Full fisk of the appallingly biased
Times article:
"Parents who home educate their children will be inspected by council officials and ordered to send them to school if standards are not met, a Government review said today."
Firstly: there is currently no such thing as universal "standards" of education. It is entirely open to debate, and with good reason. if we are to agree that it is up to the state and not the parent to define what is a suitable standard of education against which to measure - something which is by no means easy, given that children and their parents are unique individuals and not homogeneous clones - then this is something that requires serious consitutional consideration prior to legislative reform.
Secondly: is the state therefore to be held legally responsible for the education of all children? Including the thousands it fails every year in state schools and residential care facilities? Parents taking schools to court because their child is truanting? School leavers suing because they are unable to read and write? That would certainly be a costly role to adopt. Carlotta has more on this subject here.
"England has one of the most liberal approaches to home education in the developed world. It is banned in Germany, and most European countries require registration."
Uh, liberty is a good thing and something we were once proud of. It encourages personal responsibility and individual morality - concepts which are rare in today's take-what-you-can and pass-the-buck communities. Liberty is not the hallmark of an uncivilised or savage society.
Hitler was responsible for banning home education in Germany, in order to control the minds and secure the hearts of all citizens. These laws have not been repealed. This is not something to be proud of or to aspire to.
Registration is the first step towards outlawing the freedom to home educate. Registration alone achieves nothing. Inspection is required to effect change. Inspection requires externally defined standards. Externally defined standards require a leve lof homogeneity. Homogeneity is anathema to individuality. Thus, individuals will be coerced into compliance, or punished for resisting and prevented from continuing to resist. Eventually, there is no point in choosing home education, as its very appeal - freedom - is lost.
"The reforms are necessary because twice as many home educated children are known to social services as the normal school-aged population under current arrangements, the report revealed."
Where is the evidence for this? Ali says:
"AHEd researched this with individual LAs prior to the report's publication and got zero stats for children on the At Risk register, with perhaps the exception of one or two which included no follow (possible vexatious?) "referrals" in their responses. Furthermore, the Scottish Govt has already stated that there is no evidence of a correlation between HE and abuse, so what can possibly explain the difference south of the border?"
Returning to the Times:
"Graham Badman, a former director of children’s services, conducted the review for the Department for Children, Schools and Families."
He also conducted the review into Baby Peter's death and, rather than advocating that local authorities simply TOOK ACTION to protect children they KNEW to be at risk, using the powers THEY ALREADY HAD at their disposal, he proposed that professionals should trust parents less, put their fears of error to one side, and act swiftly if there is even the slightest doubt about a child. Because it is preferable for innocent children to be removed into care than for one to experience the harm of abuse.
"His report painted a picture of a lack of regulation, with no one able to calculate how many children are not in school."
A picture has certainly been painted, à la Dorian Gray. But in the attic, we can see the horrible truth: Each of the children who has died recently at the hands of their parents and carers was well known to the authorities precisely because of their extreme vulnerability. Their educational status was irrelevant. They were well known, often their abuse was well known, and they still died. They were let down by their families, their communities and the authorities.
It said: “It is a cause of concern that, although approximately 20,000 home educated children are known to local authorities, estimates vary as to the real number which could be in excess of 80,000."
There may well be children who are unknown to the authorities, often because their parents have been concerned all along that something like this might eventually happen. It looks as though they weren't part of the tinfoil hat wearing brigade after all. The parents of those children very much have their best interests at heart and I do not blame them for their reticence one jot. The parents who have made themselves known to local authorities now have much to fear.
There might possibly be a child under the stairs somewhere, and if so that is heartbreaking. It happened in Austria. Hold on - Austria? Part of "developed" Europe? Surely not! But such a theoretical hypothesis is still no justification for implementing a totalitarian regime predicated on the assumption of guilt. Perhaps we have to accept that we cannot achieve 100% protection of 100% of children, 100% of the time.
“I am not persuaded that under the current regulatory regime, that there is a correct balance between the rights of the parents and the rights of the child - either to an appropriate education or to be safe from harm.”
Is Badman persuaded that children in the system - that is, the vast majority of children in this country - have an appropriate education and are safe from harm under the current regulatory system? And if not, is that not a more sensible place to start?
