Qualität des öffentlichen Schulwesens als Verfassungsgebot?

Since Germany’s shock at the results of the PISA test in 2001, the quality of the country’s state school system has been the focus of interest in society, politics and academic thinking. At about the same time, school legislators reacted to new findings in educational research and cautiously granted schools a certain degree of independence. In this study, the author links these two topics, which are still central to the discussion on school policy and school law. After analysing the status quo of school autonomy in Germany’s 16 school laws, she deals with the question of whether and to what extent the state is constitutionally obliged to guarantee the quality of the state school system and provide schools with comprehensive autonomy as a means of ensuring that quality. This not least reveals that the findings of other disciplines—namely pedagogics and educational research—can and even must be incorporated into school law.