Conditions of social responsibility – Private school funding in the federal states of Germany

The research project „Conditions of Social Responsibility – Private School Funding in the Federal States of Germany” is a follow up to the private school research on the so called ‘Sonderungsverbot’ (article 7 paragraph 4 of the German Basic Law), which prohibits a segregation of private schools’ students based on the economic situation of their parents. Previous research focused on how the ‘Sonderungsverbot’ is implemented in the laws and regulations of each federal state and under which conditions and up to which limits private schools are allowed to charge tuition fees. The current research project turns to the main source of private schools’ financial resources: state funding.

It aims at comprehending and comparing state funding of private schools in each federal state and focuses on the following research questions:

• How is the state funding of private schools in each federal state calculated?
• Are the legal regulations of private school’s funding transparent and comprehensible?
• What are the restrictions of private school’s funding?
• Are there federal states which provide their private schools with more resources than others do?

To answer these questions the laws and regulations which determine the state funding of private schools of each federal state are categorized and compared to each other. Additionally, debates in the parliaments concerning private school’s funding of each federal state since 2010 are evaluated. Furthermore, this research project deals with the question of public expenditures per student at public schools, since several states’ private school’s funding is based on this reference value.