14 ms·

Germany Seizes Children in Homeschool Raid

35 points by thejteam 13y ago

emhs 13y ago
Absent any evidence of abuse, true neglect (homeschooling doesn't count, regardless of Germany's laws on the matter), or other violation of a worthwhile law, this can only be considered further evidence of consolidation of power in the hands of the State and governmental overreach.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  The best part is that even in the US, after a family of homeschoolers sought and obtained asylum from Germany here, our own Department of Justice appealed the court decision and asked to have them deported, making excuses about how the goal of the mandatory public schooling is so laudable (tolerance etc). Other fun facts to point out: * the German government is officially going to "look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement" * the laws that eliminated the homeschooling option literally date back to the Hitler regime.
  - skylan_q 13y ago
    the laws that eliminated the homeschooling option literally date back to the Hitler regime. It goes further back. The Prussian regime was basically the founder of our current institutionalized public education system in the west as we know it today.
    - fennecfoxen 13y ago
      Yes, but from what I understand you could still get a couple of loopholes and exemptions in the pre-Hitler Youth era.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - rdtsc 13y ago
    > the laws that eliminated the homeschooling option literally date back to the Hitler regime So does the Autobahn. Clearly, it should be torn down and replaced with gravel roads.
    - gallamine 13y ago
      > So does the Autobahn, clearly it should be torn down and replaced with gravel roads. Except Hitler's plan for controlling the country didn't hinge on providing fast roads.
      - Retric 13y ago
        Actually it did as the roads where of significant military value. (Not that it is relevant to this discussion or most of today's users, just an interesting side note.)
      - rdtsc 13y ago
        And if it was, would you recommend tearing them down? That was the point, if this is the main argument against home schooling then it is obvious there isn't just much to go on.
        gallamine 13y ago
        No. I think my point (badly made) was that there seems to be a clear difference between infrastructure and one's right to parent as they see fit.
    - fennecfoxen 13y ago
      Oh comma yes obviously.
  - barry-cotter 13y ago
    I can understand the State Department's point of view. All Germans are entitled to live and work throughout the EEA (EU plus Switzerland, Norway and Lichtenstein). Most of Western Europe is okay with homeschooling. I know it can be done in Austria.
    - hga 13y ago
      Notice the bit about the children's passports being seized? I don't think that nice theory is going to play out well in the real world. As for the asylum case, Romeike v. Holder, the government appeal succeeded and its now in the hands of the circuit's Federal appeals court.
      - icebraining 13y ago
        In the EU, you don't need to have your passport to travel to other countries; a national ID card will do.
      - barry-cotter 13y ago
        What nice theory? Passports are state property. I can't read the article, in China. But you can travel without a passport within the Schengen area. If they can get unsupervised access to their kids they should fuck off with them elsewhere in the EU. There will be neither public nor legal support for homeschooling in Germany and I doubt they'd win if they got to the European Court of Human Rights either. If they stay in Germany they lose their kids or their religion. Flight is their best option.
        hga 13y ago
        The nice theory is that "All Germans are entitled to live and work throughout the EEA (EU plus Switzerland, Norway and Lichtenstein)", which fails hard when your passports are seized. Sounds like we're violently agreeing; still, I wonder why they haven't taken this step prior to now.
- mhd 13y ago
  So where do you draw the line for "worthwhile" laws? Almost any modern state has systems in place to protect children, its most vulnerable citizens. Even from their parents, if need be. Which, in Germany, includes providing sufficient education and socialization to each child. I understand that a lot of people (especially those with some religious beliefs that contradict curricula) disagree with that and consider this a slippery slope, but then again, almost every intrusion into the rights of a parent could be judged that way. So just let 'em do whatever they will, parental instinct will prevail?
  - ef4 13y ago
    You're essentially saying we have no way of judging whether the law is good or not. But there are at least two large bodies of scientific literature that shed light on this question. The first is the psychological evidence that sending men with guns to drag children away from a family where they are safe and loved is hugely damaging. So much so that it is highly unlikely to be worth it, even if you think homeschooling is bad. The second is the evidence that home-schooled students do not underperform other children by any measurable standards, and are frequently found to outperform. This includes both academics and general success/happiness later in life. They are also no more likely to engage in anti-social behaviors. Which begs the question: what is the state's compelling interest, if there is zero evidence for damage to the children or to society at large? Obviously it's not really about protecting children. Because if it was, you would write a law laying out standards for what constitutes sufficiently good education, and then let anyone try to meet those standards. Instead the law imposes a monopoly.
    - mhd 13y ago
