Those who can, teach - like parents!
As a matter of principle, Liberal Democrats should support home educators in their opposition to Graham Badman’s recommendations in the Review of Elective Home Education in England. However, I fear the Party leadership will not do so. Instead, it looks at though it will be seeking to find a ‘balance’ between the rights of parents to decide for themselves how best to educate their children, and the collective welfare of children as a whole.
Why am I so concerned that the Party may side with collectivism as opposed to defending individual rights? Upon seeking clarification on the Party’s policy on home education from Cowley Street’s policy boffs, and in particular on the Badman recommendations, I was reliably informed of the need to find that balance. In short, I was told the Party is generally supportive of the Badman recommendations.
I have several problems with siding with this subjective piece of rubbish. As a libertarian, I say the Party should not be endorsing coerced collectivism at all. Sure, if a group of parents want to voluntarily come together and register their children with the State and the evil database that is ContactPoint, then let them do so. I would say they are foolish in their choice but they should be free to do so nonetheless.
If however, parents decide they want nothing to do with the State, they too should be free to exercise their rights.
Under the Badman proposals home educators will not be permitted their rights. They will be forced to register their children with their local education authority, and their children will be entered onto the ContactPoint register, and if parents’ standard or type of education doesn’t conform with that which is prescribed by the State - which most of us know to be crap - then the freedom to home educate their children will be denied them. Opposition to this is a matter of principle for all Liberal Democrats.
Of course, if a child is being abused - which, as an aside, government do-gooders have attempted to use as a justification for more regulation and control of home education - then that is another matter. No-one should be aggressed against contrary to their will. If there are victims of abuse, then the full weight of relevant laws should fall upon the aggressors.
If however a child is not receiving an ‘adequate’ education, this in itself should be no business of the State’s to resolve. Despite it being written in man-made Human Rights laws (that by the way also protect the State so should perhaps be referred to as Human and States’ Rights laws) the truth is that under natural law no-one has a right to education.
Yes, it would be nice if every single human being on this planet had access to not just a ’suitable’ education, but excellent education too; but I say this again, no-one has a ‘right’ to education. For if they had, the question is then what standard of education? Mediocre to poor? For that is the general standard delivered by the State to our children.
If people want better than the State can provide, they should be able to opt out of State provision without fear of threat and hindrance from government and its agents. They should have unrestricted freedom to choose what they believe is best for their own kids because - and this is a fundamental point - the kids belong to the parents, not to society or government!
Once bureaucrats gets involved and starts dictating the terms, quoting laws and targets, the already high standards that are achieved in most cases through home education - and indeed independent sector education - will be dragged down to State level.
I hope the Party leadership sees sense and doesn’t allow the collectivist malaise undermine home educators’ freedoms, for if it does, it may as well ditch the word ‘Liberal’ and replace it with ‘Social’.
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June 25th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Kids do not ‘belong to the parents’ any more than they belong to the state. The job of parents, society and the state is to do the best that they can for our youngest citizens until they are able to make decisions and provide for themselves.
Our daughter is not educated in the state sector, but she does receive a broad education which covers a range of academic and non-academic subjects.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:12 am
@Sara. I’d argue that kids ‘belong’ considerbaly more to parents than they ‘belong’ to the state.
This doesn’t mean parents can do what they like to their kids, but parental choices, preferences and decisions should - in virtually all circumstances - take precedence over the state’s choices, preferences and decisions.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:17 am
In large parts of inner city Britain, aspirational parents despair at the low standard of much of the state education; in particular, a lack of traditional ethos. These aspirational parents are those who make good schools. The left wing teacher’s unions, especially the NUT have never admitted that much progressive education combined with the lack of teaching ability of a significant minority of their members, have caused this educational disaster. It was Callaghan, a PM who never went to school; but who had served as a Chief Petty Officer in the RN in WW2 and Sunday School teacher raised the issue of poor standards in 1976- not the teachers and education bureaucrats.
Accusing aspirational parents of abuing their children, in order to destroy home education is akin to accusing women of witchcraft in centuries past. Many bureaucrats of the 21st century UK have the same attitude as priests of previous eras- they believe they have the right to control peoples thoughts, feelings, words and deeds; especially children.
” Give me a child until their seven and I will give you a good Catholic” said Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits; many left wing bureaucrats in education share the same attitude to thought control of our children.
Obama has raised the point that his grandmother left school at 17-18 yet received a good enough education to become a VP of bank. Obama then went on to say his gandmother’s education appear better than many graduates, infering that something had gone wrong with the ducation in the USA.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I fail to see why classic liberals would remain within the LibDems. The recent reigns of leadership have all been collectively of a social democrat ethos with few if any high-ranking dissenting voices within the party.
