Homeschooling Update from the United Kingdom

As reported elsewhere in my writings about the Badman report, Great Britain narrowly missed a legislative bullet that would have crippled independent homeschooling in the UK. Homeschoolers fear the government will attempt similar legislation again soon, as the article I reproduce below from The Journal of Personalized Education Now indicates.

Of particular interest to all homeschoolers is the second paragraph. The idea that children must be protected by the state from their parents because some parents may be sex abusers takes the concept of children’s rights to an Orwellian plane.

Note: I kept the British punctuation as it appears in the original article.

Home Education Update—only a small celebration

By Leslie Barson

Home educators and their supports can breathe a very short sigh of relief as the clauses relating to the compulsory registration and monitoring of home education in the then Children, Schools and Families (CSF) Bill were removed in the ‘wash up.’ Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats had made it known to the home education community that they would not let the CSF Bill pass in the ‘wash up’ if it included the clauses on home education. They were true to their word and all the clauses were removed before the bill passed unopposed into law. The fact that these two major parties agreed to this owes much to the determination, organization and intellect of the home educating community. Some celebration is deserved!

This attack by government has to do with the fact that the main responsibility for education in law resides with parents, not the state. It is the only area in law where parents still retain the prime responsibility for their children after the passing of the Children Act 2004. The state holds the principal responsibility for children in every other area of their lives. Coupled with the media fuelled ‘terror’ campaign which sees all adults as sex abusers it has been easy for government to convince the population that it knows what is best for children. It prepared the ground for government to pass any law accordingly. Parents who protest are immediately suspect. We are headed to a situation of having to prove innocence… an impossible thing.

The removal of the clauses is greatly welcomed and has bought time for everyone interested in freedom and self-autonomy in education. It is, however, only a battle won. The war is not over by any means. Next time we will not have an impending election to break the flow of legislation. This is an attack on all our civil liberties, schooled or home educated. It is one more example of a ‘citizen’ being replaced with ‘client’ and ‘consumer.’ We will need your help again soon. Watch this space!



Unschooling the University

DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of High Education by Anya Kamenetz is a fantastic examination about how college has become so expensive and extremely over-rated, yet remains the ultimate goal for nine out of ten high school graduates. Armed with solid research and statistics (“…the United States has fallen from world leader to only tenth-most educated nation. The price of college tuition has increased more than any other good or service for the last twenty years. Almost half of U.S. college students don’t graduate; outstanding student loan debt totals $730 billion.”), Kamenetz marshals her arguments cogently to show not only how we got into this mess but provides ideas for how we can get out of it as well. 

I was pleased to see her use and cite the work of Holt and Illich, as they were early and vocal critics of the university but they are now remembered primarily as critics of K-12 education. One of my favorite photographs of John Holt is of him refusing an honorary degree. The Associated Press printed a photo of Holt with his fist pumped into the air on June 11, 1970 with this caption:

REFUSES HONORARY DEGREE. Author John Holt, critic of modern education, refused to accept an honorary degree as he spoke recently at Wesleyan University, saying that colleges are among “the chief enslaving institutions” in America.

Kamenetz is a lot less harsh in her comments about college than Holt and Illich were, but her call for change is as earnest as theirs.  After writing about the historical, social, and economic history of college in America she writes about several new directions higher education can take to transform itself. DIY U provides you with new technologies, Open Education programs, self-learning and other examples of college-level independent study that anyone can benefit from. Some of the insights she makes regarding the future of college are quite striking, such as this:

Brian Lamb, an educational technologist at the University of British Columbia, sketches out for me a potential vision: “ For universities, here’s the nightmare scenario. Imagine Google enters a partnership with two or three top educational publishers, builds on the existing open-educational resources already released, uses the reach of Google to coordinate discussion and peer-based networks and develops a series of tests that they also certify. What then?”

Teenage homeschoolers and unschoolers and their parents would benefit from reading DIY U in particular, if only to give them pause before going to college. After years of learning without attending elementary or high school, homeschoolers and unschoolers who decide to continue learning in their own unique ways without going to conventional college will find DIY U a valuable resource. Indeed, the last section of the book is a very useful resource guide for creating your personal Do It Yourself University. 

Visit Sweden To Help Homeschoolers There

Swedish homeschoolers are asking for support and help to keep homeschooling legal there. In particular, Jenny Lantz, one of the organizers I've been in touch with, has asked that the following letter be shared with American homeschoolers. I hope some who read it will be able to fly to Sweden and stand in solidarity with them. I am not able to attend in person, but I hope to make a virtual appearance via Skype to help rally the troops. Here is the letter:

Dear homeschoolers in America!