      Well, not quite. You have to send your kids to an accredited school. That doesn't mean that they have to be state-owned. There are plenty of private boarding schools and especially Waldorf education is hugely popular. Some evangelical sects tried establishing their own schools. The states have a much easier task checking whether those schools are doing their job well, then checking on every mom and pop. Never mind the socialization requirement, which probably would mean involving the CPAs as well etc. It's not just about ideology, but about feasability as well. The homeschooling crowd is a very, very small minority in Germany. And about the studies, well, let's assume they're actually okay and not on the level of the (multitude) of "homeopathy works" studies. That still would make them US studies, right? So whether that's applicable to Germany is an open question, the school system works quite differently here (and I'm not aware of any metal detectors). I'm reminded a bit about the gun control debate... This might be the result of me going through said school system, but if you show me two donkeys, one being the big bad statist schools and the other homeschooled kids, I know where I'd pin the tail of "likely indoctrination".
- isquare 13y ago
  I find it it interesting that you seem to think it is adequate for you to judge these things 'regardless of German law'. This is a democratically legitimized law that is backed by the vast majority of citizens and has been found to be conforming to the constitution by the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the remarkably potically independent Supreme Court. Just as the US doesn't welcome foreign commentary on laws like 'stand your ground' or 'National Security Letters', other democratic souvereign countries have the right to give themselves laws that conform with the opinions or the majority of its citizens. Here is the rationale: Germany provides high quality free public education to everyone. That education is obligatory for children under 15 and it is neglect of parents to deny their children their right to profit from this education. I think this is a good thing and so does the vast majority of German citizens. You don't have to agree.
  - hga 13y ago
    And would not everything you've said be true of, say, this bit of legislation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933 with the Reichsrat (which I'll admit I first heard of today) substituting for the Bundesverfassungsgericht? Really, now, I think you don't understand our concepts of e.g. natural law (e.g. the right to effective self-defense), and that some things, no matter how consecrated by much beloved process, can nonetheless be utterly illegitimate.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    other democratic souvereign countries have the right to give themselves laws that conform with the opinions or the majority of its citizens Who has denied that? Nobody. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't criticize what we find wrong.
  - russellsprouts 13y ago
    Part of the US system is protection from tyranny of the majority. Prop 8 in California banned gay marriage. It was passed by a 52% majority of the people, but struck down in court. That said, I think that everyone should attend a school. Even (especially) if you don't agree with the curriculum, it's best to let children learn it. It's better to disagree with something you know rather than something you don't know. Homeschooling is much more work than sending a child to public school. For example, my youngest sister had a bad infection for several months during winter and spring that affected her mood causing her to have trouble in school. She attended a traditional public school for several months, but the atmosphere was not working. She transfered to a different public school in our district that only meets 4 times a week, and focuses on the core classes, but that still didn't work. In the end, my family pulled her out of school for the remaining three months and taught her at home. She able to get ahead, and enrolled in a program for children that had various issues with a traditional school. The program starts in 7th grade (~13yo) with 8th grade curriculum, then continues in 8th grade, reviewing the 8th grade curriculum for another year, so that they are prepared for high school. Despite failing most classes in 6th grade, she received straight A's in this program with 8th grade work, and is now a year ahead in math. Having home-school as an option gives an incentive for schools to improve, and allows people the flexibility to make the best choices for schooling their children. Some may abuse that, but I think it should be offered. For reference, for high-school aged students, these are the options in my area: - Traditional high school (5 days/wk, with Math/Science/Language/History, and electives - Art, Music, etc). You can take advanced classes, such as AP for college credit. - Public Charter School (4 days/wk - no Wednesday - Math/Science/Language/History only. Must submit proof of doing art/PE/etc independently) - Non-traditional high school (1 day required, teachers available during the rest of the week - requires much work at home) - Home-School link (1 day w/ teachers to coordinate lessons, work done at home.) - "Running-Start" - attend community college classes for free, earn both high school and college credit. - Private school (religious - don't know any details) - Full Home-school (still required to pass some state exams, must get GED to count as high school). Additionally, sports and music programs were offered only at the traditional high schools, but students living in the district attending any of these options, including private school, could participate. I think all of these are valid options, and I knew people in all of these programs that also participated in other activities, like sports. I think that traditional high school, or the more focused charter school are the best options for most, but not for everyone. Most of the neglectful parents, I would think, sent their children to public school. They certainly would not take the time to teach their children on their own, or pay to send them to private school. They wouldn't apply to enter them in to another one of the programs. The worst case scenario is an incompetent parent that still insists on home-schooling. I can live with parents that have objections to the curriculum pulling their students out. Of course, I know the German school system is much different than the US system. In the US, however, I think that home school needs to be an option.
