Tag Archives: Topic: Home School

Turtle Bay and Beyond: The AP reports on a US Apeals Court decision to leave a family of homeschoolers at the mercy of the German Government, even though the Court found that the US Constitution forbids the state from prohibiting homeschooling. The family faces impossible fines and loss of custody of their children if they are returned to Germany. They should have just pretended to be gay.

Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy: Jonathan posted earlier today about Romeike v. Holder (6th Cir. May 14, 2013), which reject German homeschoolers’ asylum claim. The opinion is quite readable and persuasive, and I recommend it to those interested in the subject. But here’s my general thinking (reprised from 2010 post on the original immigration judge decision in the case), and stressing that I’m not an expert on asylum law:

Jonathan Adler reports on the ruling at the Volokh Conspiracy: The relevant legislation applies only to those who have a “well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). There is a difference between the persecution of a discrete group and the prosecution of those who violate a generally applicable law.

Baptist Press: Alan Sears, president of Alliance Defending Freedom, noted that a key benefit of ADF’s involvement in helping defend religious freedom overseas is “the crucial perspective it gives us” for defending legal rights in America.”

One News Now: Roger Kiska, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, explains the state’s point of view. “They’re absolutely oppressive with regard to parental rights. They believe that the only duty of the parents basically is to give birth and then the child belongs to the state,” he tells American Family News. “So we had known all along that this was going to be something that would have to be taken from Sweden and brought to the European level.” Kiska says the remaining option is to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, which has jurisdiction over Sweden. [more]

LifeSiteNews: Roger Kiska, the Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel in Europe, was outraged by the court’s action. “It is beyond belief that a modern civilized country could allow such injustice to continue,” he said. “There is no evidence in the record that justifies the continued separation of this family. We will continue to fight for this family and on behalf of the principle that the European Convention condemns such acts.”

One News Now: Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Roger Kiska contends that the state wants to be the parent of all students, indoctrinating them with the state’s ideology. “I’ve heard statements in Sweden and in France recently that the role of the parent is simply to give birth to a child, and then it’s the state’s duty to educate the child,” Kiska accounts. “That’s absolutely contrary to international law and morality.”

HSLDA: Roger Kiska, the Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel in Europe, was outraged by the court’s action. “It is beyond belief that a modern civilized country could allow such injustice to continue,” he said. “There is no evidence in the record that justifies the continued separation of this family. We will continue to fight for this family and on behalf of the principle that the European Convention condemns such acts.”

HSLDA: The military has new policies for homeschool graduates who seek to enlist. These are simply to determine if your child was actually homeschooled and not for any other reason. We are very pleased that the new law is leading to good policies for homeschool enlistment across the services.

MercatorNet.com: But Gotland (province) Social Services persisted, and managed to get a mid-level appeal court to overturn the district court ruling. Now the couple, with the aid of the US-based Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and the Alliance Defending Freedom, have taken their case to the Supreme Court of Sweden. They are being represented by Ruby Harrold-Claesson of the Nordic Committee on Human Rights. . . . Alliance Defending Freedom and HSLDA are encouraging concerned people from all over the world to participate in an HSLDA-sponsored letter-writing campaign that asks the Supreme Court of Sweden to accept the case Johansson v. Gotland Social Services and return Domenic to his parents.

Huffington Post: Home-schooling families in Europe have become a cause celebre for some U.S. conservatives. The Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom is working with two Swedish home-schooling families, including Christer and Annie Johansson, who lost custody of 11-year-old Domenic when they refused to enroll him in public school.

CBN (includes video): Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home-School Legal Defense Association have asked the European court of Human Rights to hear the case of a Swedish family heavily fined for home-schooling.

weden’s highest court is being asked to free an 11-year-old boy whom government officials have held in captivity for four years because his parents home-schooled him. Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home School Legal Defense Association are legal advisors to the parents, who are represented by Ruby Harrold-Claesson of the Nordic Committee on Human Rights.

WorldNetDaily: Swedish parents Annie and Christer Johansson have launched what may be their last hope to see their son again – with an appeal to the Supreme Court of Sweden to overturn a lower court’s decision to end their parental rights over homeschooling . . . he HSLDA has been working on Domenic’s case, along with officials from the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/homeschool-parents-have-1-shot-to-see-son-again/#vPLSHHFWFSdLzt1K.99

Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home School Legal Defense Association have asked the European Court of Human Rights to hear the case of a Swedish family heavily fined for home-schooling their daughter.

