The characteristics of the modern school system, which integrates children into a "nation state," have been radicalized throughout history, especially in Japan and Germany. This research aims to clarify German and Japanese paradigms in public education through a focus on the roles of school teachers. The research asks: what is the professional responsibility of a school teacher and what is outside of a teacher's responsibility? Under today's democratic and constitutional welfare-state, reconsideration of the distributed structure of governance in public education is needed. Through document analysis and fieldwork in Germany, with a comparative educational interest from Japan, the article specifies certain differences and similarities between the two contexts. Responsibilities in public education should be understood as distributed among, most notably, teacher, local school administration, and central school administration.