Posted on 03/22/2007 2:09:49 AM PDT by Man50D
Ping.
Emigrating is not a crime. In fact, many homeschoolers do just that - Austria is a preferred place, because of the same language, the right to settle down there and work (thanks to the EU!) and Austria has no obligation to attend a private or public school.
Although the specific law may have been enabled by the Nazis, the obligation to attend school for nine years in Germany is 300 years old and a Prussian idea.
We have lots of private schools, most of them religious (protestant or catholic), but some are even private. These schools are all under the control of the state in order to guarantee a minimum level of education (i.e. a private school may not teach that 2+2=3), but also get financial support from the state.
This is old news but the parents are still in jail. I followed it since it started and pretty tragic.
6-22-2002
The Death of Free Speech and Individualism
In the New World Order of America
by Edgar J. Steele
(Text of speech given at annual conference of Council of Conservative Citizens in Atlanta, Georgia on June 22, 2002.)
Another case I tried just last month involved a young man and his wife, whose children were taken from them by Oregon ’s Child Protective Services while the family was visiting Grants Pass. Allegedly due to criminal mistreatment – they were skinny and one girl had a small cut on her forehead – on an anonymous tip. Brian and Ruth Christine are the young parents.
They refused to cooperate for several months, because they felt they had done nothing wrong, so CPS said it would adopt them out. The Christines were home-schooling Christians. At trial, the state made a big point of there having been a copy of the Declaration of Independence taped to the inside wall of the converted bus that served as the family’s home.
The Christines took their children back at gunpoint and fled the state. They were tried for kidnapping, robbery and other, lesser, charges. The wife received 7 ½ years and the husband 12 ½ years, primarily because of a conviction on the robbery charge (not guilty on all kidnapping charges).
We are appealing the main charge now – robbery – which shouldn’t stand up in the face of Oregon case law which says one cannot be convicted of robbery merely for taking something which is used in the execution of another crime. You see, Brian took the state car the kids were in at the time and drove it 2.1 miles, where he left it unharmed, keys in the ignition.
Again, these folks were politically incorrect: poor, white, vegetarian, home-schooling Christians.
Rather the opposite is true. Just imagine yourself into the situation of a orthodox muslim girl growing up in Germany. If your parents have the possibility to "homeschool" you you have NO chance to develop your own personality or to break free out of their religious dungeon. Due to our laws i.e. the Turks have to deal with kids in the meantime who already were breathing the odour of freedom. We made good experience with this practice.
There is a wide consensus among the German society that homeschooling is not wanted because we like to see the childrens right on free information assured. On one hand many parents are simply not able to teach their kids due to their own incapability on the other hand it is quite likely that religious extreme parents i.e. deprive the kids the basic information that they need to survive in our society and that they need to think in a free manner. In registered schools certain standarts are guaranteed. Parents have the right to give their kids in private schools that meet that standart and also provide i.e. a religious program of their choice. Nevertheless the individual right of the kids on information will always be more important than the collective right of the families on self-determination in Germany.
It might sound quite offensive, but Evangelical Christian parents (that are those who usually try to homeschool kids in Germany from the Christian side) practically do not play a role in our country since they are only very few people. Pratically irrelevant. It is unlikely that our laws are changed just because of this handful of Christian homeschoolers since we have to deal with much bigger groups (i.e. the 3.7% muslims in Germany) and their wish to open a parallel society. It would be idiotic to do so, since the outcome of such a policy would be for sure disastrous. Then we are not speaking about the Busekos or whatever family anymore, then we are speaking about 500.000 trapped muslim kids. As I already said - Christian parents have the possibility to found religious schools that fit into our basic standarts. Then their kids are provided with the basic information the German society considers as nessecary and the beliefs of their parents at the same time. I have no problem with that.
Therefore homeschooling is forbidden in Germany and that will not change in the future. Other countries, other attitudes.
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