Achtung! Prosecutor says only jail deters homeschooling
November 25th, 2009World Net Daily has a story that sounds like it could have come out of the Large Hadron Collider i.e. from the future of Britain:
By Bob Unruh
A prosecutor demanded jail time for two parents accused by German authorities of homeschooling their children, and he erupted in anger when the Nazi foundations of the ban on parents teaching their children at home was cited.
Juergen and Rosemary Dudek of Archfeldt, Germany, were given 90 days in prison last year because they homeschool their children. They received the sentence after prosecutor Herwig Mueller asserted it was the only sufficient punishment for the family’s “crime,” appealing a lower-court order to issue a fine.
[…]
Armin Eckermann, chief of the homeschool organization Schuzh, has attended the trial. He told HSLDA the judge said he thought a jail sentence was too harsh for the Dudek family, but the prosecutor “took a hard line.”
In Germany, many Christian families object to the public-school system because it advocates for sexual and social activities that conflict with biblical teachings. The sex-education program, for example, is explicit.
Mueller also erupted when Dudek asked local school officials called to testify if they knew the current laws that criminalize homeschooling are based on laws from 1938.
“All those Nazi laws have been suspended, and this one is democratic, and you’ve got to accept it, and that’s it,” Mueller argued loudly, reports said.
Dudek said the facts don’t support the claim.
“The ‘Schulpflicht’ – the laws that require school attendance – are on the books in the German states,” he said, “and have been traced back to the ‘Reichsschulpflicht Gesetz’ [federal compulsory attendance laws] which was passed in 1938. Except for the removal of references to the Nazi party, these laws are identical or substantially the same as the laws passed by Hitler’s government, criminalizing parents who keep their children home for school.”
Practical Homeschool Magazine has noted one of the first acts by Hitler when he moved into power was to create the governmental Ministry of Education and give it control of all schools and school-related issues.
In 1937, the dictator said, “The youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.”
Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, commented previously on the issue, contending the government “has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion.”
Drautz said schools teach socialization, and as WND reported, that is important, as evident in the government’s response when a German family in another case wrote objecting to police officers picking their child up at home and delivering him to a public school.
“The minister of education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling,” said a government letter in response. “You complain about the forced school escort of primary school children by the responsible local police officers. … In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement.”
Donnelly says the German characterization of homeschooling as a “parallel society” isn’t accurate, either.“Homeschoolers are definitely a distinct social group but are not a ‘parallel society’ the way the German courts are trying to use the term,” Donnelly said. “The irony of German court decisions is their position that the state must teach ‘tolerance for diversity’ by forcing children into public schools and stamping out a diverse form of education recognized in all other Western democracies as a legitimate educational approach. Pluralism is supposed to stand for distinctive groups living peacefully together.”
HSLDA has reported the Dudeks believe homeschooling their children is the right thing to do, and they are determined to resist laws barring them from home education.
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These people are clearly insane; as insane as the monsters who are trying to enact the same regime in the UK, which, by the way, will not take into account the quality of the education you provide ‘your’ child if you are caught committing the crime of Home Educating. This is, to say the least, odd, coming from people who claim that it is their number one concern that children receive the best possible education. But you already know these people are lying about every aspect of what they are doing.
Read the rest of these stories for more glimpses into the future of Home Education in Britain:
State tries to deny homeschoolers vaccinations
War in homeschoolers spreading?
Police ‘nab’ 7-year-old homeschooler
State could take custody of teen homeschooler
Court orders Christian child into government education
Will homeschooling parents end up behind bars?
Homeschooling parents to appeal prison terms
Parents sent to jail for homeschooling
Government chases homeschool family
Judge: Homeschooling like driving drunk
Amendment protecting parental rights urged
Courts offer homeschoolers zilch, expert says
Court upholds Nazi-era ban on homeschooling
Parents sent to jail for homeschooling
Parents losing custody for homeschooling kids
Girl sent to psych ward for homeschooling, parents billed
Prosecutor wants homeschool parents jailed
Homeschool family reaches England
Parents race to escape before court takes kids
Truancy hearing targets homeschooling mom
Homeschoolers facing $6,300 fine
American missionaries targeted for deportation
Courts offer homeschoolers zilch, expert says
Court gives Melissa back to family
Western homeschoolers need political asylum from democracy
3 families face fines, frozen accounts
‘Youth worker’ lies about homeschool student
5 ‘well-educated’ kids put in state custody
Girl, 15, begs to return to homeschooling parents
Psych tests ordered for homeschooling parents
3rd Reich homeschool prohibition defended
Homeschool family told to give up 5 other kids
Homeschooler’s parents allowed 1 visit a week
Court-ordered foster care replaces psych ward
Homeschool student disappears from psych ward
‘Psych ward’ homeschooler case goes international
Court upholds Nazi-era ban on homeschooling
Constitution threatened by homeschool case