The Research Institute for Family, Education and Upbringing Studies GmbH has come to the conclusion that education and upbringing in the Federal Republic are dominated by a multicultural, anti-authoritarian-permissive and results-egalitarian mentality. The anti-authoritarian-permissive and result-egalitarian mentality has a lasting negative effect on cognitive abilities and thus on the gross national product.The goal should be an education and training system that is again geared towards the best possible educational outcome for every child, forms elites and individually promotes (but also demands) weaker students and, moreover, ensures that the German educational system both as a result of education and one of the best educational systems in the world, also in terms of implementation for all social classes.

Education and upbringing in the Federal Republic are increasingly dominated by a multicultural, anti-authoritarian, permissive and result-egalitarian attitude - but not by performance orientation and promotion of the individual strengths of the students. The anti-authoritarian-permissive and result-egalitarian mentality has a lasting negative effect on cognitive abilities and thus on the gross domestic product (1). When it comes to education and upbringing, Germany has a blatant problem with numerous deficits in terms of methodology and measurable educational outcomes. The morale, average educational results, the will to perform and the performance of schoolchildren are in permanent decline, despite immense investments in education and despite small-scale regulation by laws. The German education system has been suffering from a systematic and persistent loss of academic performance among children and young people since the 1968 movement of the so-called "New Left" and due to the federal fragmentation of the educational landscape and the various educational policy reforms of the last twenty to thirty years. This is dramatically confirmed by PISA (2), TIMSS and other independent performance tests from industry (3) and the public sector (e.g. entrance tests for the police and the armed forces) (4). The fundamental reason for these negative results in the education system is certainly not an increasing general stupidity of our children. According to the research institute, the probable cause is the gradual but lasting loss of importance of primary and secondary virtues and values such as respect, discipline and self-discipline, willingness to perform, perseverance, a love of order and a sense of duty due to the zeitgeist and the relevant legislative effect of current family and education laws. This thesis is supported by research by Terrie Moffitt, an American educational researcher, who demonstrated that self-control (or self-discipline) in childhood in particular is crucial for success in adulthood: "Our 40-year study of 1,000 children revealed that childhood self-control is a very strong predictor of adult success in people of high or low intelligence, poor or rich. The segment of adults with the greatest propensity to avoid tedious planning is the same segment later responsible for most of the costs to society.” (5)In a 2005 study, the psychologist and educational researcher Angela Duckworth also found that the degree of self-discipline plays a much more important role in predicting the performance of students than the intelligence quotient (6). But it is precisely the increasing loss of the secondary virtue of discipline or self-discipline that causes an increasing laissez-faire attitude in matters of upbringing and education, both among teachers and among students in general, which in turn causes a steady decrease in the will to achieve and the educational results. The old adage “For the diligent, the week has seven todays and for the lazy, seven tomorrows.” A good and relevant indicator of this is the mean of homework.The homework is a simple and proven way of combining the learning of self-discipline with individual academic development through practice and repetition in a variety of ways. Trautwein et al. presented in 2001 in their Germany-wide study "Educational processes and psychosocial development in adolescence and young adulthood" (BIJU) with 2,123 students from 132 classes of the7th grade on the impact of homework in mathematics lessons in Germany (7)found that over the course of a school year, the average performance of students due to the frequent use of homework as a learning resource in mathematics lessons was 86% and 120% higher than that of their peers without, compared to students who did homework seldom or on average frequent homework. Consequently, the ministries recommend the following exemplary amount of daily homework via the respective administrative regulations (8): in grades 5 and 6 up to 60 minutes and in grades 7 to 10 up to 90 minutes. One would think that this would be a truism – but far from it. A non-representative survey at a primary school in Brandenburg revealed that, contrary to this specialist recommendation, the reality in all classes deviated from this guideline by around 90%, i.e. homework by the teachers only to an extent of 4-7% of the actually recommended amount and frequency were used as learning and repetition tools. And there seems to be a method to doing this in elementary schools – with fatal consequences for the