- rickjames28 13y ago
  In the sick mind of the German socialist, abuse is homeschooling, where children can't be indoctrinated by the state. Good to know that Hitler started that nice tradition.
  - hga 13y ago
    Don't forget his party was the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; the only part you probably don't know is Arbeiter -> Worker's.
    - icebraining 13y ago
      Yeah, and North Korea's regime is a democracy, according to its name (Democratic People's Republic of Korea).
      - hga 13y ago
        But it says something that back then they at minimum felt they had to pay lip service to socialism and workers, despite e.g. their oppression of actual members of a socialist party. And for quite some time into WWII they tried to deliver both guns and butter, one of the many reasons they failed was a delay in gearing up for total war.
- nraynaud 13y ago
  When Germany gave jurisdiction power to US MPs and special laws around US military bases (in the public streets outside the bases too), I didn't hear the same outcry. They have a culture they want to preserve, they know that the US is exporting its culture very bullishly (in Hollywood movies and TV shows for the most part) and they are, like many western european countries, afraid of the negative side effects of the US culture (mostly around guns, violence and extreme religion, but also individualism in general).
gallamine 13y ago
"Authorities even took the children’s passports, making it impossible for the family to escape ... " Now that's low. How is that even legal?
- barry-cotter 13y ago
  Passports are state property, they don't belong to you. Besides, they're the state's children, they're just letting the biological parents mind them. Should they be found deficient, better parents can be found.
  - rickjames28 13y ago
    What do you mean "they're the state's children"?
    - gallamine 13y ago
      I think he's being sarcastic.
    - CapitalistCartr 13y ago
      He's being sarcastic; suggesting an Orwellian view.
    - barry-cotter 13y ago
      That was hyperbole, sarcasm or cynicism depending on how charitable one feels like being. There's no Schnelling point between children are their parents and children are the state's. The trend is definitely towards the state. That's the entire point of things like Child Protection Services, declaring people unfit parents, etc. But what I said was bitter libertarian snark influenced by reading homeschooling/unschooling stuff and the tiny children's rights movement.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    I am Not a Fan(tm) of homeschooling and support bans of it, but forbidding them to leave is going to far. In Plato's dialog Crito, Socrates lays out his justification for respecting the rule of law. One of his arguments in to Crito is that, while not under arrest, any Athenian remains free to leave Athens with his family and posessions. Personally, I think Plato was sort of a hack (Plato has Crito offer only token objections) and disagree with Socrates decision to stay... BUT if the rule of law is to be respected, it seems clear to me that the freedom to opt-out must remain intact. If Germany wants to prevent these people from leaving then they should properly detain them. If they find themselves unwilling or unable to do that, then these people should be free to leave the country.
rickjames28 13y ago
Just another example of socialist statism run amok. You would think with German's recent past, the authorities would be wary of snatching kids from their parents and putting them who knows where.
- hga 13y ago
  Indeed. Every time someone jokes "It sounded better in the original German" I think of cases like these and think "It still does".
  - sentenza 13y ago
    You are aware that one of the reasons we do this is to take away parents ability to indoctrinate their children in a nationalist ideology? In German _public_ schools, children learn about the Holocaust, the Wars, the STASI multiple times over the course of their education, with progressing depth of discussion as they grow older. How many other states educate their resident children on the bad parts of their history this thorroughly? Sorry, but your views from afar are quite skewed.
    - hga 13y ago
      I'm sure it's skewed from your viewpoint, but that doesn't automatically mean it's invalid. In this case, my most general principle is that the ends do not justify the means. More specifically, the danger I see is in the totalitarian method, where the state requires that "You must believe this", be it National Socialism in the '30s and '40s, or after that Communism (till ~1990) or Social Democracy. As long as the state uses this method, and the people are sufficiently comfortable with it, what the state is insisting that you believe is obviously subject to change. "How many other states educate their resident children on the bad parts of their history this thorroughly?" How many states feel they have a burning need to educate their children on the bad parts of their history? Which of the ones that didn't murder millions of their own people? Then there are the results: Do any states need to self-extinguish? With a fertility rate of 1.41, you're just about at the "lowest low" threshold of 1.3 from which societies don't recover. By the end of the next century this discussion will be irrelevant, because there won't be any Germans left to discuss it with....
GabrielF00 13y ago
The Home School Legal Defense Association helped kill American ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Killing US ratification of this treaty, which would have helped extend rights that the US pioneered to people overseas, was absolutely abhorrent. The UN treaty was essentially based on existing American law, was ratified by 130+ nations and had no potential impact on American education. You may remember that Bob Dole was wheeled onto the Senate floor to urge ratification. Homeschool advocates opposition was based on disinformation ("the UN is going to take your kids") I would take anything they have to say with a grain of salt.
