Posts Tagged ‘Germany’

 

HSLDA is Wrong about Romeike v. Holder

I’m glad to see that we are not the only site that doesn’t agree with HSLDA. Read the entire article at:

Why HSLDA is Wrong about Romeike v. Holder

German parents Uwe and Hannelore Romeike decided to homeschool their children  because of concerns that the German public school system taught bad values and approved of witchcraft. Faced with fines, imprisonment, and the loss of custody of their children in the only European country where homeschooling is banned outright, the family fled to the United States in 2008.

On January 26, 2010, an immigration judge  granted the Romeikes asylum. The immigration judge held that the Romeike’s were “members of a particular social group” and concluded that they would face persecution for their religious beliefs should they be returned to Germany.

Since when are we subject to international law?  This is real problem.

For all the time and energy it spends lambasting international bodies and rights treaties, it is surprising that HSLDA is relying on international law for its arguments.  When HSLDA goes bonkers over the Department of Justice’s assertion that homeschooling is not a fundamental human right, they are really complaining that the Department of Justice doesn’t think homeschooling is protected by  international  law. The Department of Justice’s assertion has nothing whatsoever to do with an analysis of rights protected under  American  law.

But really, HSLDA and their followers have no one to blame but themselves for the supposed lack of development in international law-they have been fighting any American involvement in the development of international law for decades.

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Christian NewsWire

Did anyone happen to catch the Christian News Wire press release on March 26, 2013?

U.S. Government: Homeschooling Unworthy of Protection

Tens of thousands ‘rally’ demanding action from Obama through official White House petition

PURCELLVILLE, Va., March 26, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ — With only weeks before oral arguments in a potentially precedent-setting human rights case, Home School Legal Defense Association, the world’s largest homeschool association, has launched a petition on the White House website insisting that the Obama Administration grant permanent legal status to the Romeikes, a family persecuted for homeschooling in Germany.

Instead of coming right out and saying the point of their message, they start out with, “Home School Legal Defense Association, the world’s largest homeschool association…” come on. It doesn’t say the best, or most  efficient  it says “largest”.

Fact, most people homeschool and never join any group other than their local one.  Fact, it is legal in the United States to homeschool.  When homeschoolers do have a problem with the law, it almost always  involves  other issues, as well as homeschooling.

I wish HSLDA would concentrate on homeschooling freedom and stop tooting their own horn.

Another issue that I’m concerned about…

Homeschoolers and Data Tracking

Will Estrada, Director of Federal Relations at HSLDA has an article discussing the data tracking aspect of Common Core.  National Databases:  Collecting Student-Specific Data is unnecessary and Orwellian.
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Homeschool: HSLDA Does No Favors

DOJ seeks deportation of family persecuted in Germany for homeschooling

From William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, we learn about the case of Uwe and Hannelore Romeike and their children:

A Map of the Legality of Home schooling around...

A Map of the Legality of Home schooling around the world.

The Romeikes are devout Christians from Germany who wanted to homeschool their children because of what they perceived as the secularist agenda in German public schools. In the United States, the right to homeschool ones’ own children is accepted, although frequently mocked by the left. The homeschoool movement is thriving in the United States, but in Germany it is illegal, a holdover from Nazi-era law.

The Romeikes fled to the United States in 2008 after they faced mounting fines and the potential of imprisonment. The Romeikes sought asylum, and were granted that asylum by Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman in a January 26, 2010 decision after a hearing which included not only the Romeikes but also expert witnesses on homeschooling in Germany.

While this case is loosely connected to foreign homeschooling, American homeschoolers need to be cautious in being viewed as linked to a particular ideology. We have seen for decades and across the country that the inaccurate but highly promoted perception–of homeschoolers as being “fringe” and “extreme” and “isolationists,” etc.–has damaged our ability to work with state legislature and local school divisions to improve homeschool laws and regulations. In fact, some would say that he and his money-making machine even stole homeschooling.

In the Romeike case, the Department of Justice argues against granting asylum because the country’s law is neither “selectively enforced” nor “metes out disproportionate punishment” against people of a particular religion. You can find an interesting view on this case here. Be aware that, when Farris and HSLDA became involved in German homeschooling a few years ago, the result was disastrous for the family and for homeschooling.

Mike Farris and his parental rights arguments have been one of homschoolings’ worst enemies. His so-called national “homeschool” organization (which mixes causes) even wrote the two worst state laws in the country–New York and PA–touted them as “model legislation” and since then have made money “protecting” homeschoolers against the very laws they wrote. This insistence on promoting their own agenda, while refusing to work with state and local homeschoolers, is a well set pattern with Farris and HSLDA.

I know this firsthand, as HSLDA chose to interfere in a county regulation change that local homeschoolers had worked on for months. The national organization came in and tried to take us backward, reinstating the onerous “approval before removal” clause that was causing extreme distress to parents who were desperate to pull their child out of a bad school situation in order to homeschool.

HSLDA had the temerity to chastise me for working to change the regulation without their permission, and they refused to work with me, choosing instead to ignore my request and going about things in their hamfisted way, without regard to what this regulation was doing to the affected families.

Farris and his organizations have purported to speak for all homeschoolers and his extremist views and modes of operation have often made us all look like Ruby Ridgers and worse. He is now saying that he is afraid that President Obama will (somehow) “ban homeschooling.” This, from a man who turns a pretty penny by frightening homeschoolers and others with what I call Chicken Little marketing (“They sky is falling! The sky is falling!”).

Homeschoolers would do well to put as much distance as possible between homeschooling and  Mike Farris and his extremist and mixed causes. It is imprudent and dangerous to continue to let him use homeschooling and homeschoolers as the hammer of his cause, and his non-homeschooling issues as a wedge to divide and disempower the homeschool community.

~Shay Seaborne

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Legal Mumbo Jumbo

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