Today, the religious and associational liberty of a ten-family Catholic homeschool group, the Fishers Adolescent Catholic Enrichment Society (FACES), will be at issue in the Indiana Court of Appeals.

Washington Post: The study was conducted by researchers at National Jewish Health in Denver, who studied the sleep patterns of 2,612 students, including nearly 500 homeschoolers.

Baptist Press: A family homeschooling safely in rural Tennessee may be forced to return to their native Germany, where the parents likely face huge fines and criminal penalties, and could lose custody of their five school-age children. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike are looking to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to give them permanent refugee status. But Attorney General Eric Holder is disputing their case, arguing Germany’s ban on homeschooling fails to violate the family’s fundamental rights.

Michael Farris at HSLDA: But, let’s assess the position of the United States government on the face of its argument: a nation violates no one’s rights if it bans homeschooling entirely.

HSLDA: The Supreme Court of Nebraska will decide whether homeschoolers Eric and Gail Thacker violated Nebraska law because their homeschool calendar didn’t start until October while the public schools began in August.

Education News: Today the ranks of home-schoolers are overwhelmingly Christian, and 78% of parents attend church frequently. According to the National Household Education Survey in 2007, the main motivation for home schooling was for religious or moral instruction (36%), followed by school environment (21%) and the quality of instruction available (17%). After this comes concerns about special education, the distance of travel and even nut allergies.

WorldNetDaily: An appeals court panel in Sweden has imposed the “death penalty” on a homeschooling family, granting the state full custody of their son, who famously was “state-napped” from a jetliner in 2009 as the family prepared to move to India. The appeals panel reversed a lower court ruling that granted Annie and Christer Johansson custody of their son, Domenic. But if the decision is not reversed again by the nation’ Supreme Court, the Johansson’s will lose their son, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association, which has been working on the case with the Alliance Defending Freedom . . .

Ed News: Parents who home educate their children face wildly different levels of official support around the country, a committee of MPs has said, with some councils being helpful and co-operative while others treat home educators as likely problem families or borderline truants.

LifeSiteNews: So parents like those in Nova Scotia are right to decry any unnecessary incursions into their proper area of authority. We need to ask: If parents are responsible to the government for what they teach their children, then what’s to stop the government from telling parents what to teach them?

AP: Lee said the treaty, which states that disabled people around the world should enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms, could subject U.S. law to a U.N. bureaucracy. He said he had “grave concerns for the sovereignty” of the United States.

LifeSiteNews: Nova Scotia would become the “worst” jurisdiction in Canada for homeschooling if the government adopts a set of recommendations calling for increased oversight of families, says a homeschooling leader.

HSLDA: Kenyan homeschoolers are concerned that the proposed education law moving through their parliament will prevent them from exercising their right to homeschool their children.

Ed News: Countless tears were shed at the first Global Home Education Conference here as homeschooling parents told horror stories of having to flee vicious persecution in their home countries – mostly Sweden and Germany, but other places as well.

C-FAM: A mood of hostility in Germany toward Christianity comes across in the numerous instances of vandalism, destruction of property, and defamatory displays listed in the report.

World Net Daily: Norbert Blum, a prominent member of Angela Merkel’s German CDU party who served as Helmut Kohl’s minister of labor for 16 years, has said Germany’s modern education system is “usurping” children and ignoring the important role parents must play in education.

WorldNetDaily: Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan backed homeschool freedom at a recent campaign event in Florida. At the town hall-style event in Ocala, Florida, on Thursday, October 18, the following exchange took place. We encourage you to watch the video clip. Transcript . . .

HSLDA: Arguing that homeschooling damages children and is an abuse of parental authority, a German district court in Darmstadt transferred the custody rights of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich’s four children to the Jugendamt, Germany’s child protective agency.

Christian Institute: Parents who home-school their children could be forced to register with their local council, under new Welsh Government proposals.

HSLDA: “Once children are exempted from public school attendance, they might get no education at all.” It is always easy to stir up anxiety about “what ifs.” But let’s look at the reality. In 1994, Dr. Brian D. Ray analyzed the standardized test scores of students educated under the religious exemption. He concluded: “Based on this sample of students, Virginia’s home educated students operating under the state of Virginia’s religious exemption statute are doing quite well in terms of academic achievement. In fact, on average, they score 33 to 40 percentile points higher than the national average of students tested.”