- rickjames28 13y ago
  Nobody is disputing the facts here, so there is no grain of salt to take.
  - a_bonobo 13y ago
    How much of that page is in fact "fact"? They call Germany's team that picked up the kids a "SWAT" team, even though Germany doesn't have a SWAT team, Germany has GSG9 which is solely used for anti-terror operations. I also wouldn't call a team that includes social workers a SWAT-team. This sentence alone shows that this article was only written to rile up emotions: >At 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, August 29, 2013, in what has been called a “brutal and vicious act,” Who has called it an act like that? The HSLDA itself, no-one else. I also can't find anything on this in German news, so there are no secondary sources, so no way to verify their claims yet. tl;dr: There are no facts yet. Edit: Just remembered, there's also the SEK, the Spezialeinsatzkommando, which are the German state police's special police to handle barricaded suspects - may have been in use here, but again, I'd highly doubt they'd be accompanied by social workers.
    - superuser2 13y ago
      I would conjecture that the reason for overwhelming force here is a reasonable guess that people who don't recognize the government's authority to enforce laws might attempt armed resistance, especially where their children are concerned. Swift and overwhelming force lowers the risk of anyone (government or citizen) actually getting violent. That doesn't necessarily justify the trauma of getting raided, but it would make sense if that's why they did it.
nhangen 13y ago
Meanwhile, here in Florida (USA), we have a state sponsored virtual school system that doesn't require a single step inside of a school building. Maybe that's one thing we get right here.
rafski 13y ago
As a natural extension of a welfare state paradigm, children are property of the state and parents are merely temporarily assigned guardians. In Germany and Norway, children are taken from their families on a decision of a social worker, no court is needed. All it takes is a teacher's report stating that a kid is "sad". Google "Jugendamt" to read the horror stories. A classic scenario involves forbidding a divorced foreign parent to speak in their non-German language with their kid, ever.
superuser2 13y ago
I'm surprised to see HN jumping to support the right of parents to raise children in ideologically-driven information vacuums. Censorship by parents is censorship, too. Learning to think critically and being presented with information which may challenge your parents' religious beliefs are basic freedom of speech and freedom of information principles. I would call them human rights. Let human beings decide for themselves whether to disregard science, believe in God, believe the Bible is literally true, etc. I'd rather have a little state overreach than fundamentalists whose beliefs have solidified before they were ever even exposed to ideas that didn't fit their parents' version of reality. That's bad for politics, bad for science, and unfair to the children. Everyone has a right to at least be presented with the scientific view of the world. They don't have to believe it, and their parents can certainly offer alternative views at home. But in my mind a child is a person with at least some rights which supersede those of her parents. Education has got to be one of them.
- fleitz 13y ago
  Given your opposition to ideologically-driven information vacuums I take it you don't support the public school system?
  - superuser2 13y ago
    I support biology, chemistry, and physics classes. You have a right to be taught what is known in these areas, how we got there, and what it means about our world. Consider human evolution (bio), carbon dating (bio/chem), origin and expansion of the universe (physics). The history portion of chemistry presented us with the scientific process and the story of how we formulated, experimentally tested, and refined our models of matter, often proving the Church wrong in its blind acceptance of ancient philosophers' conjectures. This is a way of thinking to which every person deserves exposure, and some parents aren't comfortable with it. In physics, we used telescope measurements to calculate the rate of expansion and age of the universe. Results were not consistent with some parents' readings of Genesis. I'll buy brainwashing in subjective areas like history, current events, economics, and literary analysis but not in science. The public school system is problematic, but it at least allows access to books and websites which are screened only for sexuality, not for reality.
shrnky 13y ago
The majority of comments from the illustrious Hacker News crowd seem to indicate we are disturbingly at ease with the Persecution of homeschoolers. I feel as long as students are making the grade on standardized tests, there shouldn't be an issue. This works out perfect for both parties. Whatever aspect of public schools the parent takes exception to can be avoided and the kid still get's an eduction. By forcing parents to send their children to public schools you are in effect giving the perception of indoctrination.
- icebraining 13y ago
  They don't force children to be sent to public schools - private schools are specifically protected by the German constitution.
  - hga 13y ago
    Is it safe to assume they cost money and/or are regulated by the state?
    - icebraining 13y ago
      Probably both, yes.
jimzvz 13y ago
This is disgusting. Which is the best country in the world to raise children? It needs to be safe, have little government interference, have exposure to "the real world", a culture of hard work, an open culture that is receptive to a multitude of ideas about the world, have challenging problems, multi-lingual, etc. Any ideas?
rafski 13y ago
At least it's an ethos.

