. (Wöhe &

Döring, 2010) Generally, the aim of budgeting is the decentralized management of organizations. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Thereby, the corporate governance is abstaining from prescribing specific instructions to subordinate bodies. (Wöhe &

Döring, 2010) The corporate governance expects only adherence to the budget. (Wöhe

& Döring, 2010) In for-profit organizations budgeting is an important part of profit- oriented planning. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) In non-profit organizations budgeting is the allocation of financial resources to the individual decision-making units.

(Brockmeyer, 1999; Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Budgeting has different functions: (Wöhe

& Döring, 2010)

 Planning function

The budget helps in determining the future development of the organization.

 Coordination function

The individual budget defaults are derived from the value-based business goal.

Bottlenecks are detected in advance and partial plans are coordinated.

 Motivation function

Budgets should be an incentive to improve performance. Achievement or overfulfillment of objectives can be rewarded.

 Controlling function

25 By target-actual comparison budget variances can be identified at an early stage and actions to correct these variances can be taken.

Depending on the direction of the derivation budgets, the top-down approach or the bottom-up approach can be applied. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) In the top-down approach the corporate governance creates the plan balance sheet as well as plan income statements. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) From these plans, the single area budgets are derived. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) The bottom-up approach happens in the opposite way. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) The corporate governance arranges individual budgets with the budget officer of the lower and middle management. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) The plan income statements and plan balances are derived by grouping and summarizing the base information of the lower management level. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) In turn these are the basis of the strategic planning from the corporate governance. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Generally, in a regular for-profit organization the tactical planning is located at middle management level. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Due to flat hierarchies in schools tactical planning belongs to the area of the headmaster.

Strategic planning: In recent years strategic planning became more important and

part of the repertoire of non-profit organizations. (Bryson, 1988) Bryson (1988)

concluded to think of decision makers as strategic planners and stated that applying

strategic planning to specific situations must be threatened carefully. (Bryson, 1988)

In his opinion, non-profit organizations of all sorts won’t “be able to meet successfully

the numerous challenges that face them” (Bryson, 1988, p. 74) without strategic

planning. (Bryson, 1988) Additionally, he argued that for dealing with their changed

26 circumstances, non-profit organizations need good developed strategies. Due to the missing bottom line in non-profit organizations, they have greater management needs than for-profit organizations. (Drucker, 1990)

Strategic planning requires both - a detailed analysis of the current as well as of the future business situation. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) It is important to distinguish between external and internal factors. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) External factors can hardly be influenced by the company, like customer requirements, competition and regulatory framework. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) In opposition to that, internal factors can be influenced by the company, for example by marketing strategies, research and development strategies and investment strategies. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) The analysis of external factors is of great importance, as these factors determine the selection of tools to optimize the internal factors. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) For fulfilling its mission, strategic planning makes use of numerous instruments. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) These instruments attempt to describe the competitive position of the company by comparing internal (resources; success potentials) to external factors (competitor strengths, market development). (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) The high degree of uncertainty – resulting from the long planning period – leads on the one hand to strong model simplifications; on the other hand to vague qualitative recommendations. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010)

As operative, tactical and strategic planning encompass and react to the external environment, they also consider future changes in the business environment. (Wöhe &

Döring, 2010) Such a change in the business environment can be an amendment like

27 the new G8 law. As already mentioned in the introduction some schools had to invest additional money, for example to build a canteen or additional rooms. However, these investments are only possible when they are included in the operative, tactical and strategic planning. According to this the first proposition can be derived:

Figure 2. Proposition 1a.

Impacts of G8 on educational aspects.

