Homeschooling: Under Pressure all over Europe

by J. Michael Smith
HSLDA President
June 29, 2009

Excerpt:
While homeschooling freedom and flexibility continues to improve in the U.S., it appears to be going in the opposite direction in Europe. Germany leads the way as the most oppressive European state, because it routinely fines and threatens to imprison homeschoolers.

While other European countries have not embraced the German methods, there is a move in some countries to crack down on homeschoolers. For example, in Sweden, the government released a suggestion on June 15 that all schools, including homeschools, must provide an education that is acceptable to all pupils regardless of religious or philosophical beliefs, or the beliefs of the parents. The study concludes that there is no need for the new law to recognize the possibility of homeschooling because of religious or philosophical reasons in the family. We are confident the authors are aware that this effectively would end homeschooling in Sweden as most families are homeschooling for religious or philosophical reasons.

Equally shocking are the events in Britain. A June 11 report on home education in England by Graham Badman, former managing director of Children, Families and Education in the County of Kent, makes the case that homeschooling should be extensively regulated. More troubling, the report has been accepted in full by British Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls. the rest