35 points by thejteam 13y ago

emhs 13y ago

Absent any evidence of abuse, true neglect (homeschooling doesn't count, regardless of Germany's laws on the matter), or other violation of a worthwhile law, this can only be considered further evidence of consolidation of power in the hands of the State and governmental overreach.

fennecfoxen 13y ago
The best part is that even in the US, after a family of homeschoolers sought and obtained asylum from Germany here, our own Department of Justice appealed the court decision and asked to have them deported, making excuses about how the goal of the mandatory public schooling is so laudable (tolerance etc). Other fun facts to point out: * the German government is officially going to "look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement" * the laws that eliminated the homeschooling option literally date back to the Hitler regime.
- skylan_q 13y ago
  the laws that eliminated the homeschooling option literally date back to the Hitler regime. It goes further back. The Prussian regime was basically the founder of our current institutionalized public education system in the west as we know it today.
  - fennecfoxen 13y ago
    Yes, but from what I understand you could still get a couple of loopholes and exemptions in the pre-Hitler Youth era.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- rdtsc 13y ago
  > the laws that eliminated the homeschooling option literally date back to the Hitler regime So does the Autobahn. Clearly, it should be torn down and replaced with gravel roads.
  - gallamine 13y ago
    > So does the Autobahn, clearly it should be torn down and replaced with gravel roads. Except Hitler's plan for controlling the country didn't hinge on providing fast roads.
    - Retric 13y ago
      Actually it did as the roads where of significant military value. (Not that it is relevant to this discussion or most of today's users, just an interesting side note.)
    - rdtsc 13y ago
      And if it was, would you recommend tearing them down? That was the point, if this is the main argument against home schooling then it is obvious there isn't just much to go on.
      - gallamine 13y ago
        No. I think my point (badly made) was that there seems to be a clear difference between infrastructure and one's right to parent as they see fit.
  - fennecfoxen 13y ago
    Oh comma yes obviously.
- barry-cotter 13y ago
  I can understand the State Department's point of view. All Germans are entitled to live and work throughout the EEA (EU plus Switzerland, Norway and Lichtenstein). Most of Western Europe is okay with homeschooling. I know it can be done in Austria.
  - hga 13y ago
    Notice the bit about the children's passports being seized? I don't think that nice theory is going to play out well in the real world. As for the asylum case, Romeike v. Holder, the government appeal succeeded and its now in the hands of the circuit's Federal appeals court.
    - icebraining 13y ago
      In the EU, you don't need to have your passport to travel to other countries; a national ID card will do.
    - barry-cotter 13y ago
      What nice theory? Passports are state property. I can't read the article, in China. But you can travel without a passport within the Schengen area. If they can get unsupervised access to their kids they should fuck off with them elsewhere in the EU. There will be neither public nor legal support for homeschooling in Germany and I doubt they'd win if they got to the European Court of Human Rights either. If they stay in Germany they lose their kids or their religion. Flight is their best option.
      - hga 13y ago
        The nice theory is that "All Germans are entitled to live and work throughout the EEA (EU plus Switzerland, Norway and Lichtenstein)", which fails hard when your passports are seized. Sounds like we're violently agreeing; still, I wonder why they haven't taken this step prior to now.
mhd 13y ago
So where do you draw the line for "worthwhile" laws? Almost any modern state has systems in place to protect children, its most vulnerable citizens. Even from their parents, if need be. Which, in Germany, includes providing sufficient education and socialization to each child. I understand that a lot of people (especially those with some religious beliefs that contradict curricula) disagree with that and consider this a slippery slope, but then again, almost every intrusion into the rights of a parent could be judged that way. So just let 'em do whatever they will, parental instinct will prevail?
- ef4 13y ago
  You're essentially saying we have no way of judging whether the law is good or not. But there are at least two large bodies of scientific literature that shed light on this question. The first is the psychological evidence that sending men with guns to drag children away from a family where they are safe and loved is hugely damaging. So much so that it is highly unlikely to be worth it, even if you think homeschooling is bad. The second is the evidence that home-schooled students do not underperform other children by any measurable standards, and are frequently found to outperform. This includes both academics and general success/happiness later in life. They are also no more likely to engage in anti-social behaviors. Which begs the question: what is the state's compelling interest, if there is zero evidence for damage to the children or to society at large? Obviously it's not really about protecting children. Because if it was, you would write a law laying out standards for what constitutes sufficiently good education, and then let anyone try to meet those standards. Instead the law imposes a monopoly.
  - mhd 13y ago
    Well, not quite. You have to send your kids to an accredited school. That doesn't mean that they have to be state-owned. There are plenty of private boarding schools and especially Waldorf education is hugely popular. Some evangelical sects tried establishing their own schools. The states have a much easier task checking whether those schools are doing their job well, then checking on every mom and pop. Never mind the socialization requirement, which probably would mean involving the CPAs as well etc. It's not just about ideology, but about feasability as well. The homeschooling crowd is a very, very small minority in Germany. And about the studies, well, let's assume they're actually okay and not on the level of the (multitude) of "homeopathy works" studies. That still would make them US studies, right? So whether that's applicable to Germany is an open question, the school system works quite differently here (and I'm not aware of any metal detectors). I'm reminded a bit about the gun control debate... This might be the result of me going through said school system, but if you show me two donkeys, one being the big bad statist schools and the other homeschooled kids, I know where I'd pin the tail of "likely indoctrination".