The educational aspects are structured in operative and tactical planning ranges. But

first an introduction to the educational aspects of a school will be given. The

educational aspects of a school concern for example the school program, school

concept, organization of schedules, lessons and plans of action. The corporate

governance of a school is responsible for these issues and consists of the headmaster

and the permanent representative. (Kultusministerium, 1992) The management

functions of the headmaster include school development, personnel management and

human resource development, organization and administration as well as the

cooperation with the school inspection, the school authorities and partners of the

school. (Kultusministerium, 1992) It is the headmaster’s task to ensure the quality

development and quality assurance in schools and to indicate that the lessons are

given in full lengths by considering limited human resources. (Kultusministerium,

28 1992) Furthermore, it is the headmaster’s responsibility to ensure that all preparations for the beginning of a new school year are complete. (Kultusministerium, 1992) These preparations include the schedules of the teachers’ hours and plans of their actions during a school year.

Operative planning range: The ministry gives school type-specific requirements for teaching (e.g. guidelines, frameworks, and curricula). (Kultusministerium, 1992) These requirements specify particularly the objectives and the content of the courses, subjects and learning areas and determine the expected learning outcomes (educational standards). (Kultusministerium, 1992) The schools determine their own requirements on the basis of the above mentioned lesson requirements in connection with their own teaching school program. (Kultusministerium, 1992) These lesson requirements have to be taken in such a manner that the teacher is independent enough to have pedagogical creative leeway. (Kultusministerium, 1992)

As already mentioned before, the headmaster is responsible for ensuring at the beginning of the new school year that all necessary school organization measures have been completed and the lessons can start at the first day of school.

(Kultusministerium, 1992) According to the upbringing and educational mission of

schools, the headmaster should assure an appropriate distribution of lessons, a well

thought out schedule, supervision and representative plan, while ensuring a

functional use of teachers. (Kultusministerium, 1992) School programs are listed as

the central planning instruments. (Brockmeyer, 1999) They relate to the school as a

whole, including teaching, performing, school life, activating the whole school,

29 involving students and parents, fostering leadership skills of school principals, revealing an excellent medium for self-control and evaluation. (Brockmeyer, 1999) Brockmeyer (1999) mentions several important aspects regarding school programs:

 Structure and significance of school programs regarding the points of informative and control density and consensus-building on educational guiding principles (School Mission Statement)

 School programs relate to the specific pupil population, based on the relevance of teaching and education

 Effects of different legal and administrative frameworks and guidelines for the development of school programs

 Testing of evaluation projects for the implementation of education programs, among others with respect to the subject teaching, school organization, communication and management structures, human resource management and financial management

The development of school programs is often determined by very different planning considerations and guiding principles. (Brockmeyer, 1999) The understanding of what school programs involve can be or must be, diverges provided that they become effective. (Brockmeyer, 1999)

The majority of schools that face the internal reform and the challenge of

developing a school program do their innovative work on their own. (Brockmeyer,

1999) It turns out that considerable potential for self-development can be released in

schools. (Brockmeyer, 1999) Furthermore, the implementation of school programs in

conjunction with internal and external evaluation results in strong developments and

30 innovative advances. (Brockmeyer, 1999) The orientation of schools is connected to the realization of self-organization with the development of self-efficacy and self- reliance, the professionalization of teaching staff and the associated change of educational content, methods and procedures. (Brockmeyer, 1999) The quality of curricular and pedagogical work is guaranteed through school programs, self- evaluation and external evaluation. (Brockmeyer, 1999)

Tactical planning range: As part of the tactical planning in educational aspects, the broad frameworks of the strategic planning become concrete and consider future changes in the business environment. An example of a change in the business environment can be an amendment like the new G8 law. Generally, subjects of the tactical planning are: (Wöhe & Döring, 2010)

 medium-term research and development planning

 production and procurement planning

 human resource planning

 investment and financial planning

 sales planning

Most important for schools in order to achieve their educational business goals are

the research and development planning. This is considered as a form of production

planning that is consequently linked to the human resource planning and is closely

linked to the development of new products and systems. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) In

the school environment this means for example integrating new learning methods,

developing learning structures, setting afternoon schools, and determining particular

31 duties which can affect the school concept. The production and human resource planning of schools concerns their actual and future pupils plus the teaching staff. In medium-term the strategic requirements of human resource planning have to be considered and observed. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010) Furthermore, the headmaster ensures the organizational and personnel working conditions. (Kultusministerium, 1992) So as part of tactical planning personnel capacities are determined and depend on the other subjects of tactical planning. (Wöhe & Döring, 2010)

The school concept is based on the school strategy which concerns particularly the basic medium-term and long-term positioning of the “company” in its environment. (Siedenbiedel, 2008) Strategic management decisions relate to how the company develops and uses its strengths and how the management reacts anticipatory to changes in the environmental conditions of the socio-technical system.

