German raid on home-schooling family draws condemnation

CNA ^ | 9/4/2013

[markomalley]

Frankfurt, Germany, Sep 4, 2013 / 04:08 am (CNA).- German officials’ seizure of four home-schooled children last week prompted strong objections from American home-schooling advocates who say the country’s ban on the educational practice violates human rights.

“The right to home-school is a human right,” Mike Farris, founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said Aug. 30. “Germany has grossly violated these rights of this family.”

On the morning of Aug. 29, the association reports, 20 social workers, armed police officers and special agents took four children from the home of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, who were educating their children in violation of the national ban on home schooling.

The children range in age from seven to 14. The family lives near Darmstadt, 25 miles southwest of Frankfurt.

“I looked through a window and saw many people, police, and special agents, all armed,” Dirk Wunderlich told the home-school society. “They told me they wanted to come in to speak with me.”

He said three police officers brought a battering ram and were prepared to smash his door. When he let them in, the officers shoved him in a chair and told him they had an order to take the children.

His 14-year-old daughter Machsejah was forcibly taken from the home, he said.

“When I went outside, our neighbor was crying as she watched. I turned around to see my daughter being escorted as if she were a criminal by two big policemen.”

The girl’s mother tried to give her a kiss and a hug goodbye but an agent “roughly elbowed her out of the way,” he said.

Petra Wunderlich said she was “shattered” by the removal of the children.

“We need help. We are fighting, but we need help,” she said.

Mike Donnelly, the home-school society’s Director for International Affairs, questioned why Germany’s leadership allows these “brutal acts.”

“Why is it so important to you to force people into your state schools? The echo of this act rings from a darker time in German history. When will leaders stand up and make changes so that brutality to children like the Wunderlichs no longer happens because of home-schooling?” he asked.

For four years, the Wunderlich family moved across different European Union countries to find a place where they could home-school their children legally. However, the family had to return to Germany from France in 2012 when Dirk Wunderlich failed to find work, the British newspaper The Daily Mail reports.

On their return, German authorities began a criminal truancy case against them and the children were placed in the custody of the Darmstadt Youth Welfare Office. Authorities found the children to be well treated and allowed them to remain in their parents’ care, but seized the children’s passports to prevent the family from leaving the country.

The Home School Legal Defense Society said it obtained and translated the court documents related to the seizure of the children. The group said that the family’s home schooling of their children was the only legal grounds for removal.

The documents include a judicial order authorizing the use of force against the children if necessary, on the grounds that the children had “adopted the parents’ opinions” about home-schooling and their cooperation could not be expected.

The documents did not allege educational neglect.

“The law ignores the educational progress of the child; attendance—and not learning—is the object of the German law,” the society charged.

Farris said that Germany has signed many human rights treaties that recognize parents’ rights to provide “an education distinct from the public schools so that children may be educated according to the parents’ religious convictions.”

Donnelly said that the parents were “shaken to the core and shocked by the event.”

“But they also told me that they had followed their conscience and the dictates of their faith. Although they don’t have much faith in the German state—they have a lot of faith in God. They are an inspiring and courageous family.”

Other German home-schoolers have also faced legal difficulties in their efforts to educate their children.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, German Christian home schooling parents, sought asylum in the U.S. for themselves and their children in 2008. They said they faced fines and the possible loss of custody of their children if they returned home. The U.S. 6th Court of Appeals rejected their asylum request in May 2013.

The German law against home-schooling was passed under the Nazi government in 1938. The European Court of Human Rights upheld the law in a September 2006 ruling.

[GirlShortstop]

Scary... reads like a fiction novel.

[rarestia]

Truth is ALWAYS stranger than fiction.

[Adder]

Nazi-ism just changed faces.

it never went away.

You can bet there are plenty here who can’t wait for us to “evolve” to this level of barbarity.

[Clump]

We homeschool our 9 and 7 year old. Our 2 year old with Downs Syndrome will be as well.
Thankfully we live in TX, but my heart breaks for these parents.
Should agents show up at my house like this it won’t end well. They can try, but it will be over their dead bodies.
It’s a crushing thought to even imagine what these parents are going through. Any decent state department in this country would be loudly condemning such actions.
But Christians are on the enemies list here so no surprise.
May God grat this family a miracle. They need one right now.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

[Dick Cinnamon]

So hard to believe that Hitler continues to be venerated in a modern German state.

Very very sad.

[Dick Cinnamon]

Publik skool edumacation.

[Dick Cinnamon]

George Orwell’s worst nightmare.