isquare 13y ago
I find it it interesting that you seem to think it is adequate for you to judge these things 'regardless of German law'. This is a democratically legitimized law that is backed by the vast majority of citizens and has been found to be conforming to the constitution by the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the remarkably potically independent Supreme Court. Just as the US doesn't welcome foreign commentary on laws like 'stand your ground' or 'National Security Letters', other democratic souvereign countries have the right to give themselves laws that conform with the opinions or the majority of its citizens. Here is the rationale: Germany provides high quality free public education to everyone. That education is obligatory for children under 15 and it is neglect of parents to deny their children their right to profit from this education. I think this is a good thing and so does the vast majority of German citizens. You don't have to agree.
- hga 13y ago
  And would not everything you've said be true of, say, this bit of legislation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933 with the Reichsrat (which I'll admit I first heard of today) substituting for the Bundesverfassungsgericht? Really, now, I think you don't understand our concepts of e.g. natural law (e.g. the right to effective self-defense), and that some things, no matter how consecrated by much beloved process, can nonetheless be utterly illegitimate.
- icebraining 13y ago
  other democratic souvereign countries have the right to give themselves laws that conform with the opinions or the majority of its citizens Who has denied that? Nobody. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't criticize what we find wrong.
- russellsprouts 13y ago
  Part of the US system is protection from tyranny of the majority. Prop 8 in California banned gay marriage. It was passed by a 52% majority of the people, but struck down in court. That said, I think that everyone should attend a school. Even (especially) if you don't agree with the curriculum, it's best to let children learn it. It's better to disagree with something you know rather than something you don't know. Homeschooling is much more work than sending a child to public school. For example, my youngest sister had a bad infection for several months during winter and spring that affected her mood causing her to have trouble in school. She attended a traditional public school for several months, but the atmosphere was not working. She transfered to a different public school in our district that only meets 4 times a week, and focuses on the core classes, but that still didn't work. In the end, my family pulled her out of school for the remaining three months and taught her at home. She able to get ahead, and enrolled in a program for children that had various issues with a traditional school. The program starts in 7th grade (~13yo) with 8th grade curriculum, then continues in 8th grade, reviewing the 8th grade curriculum for another year, so that they are prepared for high school. Despite failing most classes in 6th grade, she received straight A's in this program with 8th grade work, and is now a year ahead in math. Having home-school as an option gives an incentive for schools to improve, and allows people the flexibility to make the best choices for schooling their children. Some may abuse that, but I think it should be offered. For reference, for high-school aged students, these are the options in my area: - Traditional high school (5 days/wk, with Math/Science/Language/History, and electives - Art, Music, etc). You can take advanced classes, such as AP for college credit. - Public Charter School (4 days/wk - no Wednesday - Math/Science/Language/History only. Must submit proof of doing art/PE/etc independently) - Non-traditional high school (1 day required, teachers available during the rest of the week - requires much work at home) - Home-School link (1 day w/ teachers to coordinate lessons, work done at home.) - "Running-Start" - attend community college classes for free, earn both high school and college credit. - Private school (religious - don't know any details) - Full Home-school (still required to pass some state exams, must get GED to count as high school). Additionally, sports and music programs were offered only at the traditional high schools, but students living in the district attending any of these options, including private school, could participate. I think all of these are valid options, and I knew people in all of these programs that also participated in other activities, like sports. I think that traditional high school, or the more focused charter school are the best options for most, but not for everyone. Most of the neglectful parents, I would think, sent their children to public school. They certainly would not take the time to teach their children on their own, or pay to send them to private school. They wouldn't apply to enter them in to another one of the programs. The worst case scenario is an incompetent parent that still insists on home-schooling. I can live with parents that have objections to the curriculum pulling their students out. Of course, I know the German school system is much different than the US system. In the US, however, I think that home school needs to be an option.
rickjames28 13y ago
In the sick mind of the German socialist, abuse is homeschooling, where children can't be indoctrinated by the state. Good to know that Hitler started that nice tradition.
- hga 13y ago
  Don't forget his party was the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; the only part you probably don't know is Arbeiter -> Worker's.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Yeah, and North Korea's regime is a democracy, according to its name (Democratic People's Republic of Korea).
    - hga 13y ago
      But it says something that back then they at minimum felt they had to pay lip service to socialism and workers, despite e.g. their oppression of actual members of a socialist party. And for quite some time into WWII they tried to deliver both guns and butter, one of the many reasons they failed was a delay in gearing up for total war.
nraynaud 13y ago
When Germany gave jurisdiction power to US MPs and special laws around US military bases (in the public streets outside the bases too), I didn't hear the same outcry. They have a culture they want to preserve, they know that the US is exporting its culture very bullishly (in Hollywood movies and TV shows for the most part) and they are, like many western european countries, afraid of the negative side effects of the US culture (mostly around guns, violence and extreme religion, but also individualism in general).