cognitive skills of our children and the gross national product in Germany. The company BASF has been conducting aptitude tests with apprenticeship applicants for decades (9). Among other parameters, school knowledge of spelling and elementary arithmetic are recorded. A relatively stable course of the results over the years would be expected, but in fact since 1975 there has been an almost continuous downward trend. The proportion of correctly solved tasks showed the following trend in spelling in 2010 compared to 1975:Hauptschule students -26%, Realschule students -24% and elementary arithmetic: Hauptschule students -39%, Realschule students -28%. About a third worse outcomes within 35 years of schooling. The possible objection that these data do not necessarily reflect a cross-section of the respective entire year is justified, but the decline in correct solutions is an indicator of the performance of an entire year (i.e. of the cognitive competence of the respective applicants) from the point of view educational policy opinion leader continues to be extremely significant and can by no means be invalidated with counter-arguments regarding the possible inhomogeneity of the applicant cohort.The inhomogeneity or the possible change in the sociological composition of the applicants and the possible resulting change in individual skills do not adequately justify the decline in performance. According to the research institute, the decline in these elementary educational results is mainly caused by the gradual loss of value of secondary virtues such as motivation, discipline and perseverance. The research institute will examine and disclose these connections in detail. It is also well known and shown graphically here that the proportion of high-performing (i.e. talented) students in natural sciences and mathematics in Germany has been falling steadily since 2009 in the international PISA comparison (however, reading competence in this group has increased) (10).The promotion of gifted people in Germany tends to have a lot of upward potential. Skills and needs of gifted children are not adequately promoted.In this regard, Rindermann and Thompson clearly stated in their 2011 analysis, Cognitive Capitalism: The Effect of Cognitive Ability on Wealth, as Mediated Through Scientific Achievement and Economic Freedom, "that cognitive abilities are critical to national prosperity - particularly those of an intellectual (gifted) group with high cognitive abilities and achievement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In addition, this group's cognitive ability predicts the quality of economic and political institutions, which in turn determine the nation's economic prosperity. Cognitive resources enable the development of capitalism and increased prosperity.(11)What is the federal government doing with these findings? Based on Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-BRK), those responsible have been investing in inclusion for 6 to 7 percent of pupils in Germany with special educational needs since 2009 as an educational initiative (12), they lower the level of training requirements and of exams (13) and they are investing primarily in information technology and computers (14) as part of the Digital Pact, while leaders in countries such as the US and Australia are already reducing the level of computer use in schools, as this is considered little conducive to achieving recognized by better outcomes in schooling (15). In this country, it would be particularly desirable to have target-oriented methodology and proven didactics in the classroom to strengthen primary and secondary virtues as the basis for motivation and willingness to learn and as the basis for a functioning, happy and resilient society. As a rule, the politicians in Germany, who are responsible for measures in education and upbringing, have an astonishing ignorance of the facts, a considerable ignorance of the research results, helpless actionism, short-sightedness and a blatant helplessness about the best possible and most effective way to Improving educational outcomes for all children, whether they are falling behind in class, or whether they are average or gifted children. The time is ripe for a sustainable and consistent change of course in education policy at all levels.To go back to homework, for example: The homework phobia among teachers, which is now established in most elementary schools as an indicator of a lack of motivation and insufficient training, leads, according to the analysis by Trautwein et al. (16) inevitably led to a reduced performance level of the students compared to previous years. According to Rindermann and Thompson's findings, this situation will be delayed, but will have a direct impact through a reduction in gross national product and general prosperity and competitiveness in Germany. With the acceptance of laissez-faire and anti-authority in education, with the acceptance of the loss of secondary virtues and the acceptance of declining willingness to perform and declining performance in schools in Germany, politicians knowingly take a gradual reduction in the cognitive competence of entire cohorts both in the general average and among the talented and thus, against better knowledge, endanger the competitiveness and prosperity of the country in the long term.