Free Republic

A fourth-grade student in Henderson County (corrected since original post) received the following worksheet, which qualifies as an “informational text” under the Common Core State Standards:

A U.S. appeals court sided with the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday and denied asylum for the Romeikes. They fled from Germany after they were threatened with the possibility of losing custody of their children when they decided to homeschool and refused to send their children to the German public schools. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the Justice Department, in Romeike vs. Holder, that the freedom to homeschool one's children is not among the fundamental rights protected for asylum seekers. The Home School Legal Defense Association, which represented the Romeikes in the case, said it will appeal...

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld the Obama Administration’s denial of asylum granted to the Romeike family. The Romeikes fled Germany in 2008 when they were subjected to criminal prosecution for homeschooling. They were granted asylum in 2010 by Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman, but that grant was overturned by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2012. A three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit heard the Romeikes’ appeal on April 23 in Cincinnati, and issued today’s unanimous decision against the family.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld the Obama Administration’s denial of asylum granted to the Romeike family. The Romeikes fled Germany in 2008 when they were subjected to criminal prosecution for homeschooling. They were granted asylum in 2010 by Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman, but that grant was overturned by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2012. A three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit heard the Romeikes’ appeal on April 23 in Cincinnati, and issued today’s unanimous decision against the family. “We believe the Sixth Circuit is wrong, and we will appeal their decision,” said Michael Farris, HSLDA...

Common Core is an educational curriculum being forced upon the states by the Obama administration, which is scheduled to be mostly implemented this year in the 45 states that have adopted it. Common Core eliminates local control over K-12 curriculum in math and English, instead imposing a one-size-fits-all, top-down curriculum that will also apply to private schools and homeschoolers. Common Core was has been promoted in a manner that sounds good and commendable – “States working together to create national standards for education… standards that are designed to be robust and relevant in the real world.” Common Core describes itself...

Boston Public Schools officials have no idea how many of their 9,000-plus employees may have criminal records — a shocking revelation that has triggered a sweeping round of background checks that already has found nearly a dozen workers with rap sheets. The school department has fired or placed on paid administrative leave 11 “support staff” employees, but officials refused to release their names, their positions, the schools where they worked and why they were flagged, citing their privacy rights. None was a full-time teacher, but the troubled staffers may include coaches, custodians, lunch monitors and paraprofessionals, officials said. The 11...

A teacher was arrested after she allegedly raped a boy in her classroom after he handed in a test. The high school teacher in New Mexico is accused of raping her male student in her classroom. Jennifer Vigil, 31, was arrested Tuesday after the student told police he was forced into having sex with his teacher at the Pojoaque Valley High School in Santa Fe. Vigil maintains that the sex was consensual, but the student disagreed he claimed that the teacher forced him to have sex after she locked the door of the classroom and he was unable to leave....

When I mention online learning to my colleagues at Wesleyan University, most respond initially with skepticism. But based on my experience, I know that real learning can take place on the Web. I am currently teaching a massive online open course, or MOOC, on Coursera. Most MOOCs have great attrition, and mine is no exception: There were almost 30,000 students registered at the start, yet 4,000 remain active as we near the end of the semester. Unlike most MOOCs, which focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, mine is a classic humanities course. "The Modern and the Postmodern" starts off...

One of the great moments in this author's academic career came when I dropped out of public high school to return to homeschool. My mother marched into the principal's office and informed the administration that she would be taking me out. The principal, a woman who ran the school with all the delicacy of a Hessian dragoon, was visibly indignant. "You can't do that," she said. "Oh," my mother said, smiling, "yes I can." And she could, thanks to Virginia's generally permissive homeschooling laws. So I left, free to pursue an actual education instead of a daily helping of public...

Four years ago a seven-year-old boy was taken from his parents as the family boarded an international flight. Armed police seized the boy, although they did not have arrest warrants, and he was placed in a foster home. The boy has still not been restored to his parents, and for three years they have not been allowed to see him at all. What on earth could these parents have done to their child? Had they abused and starved him? Neglected him and damaged his health? Psychologically tortured him? No, none of those things. So where could this nightmarish scenario have...

When a family in Lenoir (Caldwell County) decided to withdraw their son from public school last month in order to teach him at home, an official at the middle school refused to remove him from the public school rolls until the mother first produced a “home school license.” This meant that the child would be considered truant by the public school while being taught in a homeschool setting. After the parents contacted Home School Legal Defense Association for assistance, Senior Counsel Dewitt Black wrote the school official and advised her that the family was in full compliance with state law,...