gallamine 13y ago

"Authorities even took the children’s passports, making it impossible for the family to escape ... " Now that's low. How is that even legal?

barry-cotter 13y ago
Passports are state property, they don't belong to you. Besides, they're the state's children, they're just letting the biological parents mind them. Should they be found deficient, better parents can be found.
- rickjames28 13y ago
  What do you mean "they're the state's children"?
  - gallamine 13y ago
    I think he's being sarcastic.
  - CapitalistCartr 13y ago
    He's being sarcastic; suggesting an Orwellian view.
  - barry-cotter 13y ago
    That was hyperbole, sarcasm or cynicism depending on how charitable one feels like being. There's no Schnelling point between children are their parents and children are the state's. The trend is definitely towards the state. That's the entire point of things like Child Protection Services, declaring people unfit parents, etc. But what I said was bitter libertarian snark influenced by reading homeschooling/unschooling stuff and the tiny children's rights movement.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  I am Not a Fan(tm) of homeschooling and support bans of it, but forbidding them to leave is going to far. In Plato's dialog Crito, Socrates lays out his justification for respecting the rule of law. One of his arguments in to Crito is that, while not under arrest, any Athenian remains free to leave Athens with his family and posessions. Personally, I think Plato was sort of a hack (Plato has Crito offer only token objections) and disagree with Socrates decision to stay... BUT if the rule of law is to be respected, it seems clear to me that the freedom to opt-out must remain intact. If Germany wants to prevent these people from leaving then they should properly detain them. If they find themselves unwilling or unable to do that, then these people should be free to leave the country.

rickjames28 13y ago

Just another example of socialist statism run amok. You would think with German's recent past, the authorities would be wary of snatching kids from their parents and putting them who knows where.

hga 13y ago
Indeed. Every time someone jokes "It sounded better in the original German" I think of cases like these and think "It still does".
- sentenza 13y ago
  You are aware that one of the reasons we do this is to take away parents ability to indoctrinate their children in a nationalist ideology? In German _public_ schools, children learn about the Holocaust, the Wars, the STASI multiple times over the course of their education, with progressing depth of discussion as they grow older. How many other states educate their resident children on the bad parts of their history this thorroughly? Sorry, but your views from afar are quite skewed.
  - hga 13y ago
    I'm sure it's skewed from your viewpoint, but that doesn't automatically mean it's invalid. In this case, my most general principle is that the ends do not justify the means. More specifically, the danger I see is in the totalitarian method, where the state requires that "You must believe this", be it National Socialism in the '30s and '40s, or after that Communism (till ~1990) or Social Democracy. As long as the state uses this method, and the people are sufficiently comfortable with it, what the state is insisting that you believe is obviously subject to change. "How many other states educate their resident children on the bad parts of their history this thorroughly?" How many states feel they have a burning need to educate their children on the bad parts of their history? Which of the ones that didn't murder millions of their own people? Then there are the results: Do any states need to self-extinguish? With a fertility rate of 1.41, you're just about at the "lowest low" threshold of 1.3 from which societies don't recover. By the end of the next century this discussion will be irrelevant, because there won't be any Germans left to discuss it with....

