The German education landscape consists of a variety of formal and non-formal education opportunities. However, this is precisely where the problem often lies, as it is not easy to keep track of who is responsible for what and when. The provision of day-care centres, including after-school care, is the responsibility of the municipalities, whereas the ownership of schools lies with the municipalities or the federal state. While the latter is responsible for school curriculum and teaching staff (internal school matters) in accordance with their constitutionally guaranteed sovereignty over education and the arts (Art. 7 and 70 Basic Law), the municipalities are in charge of the construction and equipment of schools (external school matters). Extracurricular child and youth work (e.g., recreational facilities, counselling), which is carried out by a large number of independent providers, usually is the area of authority of the municipal youth office, which in turn is often subordinate to the social welfare office - and thus not necessarily located in the same department as schools and daycare centres. The challenges that cities and municipalities face in education policy as a result of differing responsibilities were outlined by Markus Schön in his presentation "Kommunale Bildungslandschaften als kommunale Sozialpolitik" (Municipal education landscapes as municipal social policy) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy. The jurist and city director for education, youth, labour, sports, migration and integration in Krefeld cited in particular the areas of inclusion and digitalisation, but also the provision of the building infrastructure, where municipalities were reaching their limits. Particularly in the case of digitalisation, a change in the separation between internal and external school matters would be urgently needed, Schön said. For municipal education policy to be successful and, for example, to prevent disruptions in educational biographies, educational institutions must cooperate closely with each other on the one hand, and with other municipal social policy institutions on the other. The city of Krefeld, which is dealing with a high degree of social and ethnic segregation, is trying to compensate for social background-related disadvantages and to create more educational equity through a holistic concept. It combines family support measures with early childhood, school and extracurricular education. This includes, among other things, the development of a common understanding of education and upbringing for daycare centres and elementary schools as well as the systematization and support of transition periods, e.g. from elementary school to secondary school. Close cooperation between schools and youth welfare, school social workers and school psychologists is also needed with regard to "absenteeism," which is an increasing problem, Schön noted. However, the rigid responsibilities of the federal, state and local governments often stand in the way of binding cooperation between schools and social service providers. The city director also criticised the harm done by current discussions on budgetary discipline at the national level in that they were being conducted exclusively in the area of family and education policy, although it was precisely here that the need for investment was greatest after the Corona pandemic. The results of the most recent IGLU study on reading literacy were highly disturbing, he said, with a quarter of fourth graders failing to meet the minimum standards. In view of these developments, it is high time to remember an African proverb instead of losing sight of the needs of children and young people in this type of turf war: "It takes a village to raise a child."

University of Virginia Law Professor Awarded Prestigious Max Planck Law Fellowship to Study Taxation and Social Policy in Federated States - Ruth Mason , the Edwin S. Cohen Distinguished Professor of Law and Taxation and the Class of 1941 Research Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, has been awarded a multiyear legal fellowship by the Max Planck Society (MPS) to research problems at the intersection of taxation and social policy. She will be hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance and the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, which are both located in Munich and cooperate in the framework of the Max Planck Fiscal and Social State Hub . They also participate in the MPS network Max Planck Law . An internationally recognised scholar, Mason lectures around the world and has been a visiting professor at several institutions, including Yale Law School, the University of Paris (Panthéon-Sorbonne), Vienna University of Economics and Business, and the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation. She has also served as national reporter for the United States to the International Fiscal Association and is a member of the American Law Institute. The Max Planck Law fellowship is of particular significance to Mason: “The Max Planck Society is one of the most important research institutions in the world, so this is a great honor,” she says. “The Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance has been on my radar for as long as I’ve been a tax professor, and I’ve visited the Institute many times to give talks and to attend conferences. But this fellowship represents a special opportunity for deep collaboration with other scholars and to mentor the brightest up-and-coming doctoral and postdoctoral students.” In her capacity as Max Planck Law Fellow Mason will also supervise and support Ph.D. candidates as they research and write their dissertations, nd she expects to mentor postdoctoral resarchers who are preparing for careers in academia. Mason’s research focuses on federalism, tax discrimination and cross-border taxation. During her two-year stay in Munich, Mason will spend half of each year at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance and the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, investigating the role of “interstate solidarity” in federated states, including taxation, social security systems, and the effect of subsidies and transfers from wealthier to poorer states. Her research will be embedded in the Max Planck Fiscal and Social State Hub, an initiative of the two Institutes, which focuses on questions at the nexus of fiscal taxes and social benefits. Both transfer systems affect our social order as a whole. With the challenges posed by globalisation, pandemics, climate change and energy crises, federations – including the USA and Germany, and quasi-federal unions, such as the European Union – face increasing pressure to maintain social cohesion and economic solidarity. Wolfgang Schön, director at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finances, and Ulrich Becker, director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, who both nominated Mason for the fellowship, regard her research stay as an opportunity to learn from one another’s expertise while exploring the legal puzzles inherent in these social problems. Together with them, Mason will head a Max Planck Law Fellow Group that pursues a fully funded joint research project. “Our project will seek to uncover, catalog and understand fiscal mechanisms that forge federal solidarity, including dedicated instruments under social security laws,” Schön states. And Becker adds: “Understanding federal fiscal solidarity is important not only to German and U.S. scholars, who live in overtly federal systems. It is also important for EU scholars, especially as the EU takes on more fiscal responsibilities — as it did during COVID-19 and has proposed to do more generally.” At the University of Virginia School of Law (UVA), Mason teaches taxation and serves as faculty adviser to UVA’s tax moot court team, which has won three international championships. In 2023, she was named faculty director of the Virginia Center for Tax Law . Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819, UVA is consistently ranked among the top law schools and a world-renowned training ground for lawyers and public servants.