Is there any indication that the Romeike family is in any way a threat to our nation? Not in the least. Now we come to the alleged Chechen bombers that had been had been under FBI surveillance for some time because they were a perceived threat. See this report from Judicial Watch. Zubeidat K. Tsarnaeva, the Boston bombing suspects’ mother, said that her oldest son, Tamerlan, “got involved in ‘religious politics’ five years ago, and that the FBI had previously contacted her about her son’s activities.” I find this perplexing. Where did the FBI get its information? What was he...

Hi Freepers. I know that there are a lot of other homeschoolers and homeschool supporters here, so this is a shameless plea to ask for your help in Freeping a vote in order to help my 6 year old child's homeschool enrichment group win a playground. His group is currently in a tight race for first place. If you feel so inclined, I'd appreciate it if you'd go follow the steps below to help his homeschool group out. To Enter: 1. Go to http://woobox.com/6j2kie 2. Like the page (sorry, this requires a Facebook account) 3. Click on Vote (This is...

Former Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has announced plans for a K–12 curriculum for home-school students that will offer them “an education in liberty like no other.” The first phase set to launch in September, and all subjects will be taught, but the curriculum will put an emphasis on primary-source documents that focus on the “basics of Western Civilization and Western liberty — how it was won, how it is being lost, and how it will be restored” rather than textbooks.

Family: An MSNBC contributor revisits the statist notion that while you gave birth to your children and feed and clothe them, they are only on loan to you by their true parent — a benevolent and all-knowing government. Melissa Harris-Perry, an African-American professor at Tulane, has endorsed the concept of human ownership by the state, something we thought history would teach her is a bad thing, saying in a promo for MSNBC that "we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong...

Fifteen-year-old Daniel Romeike loves America — his adopted country. But if the Obama Administration has its way, Daniel, his parents and his brothers and sisters will be deported in a court battle over the right to home school.“If I had a chance to talk to President Obama, I would ask him to let us stay in this great country of freedom and opportunity,” Daniel told Fox News.The Romeike family fled their German homeland in 2008 seeking political asylum in the United States – where they hoped to home school their children. Instead, the Obama administration wants the evangelical Christian family...

Former Republican congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul has launched his own K-12 home-school curriculum to provide an “education in liberty like no other.” The curriculum, which includes courses on “the economics of the Austrian school,” provides its K-5 program for free, meaning that students and families will be able to learn under Ron Paul for six years “without spending a dime,” according to one of the curriculum’s high school teachers, Ludwig von Mises Institute senior fellow Tom Woods. “Here, students learn the basics of Western Civilization and Western liberty — how it was won, how it is being...

Eric 'Himmler' Holder is trying to deport a German family granted political asylum in Tennessee due to being persecuted for homeschooling their family back in Germany. The appeal will be heard on April 23, 2013 at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. More details on the case hereClick excerpt link for Fox News report and please share it with your friends and pray for this brave family.

Dr. Kathleen Berchelmann, a pediatrician with St. Louis Children's Hospital, posted a list of “18 Reasons Why Doctors and Lawyers Homeschool Their Children” earlier this week, and the response has stunned the doctor and hospital. Since it was posted on Monday, the article was viewed roughly a quarter-million times, tweeted and pinned on Pinterest thousands of times, according to a hospital news release. Her essay addresses many of her own reservations before committing to homeschooling, and includes benefits such as spending less time homeschooling each day than they used to spend driving to and from various schools. She also notes...

FULL TITLE: Moms meet for Wild West-style armed duel to settle a school bus skirmish between their daughters in confrontation that left one dead and the other charged with murder Two mothers’ text message argument over a schoolbus fight between their daughters escalated into a Wild West-style duel and only one woman walked away alive. Deadly duel: Judith Kowaleski is charged with murdering Elizabeth Slagle in a deadly duel that stemmed from a school bus argument between the women's daughters Judith Kowaleski, 42, told police a fight began between herself and Elizabeth Slagle on Thursday evening. Kowaleski said it stemmed...

