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12 Oct 2004 | Berit Kjos

HOMELAND SECURITY LINKS HOME SCHOOLERS TO TERRORISTS

By Berit Kjos

October 12, 2004

NewsWithViews.com

"The public school establishment hates homeschoolers. They've smeared the movement as a conspiracy of conservative Christian zealots.... They've painted homeschooling parents as uneducated and negligent. And now, under the guise of preparing students for a violent terrorist attack, educators in one public school district are casting homeschoolers as bomb-detonating militants."[1] Michelle Malkin, "Homeschooling ambush"
On September 20, the Department of Homeland Security sponsored a mock assault on a school bus. The fictitious terrorists who supposedly planted a bomb on a school bus were portrayed as a group of home schooling radicals labeled "Wackos Against Schools and Education." The Muskegon Chronicle describes the role-playing scenario involving local students:

"Muskegon County officials want to be prepared in case the unthinkable happens here. So it was that 25 students ... found themselves crammed at odd angles into a school bus that had been turned onto its side Tuesday morning.

"The scenario for the exercise on Durham Road near Holton-Whitehall Road began after a domestic terrorist group exploded a bomb in the front of the bus. The student victims wore makeup that simulated blood, burns and other injuries. Each wore a tag with a made-up name, age, type of injury and other information.

"Many of the volunteers were from theater class. 'We all carried on and got into character as best we could,' said Kristin Smith, 17, a Reeths-Puffer senior. They screamed and banged on the inside of the bus, waiting to be rescued. Some wouldn't get out alive. Others were assigned to die on the way to the hospital....

"Organizers tried to make the exercise as realistic as possible, complete with distraught parents arriving at the scene."[2]

Do you wonder why Homeland Security officials would sponsor an emergency preparedness drill that painted home schooling families as bomb-planting terrorists? We may never know the full answer, but recent history of "prevention" tactics and hostility toward traditional values exposes some frightening facts many Americans prefer to ignore.

The script for this disaster drill was written by Daniel Stout, chief deputy for emergency services with the Muskegon County Sheriff's Department. After choosing to label peaceable home schooling families (rather than Islamic radicals) as the terrorist killers, Stout was told that the event would be offensive -- but he chose to ignore the warning.

In a report titled "Homeschoolers Portrayed as "Terrorists," Michigan's Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) adds the following details:

"On Monday, September 20, the Muskegon Chronicle reported on a Department of Homeland Security sponsored terrorism drill involving the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District and the Muskegon County Emergency Services. A mock attack would occur on a public school bus. The simulated attack would come from a fictitious radical group called 'Wackos Against Schools and Education' who believe everyone should be homeschooled.

"We immediately called the Muskegon Chronicle and explained how this is offensive to millions of people who have chosen to exercise their right to homeschool. Homeschoolers have never committed violent acts against public schools or any terrorist acts. Comparing us to the most dangerous people in the world is a terrible insult and a travesty."[3]

Michael H. Bozym, Superintendent, Muskegon Area Intermediate School District responded with this apology:

"The Muskegon Area Intermediate School District (MAISD) shared the disappointment of others when we learned the September 21, 2004, emergency preparedness drill referenced home-schoolers as the fictitious group responsible for a mock disaster. We apologize.... A sample scenario was required in order to receive the necessary funding to stage the event. The Muskegon Area Intermediate School District and our local schools did not construct the scenario, but participated with other county agencies, hospitals, and emergency responders in conducting the drill.

"This exercise was meant to sharpen the skills and response time of our emergency services personnel, but was unfortunately clouded by the choice of this fictional group.... We sincerely regret offending home school educators."[3]

Daniel Stout added his apology for the bias expressed in his script:

"In the world today, Homeland security is a very important issue. The training of our nation to respond to the many threats we face is of utmost importance. As part of a full scale homeland security exercise on September 21, 2004 in Muskegon, I wrote about a fictional group and fictional scenario for the exercise. This fictional group and scenario made reference to fictional people who are against schools. This fictional group and scenario was not meant to offend any home school students. It has nothing to do with any home school population...."[3]

It has a lot to do with the home school population! Though it would have been politically incorrect to link fictional terrorists to Muslim radicals, home schooling families have become a permissible target for all kinds of hostile media assaults. Like Christian pastors and fathers, they face endless mockery and ridicule in movies, slanted news reports, and public school curricula. They simply don't fit the new vision of the 21st century community.

In light of our Supreme Court's growing tendency to seek legal models in European law, the following examples show an ominous trend:

1. New Sitcom Plans to Lampoon Home Schooling: "A new cable TV sitcom pokes fun at home schoolers, pushing the myth that children who get their education at home lack sufficient 'socialization' skills. The WB network [providers for Yu-gi] will be airing a 30-minute comedy called The O'Keefes...."

2. Homeschooling Under Fire. "This view, which likens homeschooling to the criminal act of child abuse, was to become the pillar upon which Iowa’s homeschool crisis was founded. A corollary view holds that homeschooling parents are potential 'closet child abusers,' and that the State must conduct routine surveillance of this atypical, 'abnormal' family. Many social reformers held the cynical notion that it was implausible that parents would desire to stay home and educate children out of genuine affection, devotion, and sincere conviction. The nasty inference was made that there must be some sinister ulterior motive for wanting to keep the children at home."

3. Judges try to snatch homeschoolers - Families escape homeland to keep from losing children to state: "Germans who choose to homeschool their children are coming under increasing pressure from the state with some families escaping the European Union nation to keep from having their children taken from them.... A few weeks ago, HSLDA reports, a German homeschool family escaped to Central America under threat of a judge who wanted to take custody of the couple's school-aged child. ... [See Ban truth - Reap Tyranny]

4. Children flee homeschool cop: "'The homeschooled boys have been on edge,' says their father Roger, since a truant officer came to the family's front door Oct. 3 and warned, 'I could have your children taken away.'"

WHY THE HOSTILITY TOWARD HOME SCHOOLING?

While home schooling parents are less likely to fight back, there are other reasons why change agents in education and government agencies would want to discourage home education. Home schooling families are unlikely to applaud today's march toward a government controlled system of "lifelong learning" in collective thinking and pluralistic values. They are more likely to trust the Bible and the U.S. Constitution than to trust the growing body of UN treaties. They prefer factual history to earth-centered myths and biased social studies curricula. And they avoid participation in the Hegelian dialectic process that immunizes adults as well as children against God's unchanging truths.[4]

In other words, their "separateness" doesn't fit the global plan for "continual change" and worldwide solidarity. Remember Al Gore's sobering warning at a 1991 Communitarian conference in Washington DC: "Seeing ourselves as separate is the central problem in our political thinking."[5]