Posted on 08/31/2009 3:35:35 AM PDT by Maggie Maggie Maggie
Human rights advocates are calling the case of a German homeschooling family "a critical human rights battle." On September 22nd, the Schmidt family of southern Bavaria in Germany will face a hearing in which government officials will decide if they may keep custody of one of their sons.
Hans and Petra Schmidt have been teaching their children, Josua, 16, and Aaron, 14, for more than nine years in an attempt to shield them from what they hold to be a hostile moral and heavily secularised environment in German public schools. To date the Schmidts have been forced to pay nearly 13,000 Euros (US $18,300) in home schooling fines and have had a lien placed on their home by the government.
But worse than fines is the threat by the Jugendamt, or Youth Office, to remove one of their children from the home entirely. […] It is commonly held by the German authorities that homeschooled children are socially maladjusted.
[…] Germany is undertaking a crackdown on homeschooling families who face crippling fines, the seizure of their children and even prison for continuing to teach their children at home. In 1938, Hitler's Germany outlawed homeschooling which ban is one of the few bills introduced by the Nazi regime that is still on the books today. […] Last year the parents of a homeschooling family in the state of Hesse, Juergen and Rosemarie Dudek, were each sentenced to three months in prison. In 2007 the case of the Busekros family became internationally notorious when 15 year-old Melissa Busekros was abducted by government officials, aided by 15 police officers, and locked up in a child psychiatric unit because she had been homeschooled.
NO SURPRISE that this is an actual NAZI LAW.
The kids might end up being able to THINK, FOR THEMSELVES.
It’s no wonder Govt hates the idea.
The scary thing is that New Hampshire also ruled that a mother could not home school her daughter. For some reason, the courts felt the daughter who was on sports teams, and participated in a variety of programs that placed her amongst other children, was not being “socialized” according to the state’s criteria for such.
You know, the really amazing thing is how pushy these “authorities” are until something bad happens.
However, whenever one of the numerous social misfits and malcontents in the public schools causes an incident, they immediately begin to bray about the responsibility of the parents and their failure to inculcate their children with acceptable moral values or to monitor their little darlings to prevent tragic incidents. Aftwards, there is usually an investigation that points out numerous failings, omissions, and shortcomings. Then everything goes silent with no real change and no real punishment.
Well, except for adding another punishing layer of restrictions on everyone in order to “create a safe environment for our students.”
Bureaucracy is a terrible thing. It operates with workers whose jobs have defined parameters that do not include how to effectively deal with abberations. Schools have one recourse and that is to suspend students. In other words, when their amoral and often immoral guidelines fail to produce the outcome they seek, the result is temporary dismissal whereby they hope the parents do something. However, if during the school year the parents have an opinion or a demand, they are systematically denied a voice . Like all things governmental, the inherent position is that they know better than the parent.
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