US Grants Home Schooling German Family Political Asylum
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/27/german-home-schooling-family-asylum
Couple who fled to Tennessee fearing persecution for keeping their
children out of school win first case of its kind in US
A US judge has granted political asylum to a German family who said
they had fled the country to avoid persecution for home schooling their
children.
In the first reported case of its kind, Tennessee immigration judge
Lawrence Burman ruled that the family of seven have a legitimate fear of
prosecution for their beliefs. Germany requires parents to enroll their
children in school in most cases and has levied fines against those who
educate their children at home.
Christians Uwe Romeike, a piano teacher, and his wife, Hannelore, moved
to Morristown, Tennessee, in 2008 after German authorities fined them
thousands of euros for keeping their children out of school and sent
police to escort them to classes, Romeike said. They had been holding
classes in their home.
Along with thousands of torture victims, political dissidents, members
of religious minorities and other persecuted groups who win political
asylum every year, the Romeike family will now be free to live and work
in the US. The case does not create a legal precedent unless the US
government appeals and a higher immigration court hears the case.
“Home schoolers in Germany are a particular social group, which is one
of the protected grounds under the asylum law,” said Mike Connelly,
attorney for the Home School Legal Defence Association, who argued the
case. “This judge looked at the evidence, he heard their testimony, and
he felt that the way Germany is treating home schoolers is wrong. The
rights being violated here are basic human rights.”
In 2006 the Romeikes pulled their children out of a state school in
Bissingen, Germany, in protest of what they deemed an anti-Christian
curriculum.
They said textbooks presented ideas and language that conflicted with
their Christian beliefs, including slang terms for sex acts and images
of vampires and witches, while the school offered what they described as
ethics lessons from Islam, Buddhism and other religions. The eldest son
got into fights in school and the eldest daughter had trouble studying.
“I think it’s important for parents to have the freedom to chose the way
their children can be taught,” Romeike told the Associated Press.
About 1.5 million US children are taught at home. In Morristown, a town
of about 27,000, the Romeikes have connected with other home schooling
families, organising field trips and other activities.
The German consul general for the southeastern US said in a statement
that mandatory school attendance ensures a high education standard for
all children, adding that parents have many educational options.
In 2008, the US government received more than 47,000 applications for
political asylum and granted 10,743, including four from Germany.
Connelly said this was the first time home schooling had been the
central issue in a US political asylum case.
guardian.co.uk (c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
annemiller @ January 28, 2010 | International Homeschooling | Comments (0)
BBB Alerts Consumers About U.S. Census Workers: Be Cooperative, But Cautious!
Here’s a helpful article about the 2010 census from the Better Business Bureau: http://www.bbb.org/us/article/10306
Blog @ January 27, 2010 | Websites of Interest | Comments (0)
Keeping Focused on the Mission (Part 2)
[This is a sequel to "A New Year’s Thought – Keeping Focused on the Mission."]
Last week, I wrote about keeping intent on the mission God has given to us as Christians. All week long, I’ve been trying to write the sequel. And all week long, I’ve had the hardest time keeping focused on the mission myself!
One night I felt particularly frustrated. I’d worked hard all day, but it seemed I had gotten nothing done at all. Here I was, starting to paint the office at 7 p.m. when I was supposed to have begun right after lunch. In the back of my mind, I also knew a seemingly never-ending pile of work still needed done.
I plugged in a sermon and began painting. As I listened, I grew more and more convicted. My problem became clear: my eyes were on me. My failure to keep focused on the Lord and His mission had expressed itself in my being short with my mom, brother, and several other dear people, not to mention feeling like giving up and hiding my head in a hole like an ostrich.
Lesson for the week: Part of keeping focused on the mission has to do with continually surrendering our own plans and desires and remembering we’re not here for us!
Katherine Loop @ January 13, 2010 | General | Comments (0)
The Harms of Homeschooling? Where Are the Premises?
Dr. Brian Ray recently released an article examining claims made by Robin West in her “The Harms of Homeschooling.” Dr. Ray examines each of West’s seven claims, which include educational, economic, and political harms, pointing out the lack of evidence for each one. Ultimately, he makes the case that it all boils down to a worldview: Who should decide what’s best for children, parents or the state?
