German Home Educators Face Persecution for Rejecting State Schools
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
January 28, 2005
(AgapePress) - Several home schooling families in Germany are being ordered to return their children to public school. Ten families in that country are currently fighting in court for the right to keep their children out of government schools; and seven families in the German county of Paderborn are actually facing criminal prosecution for home schooling and could potentially lose custody of their children. Despite the fact that the German government does not recognize home education, the Paderborn families recently pulled their children out of public school to begin teaching them at home. As Christians, the parents' primary reason for doing this was to protect their children from the humanistic and atheistic values they were being taught in public school.
The families obtained excellent curriculum materials from German correspondence schools and demonstrated to school officials that their children were receiving a more than adequate education. However, the school districts maintained that home schooling children is against the law, and demanded the children be enrolled in government schools. The parents argued that forcing them to do this would violate their rights, but County Education Director Heinz Kohler dismissed their religious convictions, telling the parents home schooling would "prevent the children from growing up to be responsible individuals within society."
The Paderborn County school board has levied fines against the home schooling families and ordered the parents to return their children back in the public school system or have them taken to school by force. The families were also warned that any resistance on the parents' part could result in the children being taken from their homes and put into state custody.
Chris Klicka is Senior Counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), which has started a legal organization for home schoolers in Germany called Schulunterricht zu Hause, or "School Instruction at Home." He is urging U.S. home schoolers to contact the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., to speak up on behalf of their embattled fellow home educators.
"The families in Germany don't have much," Klicka says. "They don't have the freedom, certainly, that we enjoy in America. They don't have the finances, the organization. They need help, and without someone coming from the outside -- like the United States, which is a light to the world in the area of home school freedoms -- I don't think they can make it."
HSLDA is attempting to work out a compromise with local authorities that will allow the seven families in Paderborn to continue home schooling. However, Klicka points out that Germany's compulsory attendance system requires all students to be in public schools. He believes most people in the U.S. would be averse to this patently unfair system.
"I think any American, whether you support home schooling or not, would be offended by the German position," the HSLDA spokesman says, "because there's no choice that's involved. There's no opportunity for any parent to make a decision based on the best interests of their child. It's just 'What does the State want us to learn? We've got to do what the State says.'"
Klicka says the German government does allow for some Christian schools, but those institutions are so heavily regulated that they can hardly be recognized as Christian schools. And since Germany does not recognize the right of Christian parents to choose home education, those families that choose to defy the State rather than defy their own consciences often become the victims of government persecution.
HSLDA is encouraging individuals and even whole families in the U.S. to get involved in advocating for these persecuted German home schoolers. To do so, they can write to Wolfgang Ischinger, Ambassador; German Embassy, 4645 Reservoir Road NW, Washington, DC 20007-1998 or call (202) 298-4000. The ambassador can also be e-mailed at the German Embassy website (http://www.globescope.biz/germany/reg/index.cfm).
Klicka says those who write or call on behalf of the German home schoolers should tell the embassy, in their own words, that the families should not be fined or forced to return their children to public school and that the parents' rights to direct their children's education should be protected. Also, the HSLDA spokesman says, supporters should pray for endurance and protection for these courageous families.