(Siedenbiedel, 2008) In the new control paradigm school principals have a key position. (Brockmeyer, 1999) A school’s willingness to innovate will communicate directly with the professionalism and innovation of the respective headmaster.

(Brockmeyer, 1999) However, the headmasters can meet their key role in the innovative development. (Brockmeyer. 1999) Especially the development of management skills in the school system and a strengthening of management skills in the areas of education program, staff development and management of resources are necessary. (Brockmeyer, 1999)

The school type-specific requirements for teaching and other legal, administrative

frameworks and guidelines given by the ministry influence the educational aspects

32 that have been described above. The G8 implementation can be seen as such an effect and entails a lot of consequences. It can be said that consequences for schools can be a change in number of pupils, class hours, teacher needs, further teacher education and resources needs. Furthermore, many schools need to change their schedule concept from 45 minutes class hours to 60 or 90 minutes and develop a whole-day-concept for pupils. As a consequence a completely new school program and an adjusted school concept would have to be developed by the headmaster.

Figure 3. Proposition 1b.

Impacts of G8 on school development.

The last presented issue is school development. To explain the mechanisms of school

development, the concept of culture needs to be able to capture the essence of the

individual school. (Schöning, 2002) If you understand "school culture" in organization

theory terms, as suggested by Dalin (1999), then the term reflects the values, norms

and behaviours as a constitutive view of the meaning that the organization members

attach to the school activities and processes. (Schöning, 2002) Dalin (1999)

emphasizes that this sense is not directly “tangible”, but it is hidden and practiced

daily and quite naturally by the parties in a variety of forms of expressions. (Dalin,

1999)

33 On the one hand, school culture is considered as being the basis for change in school's work - school culture as a descriptive term. (Schöning, 2002) On the other hand, the term school culture is used normative and identified in coherence with high school quality, as introduced by Seibert (1997) and Holtappels (1995). (Holtappels, 1995;

Schöning, 2002; Seibert, 1997) School culture refers to all activities outside the classroom and not directly to curriculum-related activities. (Reiß & Schoenebeck, 1987; Schöning, 2002) School culture is both theoretically and practically assumed as a category of school development without a filled concept of school culture. (Schöning, 2002) In ethnologic usage culture is understood as the entirety of the moral concepts, norms of behaviour, basic assumptions and ways of thinking and acting that is created by the society. (Schöning, 2002) Cultures are reflected in decisions, activities, habits and practices, but also in symbolic forms of expressions such as rituals, myths and artistic representations. (Schöning, 2002) Seibert (1997) describes school culture as the educational organization of school life. (Seibert, 1997) Furthermore, Wiater (1997) characterizes school culture as an integrative collective concept in which the terms ‘school climate’, ‘school profile’ and ‘school life’ interact. (Schöning, 2002;

Wiater, 1997) This understanding of school culture shows the openness to the school’s design from the inside, but also expresses the possibility of reshaping of schools. (Schöning, 2002) Culture has a distinctive feature to the external environment. (Schöning, 2002) In addition, culture indicates how a society or social group differentiates from a corresponding other social unit. (Schöning, 2002)

The school places a certain extent of an individual symbolic aura that

represents its values and norms. (Dalin, 1999; Schöning, 2002) In this symbolic

34 perspective, the culture of the school is therefore the focal point of the school development. (Dalin, 1999; Schöning, 2002) Dalin (1999) proposes that the respective school development issue must harmonize with the base of the school’s value – otherwise school development won’t be possible. (Dalin, 1999) Content-neutral practices of organizational development fail, because they do not reach the depth of the values and attitudes of each school. (Schöning, 2002) If the development of the individual school depends on its varying fundamental values, norms, assumptions and attitudes, then it needs to be clarified how these deep structures can be influenced.