Almost always, the natural rights of the child and those of the of the parent are not at odds, by virtue of the fact that most parents love their children and want the very best for them - would die for them, in fact - and such depth of feeling is something the state can never replicate.
What Badman has done is disregard the freedom of families to live as they choose within the law, by giving children additional rights, rights which can only sit at odds with those of parents, rights that only a third party - the state - can minister to. This is real power gathering, manipulation and control.
There are two issues at stake here:
- The requirement to prove innocence in order to parent (in relation to clear-cut issues of actual harm as defined in law)
- The requirement to prove innocence in order to parent (in relation to the very subjective, personal choice issues of education and general welfare that are only broadly dealt with in law for this very reason)
Aside from the serious constitutional issues of the presumption of guilt, this last point is truly worrying - and yet it is something that Badman is nevertheless pushing for clarification on. This will not end well for any family that falls outside of an increasingly narrow (and ever-changing) definition of "normal".
"The review found evidence of a small number of extreme cases, where home educated children had suffered harm because concerns were not picked up."
As there are in any community. Such is the varied nature of humanity. Any concept of ending child abuse, "full stop", is an impossible dream. Attempting to achieve this can only be through disproportionate, draconian means that will lead to misery and actual harm for each and every family.
"Mr Badman’s recommendations, which were accepted in full by the Government, included parents having to submit statements of what they intend to teach over the coming year."
Of course they were accepted by this most dreadful and overbearing of governments. They certainly had sufficient input into it by virtue of the fake charities, vile quangos etc. that were consulted in the process, all jockeying for position to be service providers of choice, in line to suck up increasing amounts of taxpayers'money.
This recommendation poses a particular problem for those children who learn autonomously, as Gill explains here. And whilst the rest of the WORLD can see how effective it can be, from Dudley to New Delhi, this profoundly anti-authoritarian approach to learning is of course doubted by Badman - who is seeking a separate review for this purpose (£££s).
"He added: 'Properly trained local authority officials should have the right of access to the home, following a minimum two-week notification to the parents.'"
I am certain that local authority officials should be properly trained already, but many ARE NOT. And whilst the idea of unannounced access visits are simply beyond the pale, what is then the point of a two-week notification? Families would have ample chance to fudge a work portfolio or hide their shackles and pentagrams.
“They will check that the child is making progress against their learning statement. They will also have the right to speak to the child, to ensure they are safe and well.”
"Progress against their learning statement?" Big problems to unpick here, as discussed. "Right to speak to the child"? This sounds like it has more to do with officials' rights than children's rights. And we know how certain offficials take advantage of their positions of power.
"He also said that local authorities should be able to refuse parents the right to home educate, if there were concerns about the children’s safety or if they were not receiving a good enough education. These could be enforceable with court orders."
If there were (real) concerns about the child's safety, one hopes that the authorities would do something more than simply prevent the child's parents from home educating.
In order to determine what a "good-enough" education is, we are back to needing that serious discussion before there's any talk of court orders, especially if Badman is now doubting a well established if unconventional method of learning.
"Mr Badman found some parents were in favour of more regulation, while others were 'fiercely defensive' of their rights."
Any parents who are in favour of more regulation, over and above the significant framework of legislation that exists (but is not always used effectively) to protect children are either ignorant of reality or sorely mistaken.
Mr Badman will find that parents are quite naturally fiercely defensive of any attempts to threaten the security and sovereignty of their children and families. He should be more concerned with the people who welcome endless support, intervention, help and assistance from the state in order to parent.
"He quoted one parent who opposed inspection because: 'No one from the local authority would in my opinion be on my child’s intellectual level, or they wouldn’t be working for the local authority.'"
I assume that this quote has been included to encourage other parents to see home educators as arrogant or deliberately "other". But this parent has a point. The only intellectually rigourous people working in local government are typically under great stress or approaching breaking point because they know they are faced with an impossible task which grows by the day. Most of the rest are either incompetent, immoral or both.
"Delyth Morgan, the Children’s Minister, said she accepted in full the “proportionate and reasonable” recommendations."
That is because she has consistently proved herself to be a moron who requires no further comment.
"She said: 'The fact is most developed countries require registration to home educate, with the majority also having a process of systematic monitoring. It’s only right we afford our own children and young people the same checks and balances.'"
Apart from perhaps Hitler Youth, Hitler Youth, Hitler Youth.
