Germany Revisited
Aug. 2, 2005 at 7:59 PM
Michelle Malkin is talking about the difficult time homeschoolers are having in Germany. From the article
Last week, a court in Paderborn in the German state of Westphalia ruled that two Baptist couples lose their parental authority over their own children in educational matters. The court said it was interfering "in order to protect the children from further harm." It stated that the parents had shown "a stubborn contempt both for the state's educational duty as well as the right of their children to develop their personalities by attending school." The court appointed the local Paderborn social service as guardian over the children to ensure that they attend public school.
The two couples belong to a group of seven families with a total of fifteen children of elementary school age who do not attend school. The parents were brought to court by the local education board of the county whose director, Heinz Kohler, argued that homeschooling cannot be allowed because it is "a right of the child not to be kept away from the outside world. The parents’ right to personally educate their children would prevent the children from growing up to be responsible individuals within society." Kohler was backed by the Westphalian minister of Education, the Socialist politician Ute Schäfer, who stated that the obligation to attend a government approved school follows from the "right of a child to free education and maturation."
When I first began blogging I talked about US testing (Should Homeschoolers Take MEAP?) and how it is a foreshadowing of what is going on in Germany with these same parents. It is tempting to think that this could never happen here. Think again. Much of our "educational reform" is patterned after the European system. Here's a look at how things are set up in Germany.
We are moving in that direction. Getting a national testing system in place is the first step. And with our own Supreme Court looking to international law for opinion rather than our consitution we may be only a generation away from this happening here.
2 Comments and Trackbacks
posted by Anonymous on Oct. 26, 2005 at 4:47 PM
Spunky,
Did you write that article in TOS? If so, is it online anywheres? I have been discussing this topic at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AHA-PoliticalAction and I just got the TOS magazine with this article which is right where my head is at.
Annette
National Charter School Watch:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NCSW/
posted by spunkyhomeschool on Oct. 26, 2005 at 5:32 PM
If you are referring to the Education reform article, yes that was mine. I'll check into seeing if it is online.