The Obama administration is arguing in federal court that a homeschooling family from Germany should be deported back to their homeland, despite what they say is religious persecution. The German government prevented Uwe and Hannelore Romeike from teaching their five children at home instead of sending them to government-run schools, fining them and threatening to prosecute them if they don't obey. When they took their three oldest children out of school in 2006, police showed up at their house within 24 hours, only leaving after a group of supporters showed up and organized a quick protest. But their legal troubles...

I’m going public today with a secret I’ve kept for a year—my husband and I are homeschooling our children. I never dreamed we would become homeschoolers. I wanted my kids integrated and socialized. I wanted their eyes opened to the realities of the world. I wanted the values we taught at home put to the test in the real world. But necessity drove me to consider homeschooling for my 2nd and 4th graders, and so I timidly attended a home school parent meeting last spring. Surprisingly it was full of doctors, lawyers, former public school teachers, and other professionals. These...

Last week, a Portland, Oregon math teacher was led out of his classroom by police and is expected to be fired for his opposition to Planned Parenthood. For years, Benson High School teacher Bill Diss has protested Planned Parenthood of Columbia Willamette (PPCW) building an abortion facility as well as their infiltration into the city’s schools. PPshebopThis Fall, he refused to allow Planned Parenthood staffers to come into his class to push their agenda, under the auspices of the Teen Outreach Program – why was this interrupting a math class, of all things? – and ever since, the school’s administration...

High School is where Planned Parenthood first targets young girls to build, what they hope, will be a life-long financial relationship. - Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins sfla-website To meet the growing need of pro-life support for high school students, Students for Life has launched a new site specifically for high school students. High school students have an opportunity to help shape the values and beliefs of their peers for the good on the pro-life issue, and Students for Life would like to partner with these students to help impact individual communities and school. The new website offers advice...

<p>TAMPA, Fla. -- Prosecutors in Florida have released video showing a driver pushing a special-needs child off a school bus with her foot.</p>

CHAMBERSBURG, PA, March 20, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is threatening a Pennsylvania school district with legal action after the school board voted 5-4 to block the formation of a “Gay-Straight Alliance” (GSA) at a local high school. The ACLU gave the Chambersburg Area School District a Wednesday deadline to reverse its decision before the ACLU moved forward with the suit. But on early Wednesday afternoon, a district representative who asked not to be named told LifeSiteNews by phone that the original decision to bar the club still stands. As to whether the school board might...

FULL TITLE: Maryland school district bans hugs, party invitations and birthday cake in post-Sandy Hook overhaul of security policies As schools across the country tighten security in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, one Maryland school district is taking it to the extreme, banning everything from hugs to birthday cake. St. Mary's County adopted the new security measures in its 17 public schools in the aftermath of the shooting in Newtown, Conn. that left 20 school children dead as well as six adults. The new policy is meant to protect against a number of potential threats to children's safety,...

Los Angeles (CNN) -- The Los Angeles public school system is going to pay $30 million to settle 58 of 191 students' lawsuits alleging they were victims of sexually lewd acts by an elementary school teacher, two of the plaintiff attorneys said. David Holmquist, general counsel for the Los Angeles Unified School District, confirmed the settlements in 58 cases but declined to state the exact financial figure other than so say the amount was in the "multimillions." The two plaintiff attorneys provided the figure on the condition that they wouldn't be identified because a Los Angeles County judge has yet...

MIDDLETOWN — Lawmakers are considering a measure that would make Connecticut the first state in the nation to mandate universal mental health assessments for school-age children. Senate Bill 374 — one of several relating to mental health policy in the aftermath of the Newtown attack — would require all public schoolchildren in grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 to undergo a behavioral health screening. The law would also apply to home-schooled children ages 12, 14 and 17. It makes no mention of private or parochial school students. The assessments would be confidential, the bill says; the results would be shared...

A Michigan elementary school is defending its decision to confiscate a third-graders batch of homemade cupcakes because the birthday treats were decorated with plastic green Army soldiers. Casey Fountain told Fox News that the principal of his son’s elementary school called the cupcakes “insensitive” — in light of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. “It disgusted me,” he said. “It’s vile they lump true American heroes with psychopathic killers.” Fountain’s wife made a batch of 30 chocolate cupcakes for their son Hunter’s classmates at Schall Elementary School in the town of Caro. The 9-year-old helped decorate the...