The LibDems education policy is purely based on cosy consensus. Selective education and home education should collectively be put in place to create true, measureable social mobility. That’s something I believe passionately in and why I had to join UKIP - and why the LibDems never even crossed my mind.
Can LibDems here make a reasonable case that such a libertarian policy would ever be considered by anyone serious amongst the LibDem movers and shakers?
June 25th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Michael,
I think there is genuine movement in the LibDems towarsd a range of more classical liberal positions (e.g. Clegg’s position on tax).
Those of a more statist inclination within the party are less influential than previously.
Much work still to do, but some progress made.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Mark, I disagree. I think within a wide range of parameters, parents should be able to have the final say. But that cannot include mistreatment. And within mistreatment I include everything from poor nutrition, to indocrination to failure to ensure a decent education.
I am very much for child focussed education - that is why my daughter is not in the state sector at secondary level. I would have preferred that she had transferred from her state primary to a local secondary, but her current school is the one that is best for her and she has enjoyed school for the first time for a long time. One of the reasons that I do not like the state sector is the fact that everyone has to reach the same targets, regardless of ability. My daughter’s real talent is Maths, but she was not supported until the end of Year 6. Now she is the top pupil in the year at a top independent school and being stretched.
However I do not believe that young people should have their lives controlled by their parents, but should be supported by society (not the state). That means a range of state schools or streams within rural schools.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:51 am
@Charlie James Callaghan did go to school. In fact the only reason that he did not go to university was that his widowed mother could not afford it. He often spoke of his disappointment in not going to university and this was something that influenced him throughout his career.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Sara - we may not be disagreeing. My worry was your original implication that teh state and parents should have the same “ownership” rights. I think parents should have more.
This doesn’t mean no role for the state (particularly over mistreatment issues) and it doesn’t mean no obligations for the parents (on feeding, housing and educating thier children).
June 25th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
[...] written a further article about the government’s threat to the autonomy of home educators for Liberal Vision. Go and have a read. Tags: home educationPosted in education, gavin webb, national | No [...]
June 25th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Michael, thanks for the comment and welcome to the blog. We seem to have attracted some UKIP-based attention following Mark’s post, which I think is a good thing - it’s nice to have a forum of LD and non-LD comment-leavers.
However, I think it’s perfectly feasible to hold classical liberal view within the LDs, who at least have a strand of classical liberalism at their core. Aside from views on the EU, I could never join UKIP due to their migration policies. As a believer in open borders, I find UKIP’s stance polar oppposite to my classical liberalism.
But in conclusion - each to their own. We’re fortunate enough to have a free choice in which parties we support, and while an occasional comparison between their ideologies can be interesting, I think it’s more valuable to debate specific policy issues.
On this issue in question, I agree with the post although like Sara did have a concern about the “belong to parents” line. I find it interesting how liberals allocate principles of personal freedom when it comes to children. There’s certainly a line of thought that children do not really have freedom and that freedom of parents is paramount. I’ve never been comfortable with this. Naturally there must be a dependency relationship between child and parents in early years, but I think it’s odd and unnatural that we deprive people of many freedoms throughout their teenage years.
June 25th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
It sounds like there’s no great differences of opinion here. This ought to be a touchstone issue for liberals. The Badman review proposes that local authorities should have the right to enter the home and interview children without the parents being present. It’s remarkable that there has been so little outcry over this trampling of a fundamental civil liberty - namely the right not to have the state search your premises without a warrant. It’s notable that someone convicted of a crime who has served their sentence cannot have their home entered by officers of the state unless a warrant is obtained. Yet here we are proposing that people who have not been convicted of anything, and are not even suspected of anything, can have their privacy invaded just because someone in a local authority feels like it.
This really isn’t about home education at all. It’s a civil liberties question. Do we want to live in a country where your home can be searched by the state “just in case”?
June 25th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Bishop Hill is right. Once home educators are suspected of crimes that they do not commit, and inspected for no reason, how long will it be before all parents are inspected ‘just in case’ they are abusing their children during the long holidays and the weekends and in the evenings and in the mornings before school? Not long, I wager.
There has been a presumption in this country that someone is innocent until proven guilty. Apparently, that is to go out of the window. And what if a child doesn’t want to answer questions posed by a largely ignorant local authority worker? Does silence means that the child has something to hide? Will the child then be removed from the care of parents to a children’s home?
Where does it all end?
In complete subjugation for the whole population of England.
Danae
http://www.threedegreesoffreedom.blogspot.com
June 25th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Gavin, what is this “natural law” of which you speak? Where is it written, and what rights does it give?