(Schöning, 2002)

Often the process of development and progress occurs in the context of changes and modifications like the implementation of the G8 law. The G8 law is the alteration in the development process of academic high schools and their pupils with several diverse effects in various areas. The pressure to perform is increased and studying material leaves less time for creative learning for pupils. (Die Glocke, 20.03.2014) The pupils do not have enough spare time for sports, friends and culture, but especially not enough time for learning values and developing personality traits.

(Die Glocke, 14.03.2014) All these changed conditions have an effect on the pupils’

behaviour, learning environment, school atmosphere, school culture and thus on the

development of the school. (Reiß & Schoenebeck, 1987; Schöning, 2002) Dalin (1999)

proposes that the respective school development issue must harmonize with the

school’s value base. Otherwise school development won’t be possible. (Dalin, 1999)

35 According to Dalin (1999), Reiß & Schoenebeck (1987) and Schöning (2002) the third proposition can be derived:

Figure 4. Proposition 1c.

School quality

“Performance Measurement has become urgent for nonprofit organizations as they encounter increasing competition from a proliferating number of agencies, all competing for scarce donor, foundation, and government funding”. (Kaplan, 2001, p.

353) “Donors can be governments, foundations, corporations, or individuals, each having their own motives, criteria, and methods (sophisticated or not) of evaluating

“impact” ”. (Glassman & Spahn, 2012, p. 72) The evaluation and measurement of a school’s performance is not easy to detect. In the present thesis the performance of schools is represented by different school quality aspects.

Quality is often described as a relative term, which implicates several understandings, uses and meanings. (Harvey & Green, 2000) "Quality" is relative to the person who uses this term and it is dependent on the contexts in which it is used.

(Harvey & Green, 2000) Furthermore, quality means diverse things for different

people, and also one and the same person uses the term possibly at different times in

other matters differently. (Harvey & Green, 2000) In the education sector, but

36 particularly in the field of higher education, there are a large number of quality interested parties: pupils, students, employers, teachers, administrators, government, sponsors and donors. (Burrows & Harvey, 1992; Harvey & Green, 2000) All these groups develop their own specific perspective on quality. (Harvey & Green, 2000) However, there are no different perspectives on one and the same thing, but different perspectives on different things, which are assigned with the same term. (Harvey &

Green, 2000)

In general, all educational authorities still use the traditional result-oriented means of quality assurance in the area of external evaluation. (Brockmeyer, 1999) In this respect, frameworks, curricula, final exams, tests, teacher trainings, school supervisions and the education of the teachers predominantly guarantee quality in most school authorities. (Brockmeyer, 1999) Despite the differences in the individual assessment of factors, criteria and instruments, quality assurance is considered as the most central task of schools. (Brockmeyer, 1999) Therefore, self-evaluation on the basis of reliable criteria and procedures appertains to the repertoire of school authorities. (Brockmeyer, 1999) In order to compare several schools objectively, external evaluation methods were required. Of course, an external evaluation of this self-evaluation of an individual school had to correspond complementary.

(Brockmeyer, 1999) The implementation of evaluation procedures as part of the

"normal" professional learning processes in a school have claimed for several years

and were technically and psychologically difficult. (Brockmeyer, 1999) Based on the

current experience with evaluation projects, it is necessary to disclose the project

planning for evaluation in a school, to consider multiple perspectives, to conclude

37 target agreements, to provide feedbacks and to take appropriate actions.

(Brockmeyer, 1999) In recent years several external evaluation procedures were carried out on different levels. Examples for such external evaluation procedures in Germany are “Programme for International Student Assessment” (PISA), centralized school leaving examination at A level (German: Zentralabitur), and a national testing of pupils in the lower secondary level (German: Lernstandserhebung).