If you think by abstaining from teaching about sex within a moral framework that Planned Parenthood is not teaching a definite belief system to children, think again. ETR Associates—a sex program clearinghouse and offshoot of Planned Parenthood of Santa Cruz—admits on its webpage that a program being taught in North Carolina schools and elsewhere across the nation teaches toward four major “outcome expectancies or behavioral beliefs.” Belief number 4 is described in the ETR overview as “Hedonistic Beliefs.” Hedonistic philosophy places pleasure above everything else—as the greatest good. For more than 13 years, North Carolina mandated that its schools teach...

The U.S. Justice Department is fighting in court against a German family that came to America to homeschool their children. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike fled to the United States in 2008 after German authorities demanded that they stop homeschooling their six children. Homeschooling was made illegal in the country in 1938 under the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler, and the law has never been repealed, but rather strengthened. In 2007, the German Supreme Court ruled that the country’s mandate that children be sent to public school is necessary to “counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies.”

News Item: Department of Justice says homeschooling is not a fundamental right. Excuse me? Is this legal arm of our United States Government really taking the position that we don’t have the right to determine how we educate our own children? When it is the legal position of our federal government that parents have no fundamental right to educate their own children, then it is up to the people to rise up and put government back in its place.

Glenn is PO'd this morning about the two recent school incidents involving guns, the Pop Tart "gun" story, and the Florida story, where the kid who wrestled a gun away from a gunman was suspended, because he didn't wait for "first responders." He's been asking, "When America, are you going to take your children out of these schools?" "I know it's hard... You say, 'I don't know how to homeschool.' Well, I don't either. But we're doing it."

A Flint State Representative whose district has conventional public schools that have among the highest absentee rates in the state has introduced legislation that would mandate parents who homeschool their children be required to report attendance to the state. Rep. Woodrow Stanley, D-Flint, said in a press release that “there are a growing number of kids becoming truant” in homeschools. “Kids must be in school in order to learn,” Rep. Stanley said in a press release. “This bill requires parents to report their child’s attendance records, giving homeschools the same standards as public schools. Passing this bill is a no-brainer,...

Summer Schreiner of Cocoa, Florida attended the Silver Ring Thing Conference, a Christian event that promotes abstinence only. At the conference, she obtained a t-shirt that read: “Don’t drink and park… accidents cause kids” Summer believed in what the shirt said and was proud to wear it to school the next day. Everything was going well for her at Clearlake Middle School until just after lunch. On her way back to class, the 8th grader was stopped by the vice principal who told her to go to the office and change her shirt because it was inappropriate. She was given...

A social civil war is tearing apart a corner of Europe that previously survived a communist regime and emerged from war and violence into a form of democracy – and it’s all over a dead sex researcher who based much of his research on pedophiles. The troubles in Croatia have taken on an international scope since preeminent American researcher Judith Reisman visited to speak in support of freedom of the press on the issue of Alfred Kinsey’s research. Reisman said she was verbally abused and falsely accused by members of the media. Reisman, who was the principal investigator for a...

Sobering Thoughts from the Romeike Case By Michael Farris, J.D., LL.M. HSLDA Founder and Chairman Having immersed myself for about eight days in writing a brief for the Romeike family (a German homeschooling family who fled to the United States for political asylum), I wanted to share some insights I gained into the view of our own government toward the rights of homeschooling parents in general. You will benefit from some context. The U.S. law of asylum allows a refugee to stay in the United States permanently if he can show that he is being persecuted for one of several...

A school principal said no white children were allowed at an after-school tutoring program, and now some parents call it discrimination. The principal at Mission Viejo Elementary in Aurora sent a letter telling parents the program is only for students of color. Parents CBS4 talked with said they were shocked to see, in this day and age, what they consider to be segregation. “I was infuriated. I didn’t understand why they would include or exclude certain groups,” said parent Nicole Cox, who is white.

FULL TITLE: Bragging attacker posted horrifying video on Facebook of girl, 16, being brutally beaten on school bus An honor roll student in Pasco County, Florida was viciously attacked on the school bus by a fellow student who then posted a video of the sickening incident on Facebook and bragged about it. Chase Cristia, 16, says she was attacked on Friday afternoon after sticking up for a friend earlier that day. During the brief but brutal beating an unnamed 17-year old girl approached Chase at the back of the bus, grabbed her and then repeatedly punched her in the back...

