Free in Tennessee
German homeschoolers recently won a huge court battle and have been granted asylum here in Tennessee. See the Forbes AP coverage and HSLDA's version.
When a culture demands uniformity from its citizens what options do nonconformists have? In Germany...none. And so the citizen, after fighting all the way to the top of the legal chain, has no choice but to flee. The German government's concern wasn't the actual education of the children. Their concern was that this family--homeschoolers generally--was creating a 'parallel society' and that could not be tolerated. Consider how that cultural uniformity turned out 60 years ago and thank these folks for the reminder of what free should mean.
Memphis judge Lawrence O. Burman wrote: “Homeschoolers are a particular social group that the German government is trying to suppress. This family has a well-founded fear of persecution…therefore, they are eligible for asylum…and the court will grant asylum.”
The lesson we need to take from their plight is to take a serious look at our own education system's death grip on education choices. Oh sure, you have all sorts of 'choices' but all of them are controlled in some form or fashion by the secular, union run/bought, 'we credential our own' system. If we're a free society...where's our education freedom? What is our government run system trying to suppress?
Photo from Commercial Appeal which only has a footnote about this decision. Here's their previous coverage.
1 comment:
The student lottery for Davidson County makes no sense. Students are tested to learn their abilities so that educators can better meet their needs. Students apply for magnet schools, several of which are for high achievers academically. The gifted students are put in with ALL the other applicants, so may in the end result not get into an academic magnet school. Their choice is their home schools which may be both failing in meeting academic standards. So, why did we do those achievement tests?
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