June 25th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Sara, my point was that a PM who had not entered university was the person the Labour Party who pointed out that there were glaring failures in the comprehensive education system: not teachers and education bureaucrats.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
No Charlie, don’t try to backtrack now. You said ‘It was Callaghan, a PM who never went to school’, in a thread that is about people who don’t go to school. In fact he did go to school and passed the matriculation and school certificate that would have taken him to go to university. The reason he did not go to higher education was poverty, not lack of education.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
‘Gavin, what is this “natural law” of which you speak?’
Its what libertarians consider to be the law & rights they’d be in the absence of government.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
[...] has just written something that was sent to us, so lets look at it shall we? Those who can, teach – like [...]
June 25th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I’m okay with homeschooling until the bible bashers wants too teach their kids creationist science & other oxymoron hocus-pocus bullshit. Therefore pretty evident to me there is a need for regulation.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I’m as opposed to religious child-indoctrination as anyone, but the fact remains that people do that irrespective of the schooling system.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Ziggy, I’m not sure that answers my question. Can you give me an example of such a right?
And in what sense is the absence of government ‘natural’? And why would it being natural make it desirable?
June 25th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
First they came for the home educators…then they came for the stay at home parents, then the home birthers, then the (insert minorities of choice), then the Liberal Democrats. Shame only the Nazis are going to be left.
Incidentally, why aren’t the Lib Dems supporting the Scottish model they helped bring about (albeit with significant persuasion from the SNP and the Tories)? It might even be a vote winner.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
To expand on my previous. It seems to me that violence is entirely natural, and that therefore “natural” rights wouldn’t include the right to be free from the initiation of force by others. In which case the concept is somewhat pointless.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
‘First they came for the home educators…then they came for the stay at home parents, then the home birthers, then the (insert minorities of choice), then the Liberal Democrats. Shame only the Nazis are going to be left.’
STOP BEING SO F**KING EMOTIVE & DISPORTIONATE!
We don’t live under anything approaching the third reich the British government isn’t proposing mass extermination of it opponents.
I’m really getting fed up with libertarians quoting Niemöller’s poem anytime the government does something they don’t like.
In fact I find offensive being of Jewish descent etc.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
‘Ziggy, I’m not sure that answers my question. Can you give me an example of such a right?’
I’m not a libertarian but I guess self defence would be considered a natural right as its a natural thing to want to protect your life etc.
Here’s Wthe wiki entry on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights
June 25th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Ziggy, I think Ali’s post was laced with irony.
Being of (partial) Jewish descent, I’m finely tuned to these things.
And I suspect the author may explain his intended use of “natural law” when he gets a minute.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Ziggy
Do you think then that the state should, without a warrant, have the right to enter the homes of:
a)people of religious faith (on the off-chance they are indoctrinating them)
b)home-educators in general (on the off-chance they are child abusers)
c)everyone (on the off-chance they are abusers)
d)none of the above.
It’s all very well saying that religious indoctrination is wrong, but as I’ve said, the issue here is a civil liberties one - when the state should have the right to enter someone’s home without a warrant.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Sara my point is that Callaghan, a PM who never went to universty, pointed out that there were parts of the comprehensive education syse were failing children; not teachers,education bureaucrats or the NUT. The speach was at a conference. Callaghan spotted there was problem, many in the education system denied anythig was wrong. It would apear home education is increasing because far more parents consider the LEA run schools are not good enough. It would appear most of the unions, many teachers and education bureaucrats bitterly resent parents stating they are not good enough to educate their children.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Being Jewish (and therefore also of Jewish Decent) I do not find it offensive the use of Marin Neimollers poem to disparage the German intellectual and political elite who did nothing to stop the rise of fascism.
I believe it to be as pertinant as it was then particularly as this review is also unwilling and unable to support the assertion that more home educators are ‘known’ to social services than in the general population nor let on whether this is becasue so many parents with special educational needs or kids miserable at school (bullying )are fulfilling their section 7 duty (education ACt 1996) and taking their kids home to learn .The report did not find that safeguarding issues (abuse) were founded although this was thr pretext of the entire review.
The poem has been used to highlight political apathy and the original translation is:
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not protest;
I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.
DRIP DRIP DRIP
June 25th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Home educators are a very diverse group in the same way that parents as a whole in the UK are a very diverse group. For every home educator you are likely to get a different opinion on any given subject and a different political allegiance.
One thing that New Labour and their continual hounding and discrimination towards home educators has done is turn home educators into single issue voters.
