Earlier this year I made comment about how rules-bound and obedient Germans are in my experience. Perhaps the insistence on 'state education only' is part of the picture.
In October of 2005, the Neubronner family (pictured) decided to homeschool. In America, that would have been the end of the story. The Neubronners, however, lived in Germany, where government has taken an extreme hardline stance with the aim of eradicating home education altogether. The loving German parents applied for permission to educate their two young sons, Morris and Thomas, at home. Unsurprisingly, their application was rejected.
Over the next few months, the battle seemed interminable. They sued for permission to homeschool and lost. Then they appealed. Again, they lost. Finally, in the summer of 2006, the Neubronners struck a deal with school authorities: The boys could be homeschooled provided they were tested regularly. Like the vast majority of homeschoolers, the kids did great on the government’s tests.
Despite the high marks, or perhaps because of them, eventually, authorities decided to put an end to the successful home education scheme. The Neubronner parents were threatened with massive fines, and like many other homeschoolers in Germany, even a potential jail sentence was put on the table if they refused to comply. During that time, the family appealed all the way up to the German constitutional court.
As the fight was unfolding, the family’s story became national news, with mother Dagmar, a biologist and publisher, becoming the face of the secular homeschooling movement in Germany. The media coverage ranged from friendly to neutral because the family seemed — aside from the homeschooling, at least — like a rather “normal,” well-integrated, intellectual family without any particular ax to grind against government schools; they simply wanted to exercise their right not to use that particular government “service.”
When the family refused to pay the exorbitant fines, officials burst into their home and ransacked it, searching for something, anything, to take with them. They found nothing worthwhile, but the horror was just getting started. Finally, officials froze the family’s bank accounts. They even threatened to arrest both parents and auction their home to pay the fines.
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5 comments:
Jesus wept!
This is the perfect example of how the state should just get the hell out of people's lives.
These people should come and live here where we wouldn't mind if they removed the burden of schooling their kids from the state. It is the ultimate in parent responsibility.
When I looked into this a few years ago you could get $720 from the loving gov for each child you homeschooled a year. Of course that doesn't go far.
John Taylor Gatto does show that the state school model started out in Prussia..
Current MSD policy is for home educated children of beneficiaries in NZ to return to the school system the year after their parent is eligible for work test requirements. The Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill currently before the Social Services Select Committee will benefit sanction any parent who does not comply and will extend the policy (and sanctions) to include compulsory ECE of 15 hours per week from age 3. Any parent who does not comply will be subject to CYFS intervention and fraud investigation. Already happening in NZ.
There is no "right" to home educate in NZ. Parents can only home educate with the approval of MOE.
This year, New Zealand refused a German home educating family asylum. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/117798/german-homeschooling-family-fail-in-asylum-bid
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