Translate to English Whitewashing the social index doesn’t help

Like. The extra millions for the more than 100 priority schools in Schleswig-Holstein are well spent. The schools can use the money to improve the learning conditions of many students who do not speak German at home, receive little support, have behavioral problems or live in a Hartz IV environment. The key to such funding is the little-known social index.

The Ministry of Education had this index calculated for each of the more than 700 public schools in Schleswig-Holstein and was thus on the right track. It is all the more regrettable that the ministry puts the sometimes ugly results in nice words. Focus schools first become schools with perspective and then start-up opportunities, and children who are conspicuous and educationally disadvantaged become schools with a less than favorable learning starting point.

Whitewashing the social index for schools helps no one

This whitewashing doesn’t help anyone. The ministry should present the problems it has identified openly and transparently and thus show courage to face reality.

It is also true that programs worth millions only combat the symptoms of a failed policy. What is meant is the disastrous trend of concentrating refugees, recipients of unemployment benefits and people with other social problems in certain parts of the city, thus creating hot spots.

In short: Kiel, Neumünster and other cities in particular need to mix up their neighborhoods by specifically building social housing in middle-class residential areas. In the medium to long term, this would lead to priority schools getting more inconspicuous students and the social index improving. In the current schools without problems – that’s part of the truth – things would of course be a little rougher in return.

KN