Here is how he describes the article’s purpose:
“The purpose of this article is twofold, to show that the “harms of homeschooling” that West alleges basically have no foundation in research evidence and to note that West’s proposal for the state to control homeschool parents and their children is based on a worldview that it antithetical to one held by a significant portion of Americans.”
Read “The Harms of Homeschooling? Where Are the Premises?” here.
annemiller @ January 13, 2010 | General | Comments (0)
A New Year’s Thought – Keeping Focused on the Mission
This past weekend, our family headed off on a “fieldtrip” to the pentagon. As we wandered through the hallways, I was struck by the care each branch of the military had taken to convey its history and mission through various displays. One Army display particularly grabbed my attention: I will always place the mission first.
Always place the mission first. A good soldier lives — and dies — for his mission. He doesn’t let hunger, fatigue, fear, personal agendas, or anything else distract him from the mission.
The thought of placing the mission first struck a chord because our family had been examining and discussing missions and goals for the New Year. We’d also recently heard a sermon that pointed out that God has given all of us mission statements in His Word. He’s told us to trust, love, and rest in Him. To rejoice always. To serve one another in love.
Now here was the mission theme once again, this time with a soldier analogy. I walked away from the display with a thousand thoughts whirling through my head. God calls us soldiers too. What mission were we to place first? What mission has He called us to as Christians? Could other missions — even good missions — be keeping us from that? How do we keep focused on His mission? How do we live trusting, loving, and resting in Him? What would it look like if we did?
More to come next week!
Katherine Loop @ January 6, 2010 | General | Comments (0)
News from Britain
Below are two notes we recently received from contacts in the U.K. We trust they’ll keep you praying for our brothers across the sea! For more information on the Badman Report mentioned, see this LifeSiteNews.com article. – Katherine
From Peter van Zuidam, NVvTO Secretary
The select committee of the English house of Commons on Education has given out a (so to say bipartisan) report on the bill introduced to impose supervision on home education in England. They have finally listened to most of the objections that were raised against the bill by English home educators and their organizations.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmchilsch/39/39i.pdf
See pages 5 and 6 for the summary.
From Roger Slack, Home Service
…In November 2008 Ed Balls, the UK’s Minister for Children, Schools and Families, commissioned a report on home education. The publication of the Badman Report in June immediately produced an outcry from home educators. It proposed compulsory registration renewed annually only with the approval of local authority officials who, on this side of the Atlantic, often know little about home education and are sometimes severely prejudiced against it. These same officials would be given power to interview home educated children without anyone else being present.
The management of the report was a travesty of democracy. Professor James Conroy, of Glasgow University, the only member of Mr Badman’s panel to have personal experience of home education: “In my 30 odd years of professional life in education I have rarely encountered a process, the entirety of which was so slap dash, panic driven, and nakedly and naively populist.” Its 28 recommendations were based on the wrong data, faulty evidence or in many cases no evidence at all. For example, it appears that none of the extensive and positive research from the USA was considered. I was amazed and ashamed to discover that such a report should be used to inform UK government policy. Many home educators believe Ed Balls had decided the recommendations before the report was written and Mr Badman knew it didn’t matter too much what he wrote. All he had to do was to fit a flimsy justification around them.
However, the minister has not had it all his own way. We have in the UK parliamentary select committees whose job is to scrutinise the work of government and they chose to look at the Badman report. I submitted to the committee some of the research (based on a list sent to me by Brian Ray) that could have been considered. Their conclusions, published last week, reveal they are not satisfied with the way the Badman Report was conducted nor with its handling of evidence and they disagree with almost all the major conclusions. Nevertheless the government ploughs on with Mr Badman’s draconian proposals.
We now know these proposals are due to be debated in the House of Commons on January the 11th. This is called the second reading of the bill. It is then due to go to the committee stage before it is sent to the House of Lords.
Please pray the Badman recommendations will either be rejected or will not complete their passage through parliament before the next general election, which must take place on or before June the 3rd. The UK has been a beacon of home education freedom in Europe. We want to keep it that way.
Katherine Loop @ January 6, 2010 | International Homeschooling | Comments (0)