HSLDA: Despite an earlier threat to discuss new legislation to create homeschool regulations, we are happy to report that the Kansas State Board of Education’s agenda for its coming September 18–19 meeting contains no reference whatsoever to homeschooling or private schools. This saga began on Tuesday, August 14. The Lawrence Journal-World reported Board Chairman David Dennis as saying that perhaps the board should propose legislation to increase state reporting requirements for homeschoolers to ensure that children are being taught. The board agreed to discuss the issue further at its September meeting.

HSLDA: This summer, homeschool graduate Christina Colster (names changed to protect privacy) received an answer she had waited for her entire senior year: Social Security recognized that she was a homeschooled student and awarded her benefits previously denied.

World Net Daily: Now, Sen. Jim DeMint,R-S.C., says another U.N. treaty that threatens American sovereignty has been put back on the table by foreign diplomats and their internationalist allies in the federal government. It’s called the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Disabled, which calls for government agents to supersede the authority of parents of disabled children and even covers abortion.

The Hill: Three Republicans helped pass the United Nations treaty on people with disabilities out of committee on Thursday despite concerns over abortion. Sens. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) joined the 10 Democrats . . .

ADF Blog: lmost three years ago today, an unspeakable nightmare befell a loving innocent family simply because they wanted to educate their seven-year-old son from home.

LifeSiteNews: The U.S.-based Alliance Defense Fund and Home School Legal Defense Alliance are providing legal advice. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like home schooling,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “This family’s human rights have been unimaginably violated.”

One News Now: But now, says Roger Kiska of Alliance Defense Fund, the courts have finally sided with the family, stating the unanimous and extensive testimony of friends and family favoring Christer and Annie could not be ignored. “Social services has been evil, to put it in one word,” the attorney tells OneNewsNow . . . “… It’s happening in Germany, it’s now happening in Bulgaria — and when these things happen in Europe, they tend to make their down to the United States rather quickly,” warns Kiska. “There’s been a slew of bad precedent that the United States Supreme Court and state supreme courts have taken from Europe. So I think everyone needs to be aware.” [more]

HSLDA on the Christian Newswire: ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska says the family’s human rights have been unimaginably violated. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like home schooling,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “We …

Domenic Johansson still in government captivity after three years

Novinite.com: “This is a clear-cut case of arbitrary use of power,” explained the family’s attorney, Viktor Kostov, who is working with the international Alliance Defense Fund on the case. “The authorities are trying to scare the family into bowing down to the [Social Services Child Protection Unit]‘s demand that the child go back to school … they have absolutely no grounds for accusing the father and mother of a crime.”

LifeSiteNews: Two homeschooled boys, whose parents have been repeatedly fined and criminally convicted by Brazilian government officials for refusing to participate in the public school system, are impressing observers in Brazil and around the world by winning a number of academic contests.

Christian Newswire: The Holy See mission to the United Nations assembly in New York called upon UN Member States to respect the right of parents to homeschool their children in a statement before the United Nations two weeks ago.

LifeSiteNews: The Christian Post reports that Bulgaria’s government is instituting new family law asserting that while parents have responsibilities towards their children, they have no rights to make educational decisions. Viktor Kostov, a Bulgarian lawyer and human rights activist, reports . . . He warns that should the bill pass, it could be used by state ideologues to quash the religious and political rights of citizens by threatening their custody over their children. Freedom for All Advocates, the Alliance Defense Fund, and the Home School Legal Defense Association have intervened in the debate over the bill, warning that similar measures in other EU countries have resulted in the state having near-total control over families and children.

LifeSiteNews: “The State should respect the choices that parents make for their children and avoid attempts at ideological indoctrination,” the permanent observer mission of the Holy See to the United Nations wrote in a statement released last Tuesday.

In many countries around the world, government authorities and even society in general are openly hostile or pessimistic toward homeschooling.

David Kramer at LewRockwell.com: A number of associations around the world have expressed their outrage at this “Soviet-style” (it is Sweden, after all) tyranny. This number includes: the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), Advocates International, the Network for Freedom in Education, the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, and the Christian Broadcasting Network (!!!).

Homeschool Heartbeat Radio: HSLDA and the Alliance Defense Fund and our Swedish attorneys hope that this signals a willingness by courts to at least look at this untenable situation for Swedish homeschoolers.

HSLDA reports (includes audio).

HSLDA: This coming Monday, March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court will notify HSLDA whether it has decided to hear the Loudermilk case concerning a homeschooling family’s right to home privacy.