In its climate protection decision of 24 March 2021, which has often been described as epoch-making, the German Federal Constitutional Court derives from the Basic Law a right of defence against the threat of destruction of our liberal order. The decision is innovative insofar as a threat to fundamental rights is, under certain conditions, equated with an encroachment on fundamental rights. However, can concrete obligations for the welfare state be derived from this future-oriented protection of fundamental rights? Prof. Ulrich Becker explored this question in an essay that has now also been published in English on the Max Planck Law website. In the discussion about possible consequences of the climate protection decision in terms of social law, the focus is on the financial viability of the social security systems, whereby pension insurance - a permanent construction site of the welfare state - is of particular importance. One demand in this context is to distribute contributions and benefits proportionately among the present and future generations. In contrast, Ulrich Becker holds the opinion that the argument of an impairment of fundamental rights lying in the future cannot be easily transferred to other areas of social law. The bridge that connects the present to the future in the climate protection decision is built by the irreversibility of the events set in motion. If transferred to social benefit systems, it would have to be claimed that their creation and maintenance also lead to states of irreversibility, Ulrich Becker argues. However, social benefit systems remain man-made institutions that can be changed, albeit often laboriously, whereas climate catastrophes are characterized precisely by the interaction between human actions and nature. Moreover, there is already a constitutional basis for demands for "generationally just" reforms, which the climate protection decision at most strengthens but does not extend. It is "equality over time," which can be understood as a concrete manifestation of intergenerational justice. Constitutional law provides principles for this intergenerational equity in social insurance, but it does not contain a roadmap. There are different ways to reform social insurance in general and pension insurance in particular, and thus to change future benefits and burdens. Therefore, the best solution must continue to be fought for in future parliamentary debates. Original publication in German: Becker, Ulrich: Der Klimaschutz, das BVerfG und die Zukunft des Sozialstaats, in: NJW-Spezial, issue 8/2022, pp. 1222-1227. The article is based on a lecture given on the occasion of the German Jurists' Day, which can be viewed >> here an (from minute 27:10, in German).

The staff of the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich were delighted to welcome the President elect of the Max Planck Society (MPS), Prof. Patrick Cramer, and Secretary General Dr. Simone Schwanitz at the end of January. In talks with Director Prof. Ulrich Becker , Director Emeritus Prof. Axel Börsch-Supan and the staff, the chemist, who is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Natural Sciences in Göttingen, presented his vision for the future of the MPS. A central component of this vision is not only the recruitment of the most promising scientists, but also the fostering of a strong team spirit among all employees, each of whom makes an important contribution to the success of the MPS, as Cramer emphasised. With regard to the Institute, he underlined the importance of social law research for generating knowledge about fundamental commonwealth issues. Patrick Cramer is particularly concerned with promoting young scientists by expanding attractive programmes. In this, the new President, who will officially take over from Prof. Martin Stratmann in June, can count on the full support of the administration. The declared aim of Simone Schwanitz, who took over as head of the General Administration of the MPS almost one year ago, is to provide the best possible support for science, among other things through lean and smooth processes. She also encouraged all employees to contact her with questions and problems. At the end of their visit, Patrick Cramer and Simone Schwanitz took a look at a piece of contemporary history - the library sofa, a designer object from the 1960s, about which the myth persists that no less a figure than Jürgen Habermas had already enjoyed its comfort.