As you may already know, the Swedish Government is suggesting a school law that would effectively ban legal homeschooling in Sweden with increased penalties, including prison, creating a German-like homeschooling situation in Sweden. The current Swedish centre-right government is going in the opposite direction from the rest of the world where home education is growing. This is a dangerous development for all homeschooloers in Europe, as Sweden is often held as an example of the perfected social  state.

The Swedish Association for Home Education (Rohus) wants to stop this law. That possibility may only be four members of parliament away.  But we need your help. The Swedish Parliament will discuss the proposed law on June 21 and the vote will be made on June 22. We want to make those two days an international manifestation for the right to home school and also make it the start of a European Network of Home Education, which can bring the issue to a European level.

Swedish home educators are seasoned after years of struggle with today's permissive but extremely restricted-as-implemented school law. We go to court, fight fines and go in exile now and then. During the last year the Rohus board has lobbied for home education at the National Parliament level.  Politicians who meet with us get a whole different view of home education.
 
If we do not manage to stop the law in June, we believe we need to approach the European level, which requires us to form a network with other European Home Education Associations. If we win we still want to support this effort to make homeschooling permitted throughout the European Union, which is the best safe guard for all of us.

Please respond to our invitation if you can. We are working to find youth hostel-type living situations in Stockholm during June 20-23, so that you can help us meet our Members of Parliament with flyers, speeches and personal meetings throughout the two days and help form the European Network for Home Education.

Rohus is a politically and religiously unaffiliated organization, formed two years ago  when we realized political struggle was necessary; see our English  homepage:
http://www.rohus.nu/?English_information

Contact Jenny Lantz, adminstrative manager  for practical details about joining us in Sweden: jenny@rohus.nu or contact Jonas  Himmelstrand, President: jonas@rohus.nu

Warm regards

Jenny  Lantz, Rohus 

Letter to the Swedish Parliament regarding Homeschooling

At the request of homeschoolers in Sweden, who are facing an outright ban on homeschooling in their country, I sent the following letter of support on Monday, 5/10/10.

To the Swedish Parliament regarding proposed changes to homeschooling legislation.

I have been asked by my fellow homeschoolers in Sweden to write to you as a concerned educator who has studied, written about and participated in homeschooling for over 29 years as a father of three daughters and as publisher of Growing Without Schooling magazine.

The one-size-fits-all model of education that is delivered through government schools is quickly becoming a thing of the past as free market education options, such as vouchers, for-profit schools, distance learning and, especially, home schools continue to gain ground worldwide as citizens seek more individualized educations for their children.[i] Indeed, Per Unckel, a Governor of Stockholm and former Minister of Education, explained the need for allowing educational options for Swedish citizens to an American reporter in 2009: "Education is so important that you can’t just leave it to one producer. Because we know from monopoly systems that they do not fulfill all wishes."[ii] The legislation you are considering, Chapter 24 Paragraph 23 of the proposed new Swedish school law, will create such a monopoly by outlawing homeschooling except under “exceptional circumstances.” I urge you to vote against this change to Swedish law in order to preserve a family’s right to choose from a variety of educational offerings, including private and home schools. The state should not have a monopoly on education, either of schools or methods. To reduce educational choice for Swedish citizens to a mandatory selection of pre-packaged commodities presented by the government is hardly a real choice.

Not all children flourish in state schools, which is one reason why Sweden became a world-leader in free market education by introducing education vouchers in 1992. This decision raised controversy due to concerns that educational choice might result in increased social segregation, particularly regarding homeschoolers. However, research and history has shown that allowing different social groups to control the education of their children does not necessarily result in increased segregation and that tolerance for pluralism is a necessary component of democratic societies.

Dr. Christian Beck has studied homeschooling and social integration in Norway and concludes:

 “…among home educators who are registered and monitored, home-based education also appears to produce well-socialized students. The greatest difficulties with regard to social integration have to do with unregistered home educators.”[iii]

Making homeschooling illegal, or extremely difficult to do, will result in more families becoming unregistered home educators in Sweden or, as is currently happening in Germany, it will result in families seeking political asylum in countries that permit homeschooling. The bad publicity, complex court cases, and educational rigidity that will flow from banning homeschooling in Sweden can easily be overcome if the government and schools cooperate with families in their efforts to be involved in their children’s education rather than prosecute them for doing so.

