How is homeschooling doing? See what researchers with the federal government found when they studied demographics of homeschooling…
Come and read in the current Old Schoolhouse Magazine – “Federal Government Says Homeschooling Still Growing – By Brian D. Ray, Ph.D.”
http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine-digital.com/thehomeschoolmagazine/201401/#pg27
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Please feel free to forward, email, share, etc – thankyou
Germany
January 7, 2014
Judge Rebuilds “Berlin Wall” Just for Homeschoolers
Calls Homeschooling Abusive “Straitjacket”
Following a hearing on December 18, 2013, in Darmstadt, Germany, Family Court Judge Marcus Malkmus slammed the door on the Wunderlich family’s emigration hopes. Lawyers for Dirk, Petra, and their children had asked the judge to return legal custody to the parents because they have complied with court orders that the children go to school and because they wish to move to France where homeschooling is legal.
In August 2013 the four Wunderlich children were seized in a raid by 20 police officers and social workers simply because they were being homeschooled, an activity that is illegal in Germany. After an international outcry, the children were returned three weeks later on the condition that the parents send them to public school. Testing conducted on the children during their stay in a group home indicated that they were well adjusted, social, and academically proficient.
In Malkmus’s written order (available here in German), he compared homeschooling to a straitjacket for children. While acknowledging that the Wunderlich children were well cared for and did not have educational deficiencies, he refused to return legal custody to the parents.
He said it was necessary to keep the Wunderlich children in German public schools to make sure that they were integrated into society. If they were allowed to be homeschooled in Germany or anywhere else, the consequences might be that “the children would grow up in a parallel society without having learned to be integrated or to have a dialogue with those who think differently and facing them in the sense of practicing tolerance.” Malkmus also wrote that homeschooling creates “concrete endangerment to the wellbeing of the child.”
“A Human Right”
Dirk Wunderlich told Home School Legal Defense Association that he was shocked by the harshness of the decision: “I had really hoped the judge would just let us leave Germany peacefully. We don’t isolate our children. They are well adjusted and doing well academically. We are happy for them to be connected to society. We just prefer to homeschool them because we believe it is better for them. It is so sad that my countrymen are not able to see that homeschooling should be allowed. It is legal in many other countries, and I believe is a human right.”
“Judge Malkmus has erected another Berlin Wall apparently designed to prevent all parents who might leave to homeschool from leaving Germany. This is no different than what happened in the former East Germany under communism and before that under the Third Reich,” he continued. “We need help from others around the world to help our country see this terrible violation of human rights.”
HSLDA Chairman Michael Farris said the Wunderlich case underscores why it is important for the United States Supreme Court to intervene in Romeike v. Holder, a case HSLDA filed on behalf of a German homeschooling family seeking asylum in the U.S.
“Germany is acting outside the boundaries of accepted international norms by imposing through force its vision for state control through education,” Farris said. “The Romeikes fled Germany in 2008 because of this very threat. The United States should not send them back to a country that will take their children away just because they homeschool.”
In a joint amicus brief filed December 19, 2013, regarding Romeike v. Holder, the Alliance Defending Freedom and the German homeschool organization Schuzh pointed out that Germany is violating international human rights standards and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case because of its bearing on human rights issues around the world. (Read the amicus brief online.)
The Supreme Court has ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to respond to HSLDA’s petition by January 21, 2014. The court will then decide whether to hear the case.
“The responsibility and freedom of parents to educate their children is among the most cherished and important of basic human rights,” said Farris. “This right is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in direct response to Germany’s nationalization of education during World War II. The fact that Germany continues to impose a totalitarian view in education for those who would homeschool is very troubling.”
Michael Donnelly
HSLDA Director of International Affairs
HSLDA Director of International Affairs Michael Donnelly, who is coordinating HSLDA’s work on behalf of the Wunderlichs, said, “This is a disgraceful court decision. The German constitution and multiple international treaties guarantee the Wunderlichs’ right to leave their country. It’s one thing to disagree with homeschooling and enforce the law, but to prevent an otherwise loving and caring family from leaving because of homeschooling is a monumental violation of basic human rights. Judge Malkmus has effectively imprisoned the Wunderlichs in Germany over their intention to homeschool. It’s the kind of thing that you would expect from a communist bureaucrat in the former Soviet Union, not a modern German court of law.”
“HSLDA is working with the family’s lawyers to obtain their release and see that they are permitted to freely homeschool, if not in Germany, then elsewhere,” said Donnelly. “HSLDA calls on German leaders to take immediate action to make homeschooling legal and to stop persecuting parents who homeschool. We ask homeschoolers everywhere to keep this family in their thoughts and prayers.”
After the Wunderlich children were seized in August 2013, HSLDA led an international outcry that helped secure the reunification of the children and their parents on September 19. German attorneys are working diligently to appeal Judge Malkmus’s new decision, but the case is complex and the appeals process takes time. In the interim, the Wunderlichs have committed to comply with the court’s orders. Judge Malkmus told Dirk and Petra in October that if they left the country without court approval, he would see that steps were taken to return them to Germany where they would prosecuted criminally and their family likely permanently separated.
The Wunderlichs need our help. You can help support their fight for freedom with a donation to the Homeschool Freedom Fund. As HSLDA works on the Wunderlichs’ behalf, we ask you to keep the family in your thoughts and prayers and be prepared to take further action when needed.
