Home Schooling parents, alerted to the vile smear carried out by the anonymous liar at BBQ have all received the same response from lie central:

Dear Mrs XXXXXXXXXX,

Thank you for contacting the BBC News website.

We agree that our first attempt at an explainer piece on parental responsibility and Scarlett Keeling confused the issue of her case and that of home education.

We are sorry for that confusion and have now updated the piece in order to make it clearer.

Thank you again for your views which we value.

Yours,

BBC News Website

Notice how this is from yet another filthy cowering slimebag who will not put their name to this communication.

Here are before and after screengrabs of the original article and their ‘second attempt’. Perhaps if they make a THIRD ATTEMPT they will actually get it right. ‘Third time lucky’ as they say:

The fact of the matter is, in Goa the law and courts of India have jurisdiction, not the law and courts of the uk, so any reference to this girl in that aspect is just stupid, unless the anonymous swine who wrote this is suggesting that parents should not be allowed to leave the UK with their children unless they have been issued with exit visas. But I digress.

This is a sad story about a crime. That crime has nothing to do with Home Schooling, or the laws in the UK concerning children. FULL STOP.

Let us now re-write this article for the numbskulls at BBC News:

Title: Parental Responsibility.

Fifteen-year-old Scarlett Keeling was killed while on an extended visit to India with her mother and siblings.

The title now makes sense. What is an ‘extended’ visit? Extended in terms of what exactly? No vague language should be allowed.

Her mother, Fiona MacKeown, has been criticised for taking her children out of school and leaving the teenager while she travelled without her for part of the trip. But what are the rules surrounding parental responsibility?

First of all, WHO CRITICIZED HER? This is like Fox News saying, “some people say” as a clever way of injecting editorial spin into a subject or discussion. No reasonable journalist uses these shabby techniques; if someone said something, SAY WHO IT WAS, or DO NOT CITE THE WORDS.

This “some people say” technique is the shoehorn for this entire article. Once you eliminate it, almost the whole piece is erased.

Here are some of the laws and guidelines that govern schooling and child supervision in the UK.

Irrelevant, since this crime happened in India, not Britain.

When is it appropriate to leave a child alone?

There is no legal age limit for leaving a child on his own.

However, it is an offence to leave a child alone if it places him at risk.

Under the Children and Young Persons Act, parents can be prosecuted for neglect if they leave a child unsupervised “in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health”.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) believes it is unacceptable for a child under 16 to be left alone overnight.

It says most parents would be happy to leave a 16-year-old alone for an evening, but would not leave them for a weekend.

That is not a law making body, and their opinion is irrelevant. Each parent has the right to bring their children up as they see fit. Full stop. BBC uses quotes from these irrelevant organizations because they can’t get legitimization from any other quarter for bogus pieces of ‘journalism’ like this. Clearly the author (whoever it is) is not qualified to write on this subject, otherwise, they would have put their name to the piece as, “education correspondent” or whatever.

Is it compulsory for children to attend school?

Education is compulsory in the UK, but attending school is not.

Home education is an option and parents are not required to register or seek approval from the local authority to educate their children at home.

Neither does home education have to take place solely in the family home.

This is completely irrelevant to the case of a murder in another country. It is astonishing that after being flooded with letters from Home Schoolers, these beasts are persisting in making a link between a murder in India and Home Schooling in Britain.

How long can youngsters be taken out of school?

The Independent Schools Council, which represents about 1,200 of the 2,500 independent schools, said each school would have its own policy on allowing pupils to be taken out for extended periods.

If you are paying the fees to a school, they are rendering a service to you. If you decide to remove your child for any reason at any time, this is your absolute right. In any case what on earth does The Independent Schools Council have to do with a murder case in India? NOTHING.

For state schools, parents can take children out of school for up to 10 days per year. However, this has to be approved by the school and may meet with opposition by officials.

Actually, your children are not the property of any school, and you can remove your child from a school at any time for any reason. Since the state is rendering you a service, there is an argument that they have the right to exclude your child should you break their rules, but other than that, they have not right to control you, or what you choose to do with your children, no matter what the law says.

Once again, none of this has anything to do with a murder case in India.

Some schools may refuse to release a pupil and the decision partly depends when in the year it happens.

For example, removal of children during an exam period would – in all likelihood – result in a refusal.

Irrelevant; and I would like to see a school try and stop parents taking their children away from school. The whole idea is completely absurd, apart from being nothing to do with the sad story of this girl.

Amazingly, that is where the propaganda piece ends.

All we are left with is a fraction of the first sentence, ‘the slug’ and the title and thats it!

Clearly this article should just be deleted in its entirety, since none of it can be salvaged.

We are sorry for that confusion and have now updated the piece in order to make it clearer.

They have totally failed to ‘make it clearer’. The only thing that is clarified is that these animals, take license payer’s money and then lie and spin and smear and disparage whilst hiding behind anonymity.

Nauseating and totally unacceptable behavior.

and here is a very concise ‘tear-apart’ of this piece and its feeble re-write, by a Home Schooler:

It is clear that one or two – often anonymous, as in this case – members of your staff have it in for home education, and “Q & A: Home education and responsibility” is a case in point.

The article strongly implies that home education had something to do with the death of Scarlett Keeling. Apart from the fact that British law is irrelevant to the case, the law relating to leaving children unattended is separate from home education.

While it is true to say that had Scarlett Keeling attended school then she wouldn’t have been in Goa at the time, this is as ridiculous as saying that home education would save the lives of all children killed in traffic accidents on their way to school.

By using the tragic circumstances of Scarlett Keeling’s death as an excuse to “discuss” the law relating to home education, the writer deliberately places home education in a negative light.

The discussion – albeit biased – is a legitimate one, but not in this context. The fact that Scarlett Keeling was home educated had nothing to do with the circumstances surrounding her death.

No British laws were broken by her mother, and in any case, British laws no longer apply to India. The implication of the article and the context of the discussion was that Scarlett Keeling’s death resulted from Fiona MacKeown’s lifestyle choices and that the law relating to these choices should therefore be tightened up. Apart from being thoroughly vindictive in tone against Ms MacKeown, it is completely unacceptable that the BBC allows its writers to use such a case to question the option of home education and the laws relating to it.

If a child dies or is attacked on a school trip, the BBC doesn’t decide to attack the lifestyle choices of his parents. Perhaps the BBC can bring itself to apply the same standards to families that choose to educate their children outside of school. It is too much to ask the BBC to stop discriminating against home education, but please do not use a completely irrelevant case to do so.

BANG!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Home Schooling, Someone Stupid Said.