The results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) did not only sharpen the awareness of the abuses in the German school system, but affected also the perspectives of researches on schools. (Schöning, 2002) Constructive consequences can only be drawn if benchmarks are accompanied and complemented by deeper and more sophisticated analyses in which the sets of conditions and contexts for the development can be determined by appropriate services.

(Brügelmann, 1999; Pekrun, 2002; Schöning, 2002; Terhart, 2002) However, it should be noted that PISA and other studies have changed the attention of research on schools and public discourse from less focus on the development conditions of the individual school to an intense focus on the quality assurance and control of the whole school system. (Schöning, 2002) In section ‘Quality analysis’ (p. 67) the external evaluation methods will be discussed and analysed in more detail.

Several researchers investigated quality aspects in the education system and

identified multiple different important elements and factors. Brockmeyer (1999)

proposes that there are a lot of different elements and effect factors that determine

the quality of schools and school systems to a large extent. (Brockmeyer, 1999) He

mentions the following aspects as the most important ones: (Brockmeyer, 1999)

38

 Professionalism of teachers

This means teachers’ ability to reach publicly organized and socially responsible educational qualifications and goals.

 Instructional and educational activities as decisive factors for the achievement of educational goals

 Controlling and support systems as a prerequisite for the innovative development and for securing the educational performance of the system

 Planning organization to backup conditions and instrumental requirements The self-conception of a highly responsible and oriented school commits to quality monitoring, quality assurance through self-evaluation and external evaluation.

Furthermore, targeted and result-oriented development planning and innovation need to be considered. (Brockmeyer, 1999) A continuous development planning and a safe review of the school’s development are guiding principles for schools.

(Brockmeyer, 1999) Establishing a system of self-responsibility as well as a capability

of innovation in the context of education could enable an optimization of school

quality in every school. (Brockmeyer, 1999) The designated development area of

planning organization can be seen as in the key to a systematic and activated

development. (Brockmeyer, 1999) An alignment which is determined by the school

itself and obeys planning, implementation and control aspects can improve the quality

development. (Brockmeyer, 1999) School programs are listed as the central planning

instruments. (Brockmeyer, 1999) This fact corresponds to the experiences in effective

innovative processes which reveal that the preparation and systematic use of school

programs is stated as a key strategy of school development. (Brockmeyer, 1999)

39 Furthermore, school programs relate to the whole school. They include teaching and school life, activate the whole council, involve pupils and parents, foster leadership skills of school principals, and are seen as an excellent medium for self-control and evaluation. (Brockmeyer, 1999) They become key tools for the evaluation of self- designing options of a school. (Brockmeyer, 1999) The use of the instrument school program will determine to a large extent whether the new design rights and design obligations only lead to a ‘new look’ or whether they actually stabilize and improve the organization of learning with the aim of quality assurance. (Brockmeyer, 1999)

Harvey and Green (2000) discuss the term quality as well. They consider three different understandings of quality. (Harvey & Green, 2000) Their first point of view is the traditional notion of quality as a particular exception. (Harvey & Green, 2000) The second viewpoint describes quality as something excellent with the meaning of surpassing the highest standards. (Harvey & Green, 2000) Their third viewpoint of quality emphasizes the achievement of prescribed minimum standards. (Harvey &

Green, 2000)

Furthermore, Adams (1993) and Jansen (1995) examine quality aspects and

summarize several different meanings, areas and uses of the word quality in the

literature. On the one hand they determine quality as resource inputs with teacher

qualifications, textbooks per student and a ‘teacher - student ratio’; on the other hand

they argue that quality examines outputs and outcomes by factors like academic

achievement, personal income and pass rates. (Adams, 1993; Jansen, 1995) In

addition, they refer to quality as processes with teacher-student interactions, as levels

of learner participations and as the schools’ reputations in public and against the