[Dick Cinnamon]

I guarantee you that if this were a muslim family, the outcry from the UN socialists would have been front page news. Sharia is OK, Christians homeschooling is not.

[Phillyred]

How can we now describe Germany as a free country? This is nothing short of tyranny!
FTA
“The German law against home-schooling was passed under the Nazi government in 1938. The European Court of Human Rights upheld the law in a September 2006 ruling.”

[The_Media_never_lie]

How can we now describe Germany as a free country? This is nothing short of tyranny!

Look no farther than your own back yard. We do not even have a free press in this country. Political IRS, lying socialist CEO. Marxists on the loose!

[subterfuge]

So germany HASN’T changed all that much afterall, apparently.

[Dick Cinnamon]

"Your children are belong to us."

[wolf78]

How can we now describe Germany as a free country? This is nothing short of tyranny! FTA “The German law against home-schooling was passed under the Nazi government in 1938. The European Court of Human Rights upheld the law in a September 2006 ruling.”

Not taking sides, just a bit of information:

Germany does indeed have different legal tradition. Saying that banning homeschooling is a Nazi invention simply ignores the fact that homeschooling in the modern sense never had a tradition in Germany since the days of King Frederick II. Today the legal argument is that school children have a right to interact with other children their same age outside of the family which partially supersedes the parents' rights to educate their children.

There is, however, a tradition of "Zwergschulen", dwarf schools, in rural areas, where a just a handful of children from a few families are being taught. Teachers need to be licensed, but don't have to be state employees, there is a thriving private school sector. Sending kids to religious private schools actually isn't that expensive, as private schools get the same kind of tax money per child as public schools.

The documents did not allege educational neglect.

That contradicts what local media from Darmstadt report. According to a judge's verdict from 2012 the children "did not have an age-appropriate level of education" which "endangered the children's welfare".

Why is it so important to you to force people into your state schools?

That also clearly contradicts reports from local media, which say that the parents refused to send their children to a christian private school.

For many American home schooling advocates it's hard to believe, but home schooling isn't really much of an issue in Germany, because there is a huge variety of religious private schools, most of them milquetoast catholic or protestant, but there are many evangelical ("freikirchlich") schools as well. There are only a few (as in single digits) families that refuse ANY kind of public or private schooling.

[Phillyred]

The new Von Tramps

[Black Agnes]

Are Christian private schools forced to use the same sex education curriculum as the public schools?

Is the lack of ‘age appropriate education’ in this family’s children based on their not knowing that Heather can, and SHOULD have two mommies?

[wolf78]

Are Christian private schools forced to use the same sex education curriculum as the public schools?

The thing: There isn't "one" sex ed curriculum for public schools in Germany. There are 16. Stemming from imperial times with its mulitude of kingdoms and duchies, Germany, like the US, is a federation. When it comes to education, each German state makes its own laws, it's one of the fields were the German states are very autonomous. For example, in some states there are even christian state schools ("confessional schools" as in either catholic or protestant), while in others there aren't. So I can only give a general impression, I don't know the specifics of each and every state.

To the best of my knowledge:

1.) The fact that sex ed is taught in school is not grounds for keeping kids at home. There are very few exceptions from compulsory schooling in Germany. Often alternative arrangements are made within the "Schulpflicht" framework, like in the case of children of atheists who don't have to attend religious classes, but philosophy / ethics courses instead. The cases that wind up in court are mostly muslim parents who want to keep their daughters away from phys ed / swimming lessons.

2.) Even at state schools, when it comes to sex ed, state laws usually reserve information and consultation rights for parents (beforehand, as in parent teacher conferences). According to the German constitutional courts ruling on the subject, indoctrination (e.g. promoting sexual freedom etc.) is forbidden and religious feelings have to be taken into account.

3.) Religious private schools usually do teach sex ed, but use different curricula, e.g. putting a greater emphasis on motherhood, like visiting maternity wards or discussing taking care of a baby.

4.) There are very few cases of private schools being allowed not to teach any form of sex ed (I know of one or two exemptions being made for religious "sects"). My impression is that it's the state administrators way saying "we agree to disagree" when it comes to certain religious groups.

Is the lack of ‘age appropriate education’ in this family’s children based on their not knowing that Heather can, and SHOULD have two mommies?

From what I understand the judge gained the impression in court that the children do not meet the proficiency levels expected for their age, as well as found the quantity and quality of the lesson plan presented by the parents lacking, but the parents refused independent testing of their children themselves.