To read more click here……
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Please feel free to forward, email, share, etc – thankyou
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From the Smiths:
https://hef.org.nz/2011/craig-smith-26-january-1951-to-30-september-2011/
Updated: 30 September 2013: One year on (Craig Smith’s Health) page 7 click here
Needing help for your home schooling journey:
https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/
And
Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:
https://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/
and
https://hef.org.nz/exemptions/
This link is motivational:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/
Exemption Form online:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-exemption-form-now-online/
Coming Events:https://hef.org.nz/2013/some-coming-events-for-home-education-during-2013-2/
What is God after from the home school graduates? Since the early 1980’s God has raised a movement for bringing back the hearts of His children to Himself and to His mission of making disciples. After 30 years Mike outlines what this generation has been called to do.
Watch the video here: http://vimeo.com/46296949
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From the Smiths:
https://hef.org.nz/2011/craig-smith-26-january-1951-to-30-september-2011/
Updated: 30 September 2013: One year on (Craig Smith’s Health) page 7 click here
Needing help for your home schooling journey:
https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/
And
Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:
https://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/
and
https://hef.org.nz/exemptions/
This link is motivational:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/
Exemption Form online:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-exemption-form-now-online/
Coming Events:https://hef.org.nz/2013/some-coming-events-for-home-education-during-2013-2/
With the introduction of Senate Bill 248 on December 3, 2103, by Senator Cafri Cafaro, Ohio has suddenly become a frontline in the battle over homeschooling freedom.
SB 248 is breathtakingly onerous in its scope. It requires all parents who homeschool to undergo a social services investigation which would ultimately determine if homeschooling would be permitted. Social workers would have to interview parents and children separately, conduct background checks and determine whether homeschooling is recommended or not. If it is not recommended, parents would have to submit to an “intervention” before further consideration of their request to homeschool.
SB 248 was offered by sponsors as a way to respond to the death of 14-year-old Teddy Foltz-Tedesco in January 2013. Read more about the abuse of Teddy here……
HSLDA condemns child abuse and is saddened by Teddy’s death. HSLDA supports the prosecution of child abusers like Bush and the improvement of systems that prevent child abuse. However, this proposed law does not actually address the problems that led to Teddy’s death and instead unfairly targets homeschooling.
In recent years HSLDA has observed numerous attempts to severely restrict homeschooling in state legislatures around the country. In response to a growing number of academic critics, Michael Farris wrote “Tolerance and Liberty: Answering the Academic Left’s Challenge to Homeschooling Freedom.” Published in the Peabody Journal of Education and available online, Farris articulates why laws like SB 248 are unnecessary and un-American. His response to these critics who have proposed radical constraints on homeschooling freedom puts this latest attempt in the proper context.
Teddy Foltz-Tedesco was killed because those responsible for protecting him did not step in as the law or common sense would have dictated. Why? Although news reports indicate that abuse had been reported for years prior to Teddy’s death, it does not appear that any serious intervention was made by government authorities charged with investigating such allegations. Why was not enough done to protect Teddy from known abuse?
Even if, as SB 248 would require, his mother had sought social service’s approval to homeschool and was denied, he still would have been at home subject to abuse after school. Regardless of where he went to school, Teddy was left by authorities in a home where they knew abuse was occurring.
Clearly, SB 248 would not have saved Teddy.
SB 248 turns fundamental American values upside down. Parents have been deemed by the United States Supreme Court in Parham v. JR to act in their children’s best interests. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Court ruled that parents have a fundamental right to direct the education of their children. This law replaces parents with unqualified social workers to make educational decisions for children.
What happened to Teddy Foltz-Tedesco is a tragedy that could have been prevented. If those responsible for investigating child abuse had done their job, Teddy might have been saved. The system needs reform, but Senate Bill 248 will increase the load on social workers by requiring them to investigate all families who want to homeschool rather than focusing resources on parents actually suspected of child abuse.
Rather than target tens of thousands of decent Ohioans who homeschool, policymakers like Cafaro should try to discover what prevented police and social workers who knew what was going on from taking action and faithfully enforcing Ohio’s already adequate child protection laws. This bill is misguided and a step in the wrong direction.
HSLDA has requested its Ohio members contact the bill’s sponsors to ask them to withdraw Senate Bill 248. However we encourage all our members to consider intervening. This misguided attack on homeschooling in Ohio may only be a precursor to more general attempts by some to impose similar restrictions on parents. Such attempts have been made in the past in numerous states but thanks to the work of HSLDA and state organizations, homeschooling has so far been protected.
Read this whole article here.
For more information visit HSLDA’s legislative summary of Ohio SB 248.
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From the Smiths:
https://hef.org.nz/2011/craig-smith-26-january-1951-to-30-september-2011/
Updated: 30 September 2013: One year on (Craig Smith’s Health) page 7 click here
Needing help for your home schooling journey:
https://hef.org.nz/2011/needing-help-for-your-home-schooling-journey-2/
And
Here are a couple of links to get you started home schooling:
https://hef.org.nz/getting-started-2/
and
https://hef.org.nz/exemptions/
This link is motivational:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-what-is-it-all-about/
Exemption Form online:https://hef.org.nz/2012/home-schooling-exemption-form-now-online/
Coming Events:https://hef.org.nz/2013/some-coming-events-for-home-education-during-2013-2/