There are many reasons why parents may want to homeschool. Not all homeschoolers are religious conservatives.
My sister homeschools her daughter. She’s an atheist and also has a Ph.D. in molecular biology. She homeschools because she thinks the local schools are too conservative and too bureaucratic.
suranyi, I’m talking about the situation in Germany. I know that there are diverse homeschoolers in the US. And I have never heard from parents who want to homeschool outside of the recent articles about these fundamentalists.
I’m sure there are some, but it must be very rare.
dangermom, I don’t have issues with people who provide their children with a good education themselves.
But what is worse:
when children go to a public school, supported by their parents who extend their education in the afternoons
or when children get educated by their parents who only care about their fundamentalist religion, neglecting their science education, indoctrinating them and separating them from society?
I think if you got rid of the Schulpflicht, you would have far more of the latter than the former. Again, I’m speaking about Germany.
And how do you address the latter without affecting the former?
Okay, I was going to let this thread pass, because I am fully aware that since the relationship between citizen and government in northern europe is very different than it is in the US, the conversation is almost not worth having. It is impossible to prevent people talking past each other because the same words do not mean the same things.
However, this:
Seriously, man, I hope I misunderstood you because, well, the notion that scaremongering over the possibility that Islam is taking over Europe originates in the US, or with religious conservatives is, well. It is to laugh. Certainly there are Americans who have bought into it, but that one is purely home grown.
Obligatory *Buffy *quote: "Homeschooling…It’s not just for scary religious folks anymore!"
Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.
In the same way that government officials should be allowed to enter public schools for no particular reason other than that they are assuming that the public school is doing something wrong, yes.
If you decide to homeschool your child your home is no longer simply a home. It’s also an educational institution. It’s no different* than if you start running a daycare out of your home - it’s now a institution which the government has a legitimate purpose in regulating, as well as being your home.
*Well, it’s a bit different, but the logical basis is the same.
I am generally in favor of homeschooling as a right, but I don’t think much of it in practice. For all the studies showing that homeschooled kids perform better on standardized tests and are more engaged and whatnot, they’re all weird.
I realize that’s a wholly subjective opinion, but I’ve known dozens of home schooled kids (very popular around here) and none of them were particularly well-adjusted.
OK, you have a point. The origin is probably here.
But I’ve certainly come across that opinion more on these boards than in public discourse in Germany, and it’s much more mainstream there than here (especially in the “Western European civilisation is falling” sense). As far as I can tell.
…ducking in for a second…
And heaven forbid that anyone should be weird!!! (As we know, the public schools never produce any weird people.) Our modern society here in the US is certainly just fine, we don’t need anybody different messing things up. Ew.
…and away again. No time for big long post. 
There are some serious flaws in your reasoning here.
If I help my kids with their homework, or teach them other subjects (language, calculus, etc.) not available at their school, is my home now an educational institution that should be “monitored”?
Daycare only applies if it’s other people’s children and I’m being paid. Should government be investigating me if I have my children at my home? Aren’t I now a daycare? No matter that it’s my own kids?
Should police be allowed to enter my house because there might be illegal activity occuring?
Public schooling doesn’t produce weird kids; weird kids just happen to be present in the public school system. However, all homeschooled kids are weird, in my experience, which suggests that rather than simply being weird, they have been turned weird.
Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with being weird, of course - I am weird. It’s just… odd.
Of course not. You are not supplanting the public school system; you are supplementing it. Homeschooling is the opposite.
Better argument.
However, the government is not investigating home schoolers; it is performing occasional regular inspections.
Assuming they have probable cause, why not?
It’s not the opposite, it’s the logical extension. If I’m supplementing school to the point that my kid is learning more in every subject than when he’s at school, why is he going to school again?
You didn’t answer the question. The government has no right to inspect or investigate my home simply because my children are at home.
But the a priori reason is simply that I’m at home.
The “probable cause” in the homeschooling case is that the kids are at home, rather than in a government institution. Should all people who aren’t employees of the government be “inspected” since they’re not present in a government institution?
I think most people agree that it would be nice if Germany had a more lenient approach to homeschooling.
But that’s not the point.
The point is whether the law is so unreasonable that someone would be forced to flee the country due to a fear of persecution.
Why can’t they start their own private school? Move to another city with more people who share their religion? Move to another EU county that allows homeschooling?
Are they really more worthy of asylum than the thousands who apply every year who are fleeing war, starvation or genuine persecution?
To grant asylum to a family that is fleeing a law that they disagree with in one of the world’s most prosperous countries, is a spit in the face to the real refugees who have been denied asylum.
Not only that the law is so unreasonable, but that the government is unreasonable in enforcing it. The key is “reasonable fear”, and I don’t think any reasonable person (or immigration judge for that matter) would find their… whatever… a reasonable fear.
It’s legal, but AFAIK you have to provide *some *token justification (like medical problems, or lack of proficiency with the language, what have you). “I don’t like what you are teaching” possibly wouldn’t cut it. Besides, aren’t there private Christian schools in Germany the kids could have been sent to ?
In my opinion, schooling (be it private or public) is hardly about actual knowledge and education. Most of what you learn in school, you’ll have forgotten by the time you get to vote anyway. School is really about socializing, learning how to deal with difference (or, as the case may be, indifference), learning discipline and how to accept arbitrary, sometimes even unfair rules, getting emotionally scarred for life, that sort of thing.
In that sense, I’m leery about home schooling, and I don’t think it’s very healthy. If you want your kids to have better education than the baseline, that’s fine - my family did too (and thus I had the privilege of having English tutors, regular spelling bees, rote drilling of multiplication tables etc…) ; but completely severing them from the shared social experience we all hated at the time 
stunts their growth in other, perhaps more important ways.
Heh, I have several friends who have been homeschooled or who are homeschooling their kids, but I have no idea what justification one has to use, if any. Not a single one did it for religious reasons though.
Hum, from this site: http://web.mac.com/instructionenfamille/Instructionenfamille2008/Procedure.html
it seems you only have to say to the inspection académique you’re gonna homeschool your kid/s, don’t need to say why.
I wouldn’t have guessed it.
Yes, there are Christian private schools in Germany, and they even are subsidized by the state.
The parents could also start their own, if they have the money, and comply with school regulations.
Huh. I stand corrected then. I would have guessed they’d at least check if you even *knew *basic maths before agreeing to let your kids learn from you. I guess we’re less bureaucratic than I thought.
If they’re going to school, no.
I’m not planning to homeschool my own children, but as I mentioned on this thread, my sister is homeschooling her daughter, so I can tell about the experience our family has with her.
As it turns out, socialization has not been a problem at all. There are LOTS of homeschooled children in the area where my sister lives, and they get together all the time. They even take classes together, taught by one of the homeschooling parents. (It’s an affluent area, and there’s always some parent who’s an expert in a topic they want the kids to learn. I mentioned that my sister has a degree in biology.)
My niece is very outgoing and makes friends easily. Totally not the stereotypically home schooled child.
But the main point my sister would make is: If you hated your time in school, why would you want your child to repeat it if she doesn’t have to?
I hate my time *out *of school just as much. It’s not school that’s cruel, and disappointing, and unfair, and full of evil narrow-minded jerks. It’s life.