Proposed Bill 374 filed in the Connecticut General Assembly would require all homeschooled children ages 12, 14, and 17 to undergo a behavioral health assessment. These assessments would be conducted by an unspecified health care provider and would be conducted even though there was no indication whatsoever that these children had a behavioral problem. The bill states that the results of the assessments are to be disclosed only to the child’s parent or guardian, but that the health care provider must submit a form to the State Board of Education verifying that the child has received the assessment. According to...

An Alabama high school football coach has been suspended without pay for 10 days for making derogatory comments about Michelle Obama and homosexuals. snip “You can go tell the principal, you can call the superintendent and tell her. I don’t believe in queers, I don’t like queers,” Grisham said in an audio recording that has gone viral, according to WHNT. “I don’t, I don’t hate them as a person, but what they do is wrong. It’s an abomination against God.” snip “Look at her. She looks like she weighs 185 or 190 (pounds). She’s overweight,”

More asinine overreaction from the quivering minds of school officials In Loveland Colorado, about 45 minutes North of Denver, a 7-year-old 2nd grader has been suspended for trying to save the world. It appears that the boy lobbed "an imaginary grenade into a box with what he called pretend evil forces inside." According to the child, he pretended to blow up the box "so nothing can get out and destroy the world." Thank God he wasn't carrying a Hello Kitty Bubble Gun, a small piece of paper, or a pointed finger. Who knows what kind of imaginary trauma he could...

TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ontario’s new Premier Kathleen Wynne promised to bring back a controversial sex-ed program at her first news conference after winning the leadership of Ontario’s Liberals party. The curriculum, which would have had students learning about “gender identity” in grade 3 and anal intercourse in grade 7, was shelved temporarily by Premier Dalton McGuinty in 2010 after strong backlash from parents. Kathleen Wynne, Ontario's new Premier “We are going to evolve the physical health and sex education curriculum,” Wynne said on Jan. 27th, according to Xtra. “We have developed curriculum in this province for decades,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools. For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful. Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

January 31, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) - Just as Ontario’s new Premier Kathleen Wynne has announced plans to reintroduce an explicit sex-ed program, the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance, and our friend Damian Goddard have released a great video about a striking case where exactly this type of program has been used as a battering ram against parental rights. Wynne, the first open homosexual to lead either provincial or federal government in Canada, was the architect of Ontario’s controversial equity and inclusive education strategy during her years as Minister of Education. She was also behind this new sex-ed program, which would have students learning...

January 28, 2013 (Pjsaunders) - The Daily Telegraph carried a front-page story this week saying that the Government is ‘powerless’ to stop teachers getting sacked if they refuse to endorse same-sex marriage. It quotes a senior source at the Department for Education admitting that the UK is not ‘in control’ and that European judges will have the final say. We knew that teachers were under threat, but now we know the Government secretly thinks so too. The Coalition for Marriage (C4M) recently published a legal opinion from leading QC Aidan O’Neill (summary here) confirming that one of the major impacts...

Who knew? My parents are cool. Homeschooling is becoming hipster. Celebrity parents like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie proudly discuss their homeschooling lifestyle. But pioneers like my parents set the trend of educational freedom. The plan was to send me to public school. My mother enjoyed her job as an R.N. and was not bored. She was simply a creative rebel. And my father encouraged her to pioneer—because he believed in freedom. My mother is a rebel with her own style. She once told me: “I never wanted to be like anyone else. I always did my own thing....

FULL TITLE: Primary school bans six-year-old boy from wearing Christian band in class for 'health and safety reasons' A furious dad has slammed a school after his six-year-old son was banned from wearing a Christian band in class on health and safety grounds. Peter Thompson's son Eddie had been wearing the band, decorated with the Christian symbol of a fish, out of sight for six months. But when a teacher spotted Eddie scratching his ankle she noticed the band, covered by his sock, and ordered him to hand it over. Now he is being kept at home after he was...

"This notion that the children belong to the state, that their education must be provided for by the state … is inimical at every step to liberty.” – J. Gresham Machen The swelling legions of homeschoolers poke a subtle rebuke at America’s ever expanding nanny state. Under both parties, Washington has systematically invaded private spheres and co-opted public services historically performed by local bodies. But a spontaneous groundswell of freedom minded folks has continued America’s rich inheritance of rugged individualism. The God-fearing, flag-waiving, gun-toting homeschool crowd embodies the American spirit of mutual self-reliance. You won’t encounter a more neighborly bunch....