A German family has completed its flight to Great Britain after the mayor of their hometown filed a court action to give custody of the children to the state because the parents have been homeschooling, according to an advocacy group.
Officials with Netzwerk-Bildungsfreiheit said Klaus and Kathrin Landahl and their five children, including four of school age, "are in safety in England. They reached Dover on Saturday midnight."
However, officials said the court has not issued a final ruling in the case brought by the mayor of Altensteig, a city with a sister-city promotional relationship with Butte, Mont.
Chief Executive Paul Babb of Butte told WND he had not been aware of such controversies and he would have to solicit input from members of the community before determining whether "this would impact this relationship."
He said he believes "it's the parents' right to school their children they way they see fit."
Netszerk-Bildungsfreiheit said the situation with the Landahl family is just one of many such attacks on German homeschoolers, which appear to be coming more frequently and with more intensity.
Just this week, a message was sent from a Bavarian man who identified himself as "Mathew."
"This morning we received a call from the German ministry of education. Tomorrow (Wednesday) morning they will send the police to our home and take Josia (6), Lou Ann (10) and Aileen (13) by force, to the public school," the worried father wrote.
"We have been teaching our children through the German Home School Association for 10 years with the approval of the German School authorities. Even though we spend most of the time outside of Germany (in Eastern Europe), the government insists that our children visit the German school," he continued.
"If we do not comply the government will ultimately revoke our rights as parents and take custody of our children. Since the Supreme Court ruled against homeschooling last fall, most of the homeschooling families have left, some even fled, the country. The government is cracking down ruthlessly on families and there is no legal protection," he said.
He said the family's next scheduled ministry trip, six weeks in Romania, Hungary and Croatia, now is threatened by the education ministerial order.
The Landahl family already had deregistered as residents in Germany, but a spokesman for the advocacy group said the Altensteig mayor "has filed a lawsuit with the local family court to take custody [of the children] away from the Landahls."
"As the mayor knows that the family wants to leave Germany and that they have deregistered, his attempt is that the family court takes custody away in a so-called … (preliminary warrant) which means that custody can be taken away without a hearing [for] the parents," he said
He said in this case, authorities are seeking to deprive the parents of their right to make decisions about their children's schooling as well as their right "to determine the place of abode."
The group spokesman compared the actions of the German government to those more usually associated with the old East Germany or Soviet Union in that "not only parental rights are limited more and more, also the right to choose where you want to live is restricted."
It is a pretty scary scenario. I haven't heard any accusations of abuse or educational neglect, so it is odd that the government is reacting so harshly. I just don't get why this has become such a big deal in Germany.
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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, education, Germany
3 comments:
Germany is scared that Islamofascism will become an even bigger problem among its Muslim residents than it already is. They seem to believe that requiring all German children to attend government-run schools is the best way to prevent this. Unfortunately, this means that all the Christian homeschoolers are getting caught up in something that has absolutely nothing to do with them.
Ahh, so that explains it. I admit the "Islamofascist" are pretty scary.
You have to read between the lines of the German high court ruling against homeschooling:
"The (German) Federal Constitutional Court stressed the general interest of society to avoid the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions and the importance of integrating minorities into society."
Given that Christianity has existed in Germany for something like 1500+ years, I'm pretty sure that Christians are not the "parallel societies" and "minorities" seen as posing a threat to the German state. Yet the German government is too politically correct to single out Islamists as the problem. So because they don't want Muslim kids attending madrassahs, they've decided to ban *ALL* non-government schooling.
Seems to me a better way would be to allow students to attend whatever schools they wish (including homeschools), but to ban anti-Western teaching in those schools.
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