LifeSiteNews: A leader in the Swedish homeschooling movement has fled the country, saying, “the safety of my family could no longer be guaranteed.”

Washington Post: A Senate committee Thursday killed a bill that would allow Virginia’s tens of thousands of home-schooled students to play sports at their local high schools.

One News Now: Michael Donnelly of America’s Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) is asking home schoolers in the homeland to contact Swedish officials and urge them to stop persecuting parents who are attempting to home school their children.

Ed News: You won’t believe latest intrusion by government. Homeschooling families will soon be forbidden from teaching that homosexual sex is sinful as part of their schooling program, according to the government of Alberta, Canada.

Baptist Press: The U.S.-based Home School Legal Defense Association and the Alliance Defense Fund have filed a brief in a Swedish court on behalf of the Himmelstrands. “Homeschooling is legal in the United States and in many other countries only after decades of tumultuous legislative and legal conflicts,” Michael Donnelly of HSLDA said.

LifeSiteNews: Under Alberta’s new Education Act, homeschoolers and faith-based schools will not be permitted to teach that homosexual acts are sinful as part of their academic program, says the spokesperson for Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.

LifeSiteNews: Homeschooling groups are sounding the alarm this week as the Alberta government prepares to pass a bill that they say threatens to mandate “diversity” education in the home.

One News Now: Wyoming Senate File 44, which dealt with compulsory school attendance, had the potential of jailing and heavily fining parents who home school their children.

Slate Magazine: Could such a go-it-alone ideology ever be truly progressive—by which I mean, does homeschooling serve the interests not just of those who are doing it, but of society as a whole?

Education News: For the second time in just months, an attempt to assemble information such as names and addresses on all homeschool students in one Mississippi judicial district and provide those details to judges has been defeated . . .

HSLDA : Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney Viktor Kostov of Bulgaria explained that the proposed bill is radical and unnecessary. “The Child Act places excessive authority for children into the hands of the state in the name of ‘children’s rights,’ replacing the traditional role of the family in the raising of children and violating provisions in numerous international treaties.

OneNewsNow.com: The Virginia Senate is considering a bill that would give home-schooled students access to participate in sports at public schools, and one attorney thinks the proposal is a good idea. H.B. 947 . . .

Religion Clause: Authorities in Gothenburg have formally notified the Namdars that they will be fined the equivalent of $2400 (US) per week if they do not enroll their children in a Swedish school by Feb. 1.

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska on the Hugh Hewitt Show. | MP3 audio 5:50 mins

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska appeared on the Zeb Bell Show. | MP3 audio 17:10 mins

TheHill.com: But more than most of his rivals, the surging GOP contender has also taken direct aim at the foundation of the American education system: public schools. The former two-term Pennsylvania senator and his wife home-schooled their six children, and he has been a longtime advocate of the approach favored by as many as two million Americans.

HSLDA: On Tuesday, December 13, the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Children and Families held a hearing on S. 1877, a bill to require all adults to be mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect. HSLDA believes that this bill will create a police-state reporting environment that will lead to baseless investigations of innocent families, and actually hurt at-risk children. HSLDA opposes S. 1877.

HSLDA: New truancy enforcement laws have sparked criminal charges against several homeschool families in Nebraska. A Dawson County Sheriff’s deputy actually threatened to remove one family’s children unless they enrolled them in public school.

Swiss parents are not allowed to school their children at home via webcam. The Federal Supreme Court ruled that children’s social skills were not sufficiently nurtured by such an arrangement.

Baptist Press: “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like homeschooling,” ADF legal counsel Roger Kiska said. “That’s bad enough. But now the state is going even further by attempting to get the parents out of the way altogether. This simply cannot stand.”

HSLDA: Local and state education officials have threatened to take the Dudek family’s children to school by brute force, according to a letter to parents Jürgen and Rosemarie Dudek obtained by HSLDA. The letter from Hesse Regional School Office Director Anita Hoffman says that among the remedies the state may use against the family is to “take custody of the children from the parents” or to “transport the children to school by force.”

NYTimes.com: The pastoral mood in the hills of Tennessee offered a stark contrast to the storm raging around the country over the Pearls’ teachings on child discipline, which advocate systematic use of “the rod” to teach toddlers to submit to authority. The methods, seen as common sense by some grateful parents and as horrific by others, are modeled, Mr. Pearl is fond of saying, on “the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules.”