GabrielF00 13y ago

The Home School Legal Defense Association helped kill American ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Killing US ratification of this treaty, which would have helped extend rights that the US pioneered to people overseas, was absolutely abhorrent. The UN treaty was essentially based on existing American law, was ratified by 130+ nations and had no potential impact on American education. You may remember that Bob Dole was wheeled onto the Senate floor to urge ratification. Homeschool advocates opposition was based on disinformation ("the UN is going to take your kids") I would take anything they have to say with a grain of salt.

rickjames28 13y ago
Nobody is disputing the facts here, so there is no grain of salt to take.
- a_bonobo 13y ago
  How much of that page is in fact "fact"? They call Germany's team that picked up the kids a "SWAT" team, even though Germany doesn't have a SWAT team, Germany has GSG9 which is solely used for anti-terror operations. I also wouldn't call a team that includes social workers a SWAT-team. This sentence alone shows that this article was only written to rile up emotions: >At 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, August 29, 2013, in what has been called a “brutal and vicious act,” Who has called it an act like that? The HSLDA itself, no-one else. I also can't find anything on this in German news, so there are no secondary sources, so no way to verify their claims yet. tl;dr: There are no facts yet. Edit: Just remembered, there's also the SEK, the Spezialeinsatzkommando, which are the German state police's special police to handle barricaded suspects - may have been in use here, but again, I'd highly doubt they'd be accompanied by social workers.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    I would conjecture that the reason for overwhelming force here is a reasonable guess that people who don't recognize the government's authority to enforce laws might attempt armed resistance, especially where their children are concerned. Swift and overwhelming force lowers the risk of anyone (government or citizen) actually getting violent. That doesn't necessarily justify the trauma of getting raided, but it would make sense if that's why they did it.

nhangen 13y ago

Meanwhile, here in Florida (USA), we have a state sponsored virtual school system that doesn't require a single step inside of a school building. Maybe that's one thing we get right here.

rafski 13y ago

As a natural extension of a welfare state paradigm, children are property of the state and parents are merely temporarily assigned guardians. In Germany and Norway, children are taken from their families on a decision of a social worker, no court is needed. All it takes is a teacher's report stating that a kid is "sad". Google "Jugendamt" to read the horror stories. A classic scenario involves forbidding a divorced foreign parent to speak in their non-German language with their kid, ever.

superuser2 13y ago

I'm surprised to see HN jumping to support the right of parents to raise children in ideologically-driven information vacuums. Censorship by parents is censorship, too. Learning to think critically and being presented with information which may challenge your parents' religious beliefs are basic freedom of speech and freedom of information principles. I would call them human rights. Let human beings decide for themselves whether to disregard science, believe in God, believe the Bible is literally true, etc. I'd rather have a little state overreach than fundamentalists whose beliefs have solidified before they were ever even exposed to ideas that didn't fit their parents' version of reality. That's bad for politics, bad for science, and unfair to the children. Everyone has a right to at least be presented with the scientific view of the world. They don't have to believe it, and their parents can certainly offer alternative views at home. But in my mind a child is a person with at least some rights which supersede those of her parents. Education has got to be one of them.

fleitz 13y ago
Given your opposition to ideologically-driven information vacuums I take it you don't support the public school system?
- superuser2 13y ago
  I support biology, chemistry, and physics classes. You have a right to be taught what is known in these areas, how we got there, and what it means about our world. Consider human evolution (bio), carbon dating (bio/chem), origin and expansion of the universe (physics). The history portion of chemistry presented us with the scientific process and the story of how we formulated, experimentally tested, and refined our models of matter, often proving the Church wrong in its blind acceptance of ancient philosophers' conjectures. This is a way of thinking to which every person deserves exposure, and some parents aren't comfortable with it. In physics, we used telescope measurements to calculate the rate of expansion and age of the universe. Results were not consistent with some parents' readings of Genesis. I'll buy brainwashing in subjective areas like history, current events, economics, and literary analysis but not in science. The public school system is problematic, but it at least allows access to books and websites which are screened only for sexuality, not for reality.

shrnky 13y ago

The majority of comments from the illustrious Hacker News crowd seem to indicate we are disturbingly at ease with the Persecution of homeschoolers. I feel as long as students are making the grade on standardized tests, there shouldn't be an issue. This works out perfect for both parties. Whatever aspect of public schools the parent takes exception to can be avoided and the kid still get's an eduction. By forcing parents to send their children to public schools you are in effect giving the perception of indoctrination.

icebraining 13y ago
They don't force children to be sent to public schools - private schools are specifically protected by the German constitution.
- hga 13y ago
  Is it safe to assume they cost money and/or are regulated by the state?
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Probably both, yes.

jimzvz 13y ago

This is disgusting. Which is the best country in the world to raise children? It needs to be safe, have little government interference, have exposure to "the real world", a culture of hard work, an open culture that is receptive to a multitude of ideas about the world, have challenging problems, multi-lingual, etc. Any ideas?

rafski 13y ago

At least it's an ethos.