The homeschooling movement is quite small in Sweden and it is likely to remain small. Indeed, even in countries such as the United States, that has seen considerable growth in homeschooling in recent years, it only represents 3% of the total school-age population. Homeschooling is also not a permanent condition for many families; one researcher claims that only 15% of secular homeschoolers and 48% of religious homeschoolers continue to homeschool in the United States after 6 years, and there have been no serious difficulties with homeschooled students who matriculate into schools.[iv]

 There are many more pressing educational matters before Swedish schools than homeschooling. For instance, on any given day in Sweden there are far more students who are truant from school than there are homeschoolers being educated. Wouldn’t the energy and money being spent to restrict families who want to help their children learn at home and in their communities be put to better use by focusing those efforts on truant students who are literally running away from school? 

The examples of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Spain, Australia, and other western democracies that have growing homeschooling populations prove that the state does not need a universal curriculum administered through state schools to create good citizens. It is widely noted that homeschooled citizens who enter into adult work or college are equally or more engaged in political, sports, entertainment, scientific, and social endeavors when compared to their schooled counterparts.[v]

The popular American author and teacher John Holt, who supported homeschooling after many years as a teacher in private schools and universities, addressed the Minnesota State Legislature when they were considering restricting homeschooling in 1980; the legislature decided not to pass the law. Holt ended his testimony with words that also apply to Swedish homeschooling:

The legislature can affirm the right of parents to teach their own children, while continuing to exercise its constitutional right to assure that all children are being taught… There are and will remain large and legitimate differences of opinion, among experts and nonexperts alike, on the subjects that should be taught to children, on the materials to be used, and on the ways in which this teaching and learning are to be evaluated. Only by allowing and supporting a wide range of education practices can we encourage the diversity of experience from which we can learn to educate our children more effectively, and it is the intent of this legislature to allow and encourage such variety.^[vi]

Please vote against the law to change Chapter 24 Paragraph 23. It will not only ban homeschooling, but also severely restrict educational opportunities and personal freedoms for anyone who does not flourish in the conventional education system.

Sincerely,

Patrick Farenga
President, Holt Associates Inc.

Author, Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling (Perseus, 2003)

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[i] Brian Ray, Worldwide Guide to Homeschooling, Broadman and Holman, TN, 2002

[ii] http://www.examiner.com/x-1393-Education-Improvement-Examiner~y2009m3d20-Should-Obama-look-to-Swedens-successful-school-voucher-program

[iii] Home Education and Social Integration by Dr. Christian Beck. Critical Social Studies, No. 2, 2008. Retrieved on May 5, 2010 from 

http://ojs.statsbiblioteket.dk/index.php/outlines/article/view/1973/1763

[iv] Isenberg, E.J. (2007) “What have we learned about homeschooling?” Peabody Journal of Education 82, 387-409.

[v] Scholarly articles on the topic include Home Schooling for Individuals' Gain and Society's Common Good. Brian D. Ray, Peabody Journal of Education, 1532-7930, Volume 75, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 272 – 293; Knowles, J. Gary, & Muchmore, James A. (1995). Yep! We're grown-up home-school kids—and we’re doing just fine, thank you. Journal of Research on Christian Education, 4(1), 35-56; Jones, Paul and Gloeckner, Gene (2004). A study of admission officers’ perceptions of and attitudes towards homeschool students. Journal of College Admission, Special Homeschool Issue 185, 12 -21.

[vi] Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling (Perseus, 2003), p. 221

Swedish homeschoolers ask for our help

Homeschooling in Sweden has always been legal, but it is a little-used option there. However I've been contacted by individual Swedish homeschoolers and a Swedish homeschooling group in recent days because there is now serious legislation that will make homeschooling illegal in all but "extraordinary circumstances." Swedish officials have refused to publicly define what those circumstances may be. Further,  the law also affects alternative schools by forcing them to teach the national curriculum as the primary focus of their efforts, making their philosophical and methodological differences with standarized curricula inconsequential with the stroke of a pen.

To sign their petition and learn more about how you can help preserve Swedish homeschooling freedom visit:

The Swedish Association for Home Education

To read more about the situation in Sweden, there are links on the above site. You can also read this good background article about the situation in this free article from the Spring, 2009 issue Secular Homeschooling.