Not only that, but we are far more politicaly active than the average UK citizen and we are far more likely to turn up at the ballot box. It’s not just one or two parents’ votes either. We have partners, adult children and their partners, relatives, friends and colleagues.
It has to be said that all the political parties from big to small are being watched by our community very carefully indeed. I think it would be very difficult to find a home educator in this country right now who would even consider voting for the Labour party.
We have long memories too and as their proposals in this consultation will limit the freedoms of our children it is our children who will carry on that memory of betrayal, discrimination and over arching control of families by the state.
I would have liked to say the LibDems were onside, but it seems they are not. I recommend that at the very least the LibDems educate themselves about home education rather than listening to New Labour and press propaganda.
One thing to keep in mind is that all parents in the UK are legally responsible for their child’s education, whether that child is in a school or home educated. It is not the government or schools that has legal responsibility, hence the reason why schools aren’t continually sued.
Many home educators strongly assert that the current law and statute is fit for purpose. Perhaps you should be asking why they say this. Also ask why not one concern home educators raised about poor treatment by local authorities, or any other concern made it into Graham Badman’s report, despite there being so many who told him about such concerns.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
I am glad I found this post. I have just written to Nick Clegg on this very issue. Although I await his comments the outline of the debate is ‘when-is-a-review’, ‘not-a-review’ when the outcome was already pre-conceived by the DCSF under the guise of Ed Balls - who is well known to be hostile to all forms of Home Education. Although the NSPCC has recently and publically apologised to home educators with the mistaken inference, this apology was never given any mention in the Badman review document - although it was a key point given by Mr Balls specifying the need for an immediate report (later called review). The consultation being ‘fast tracked’ and favoured to Mr Badman (who also hates Home Education) meant that this could never be a true ‘open’ consultation but an ‘internal review’ with rewards for the right outcome. Step forward Mr Badman (made now Chairman of BECTA). Step back Mr Balls, the true instigator and author of this shoddy review. How can children be safe with a such a Politician now who shows such contempt for democracy and above all parental choice?
June 25th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
‘Marin Neimollers poem to disparage the German intellectual and political elite who did nothing to stop the rise of fascism.’
This isn’t 1930’s Germany.
We are not living under the third Reich.
The government isn’t proposing the mass execution of home schoolers.
Nor is the government proposing banning home schooling.
Its just proposing more regulation.
But as per usual libertarians are getting their panties in a bind & proving what a bunch of kooks they happen to be.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
>Nor is the government proposing banning home schooling.
>Its just proposing more regulation.But as per usual >libertarians are getting their panties in a bind & proving >what a bunch of kooks they happen to be.
Ah yes, but it’s not regulation of an industry or institution is it? It’s the bureacratic regulation of children and families to hammer every child into a New Labour shaped ‘education’ hole.
If you knew the suffering so many children, especially those with special needs, have had to endure in the state system you would not try and make this look like an over reaction.
This is our children and grandchildrens’ continued freedom in education we’re talking about.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Ziggy
The regulation will essentially ban HE for the large proportion of families who use the “unschooling” and other unstructured techniques. The proposal is to demand annual plans, something which is a nonsense for approaches which are unstructured.
And of course they want to enter the home without a warrant.
June 25th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
2If you knew the suffering so many children, especially those with special needs, have had to endure in the state system you would not try and make this look like an over reaction.’
Considering I was a child with ’special needs’ I do have some experience of the inadequacies of the state system but it doesn’t mean I think that that home schooling is necessarily the answer.
June 25th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
@ Ziggy
Yeah Libertarians look like Kooks, ’till you find yourself wanting the freedom to do something the Government wish to stop you doing. Then you suddenly realise the sense in the philosophy.
You say they don’t seek to ban HE well not completely but …the report certainly seeks to make it difficult to get “permission” to HE and it seeks to ensure that families are not free to use Autonomous Education as a method.
Glad to see a chink of light in the Lib Dems, I was shocked by their lack of response to date, having always voted for them in council and general elections, to suddenly find they are not very liberal on this issue that will have a profound impact on our family life. Still, it’s all learning isn’t it!!
June 25th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
>but it doesn’t mean I think that that home schooling is >necessarily the answer
Not for you perhaps, and not for some, but certainly for others and that’s why continued educational freedom is so important. One style, form, content or ideology of education can never be enough.
One size does not and never will fit all.
Trying to make all children fit into a school style model of education, home educated or not, is rather like trying on trousers that are too small and the sales person telling you they can get you another pair of trousers in the same size, but a different colour.
Also it’s not called home schooling in the UK, it is home education or elective home education.
Home schooling is the US term and isn’t used much in the UK except by a minority with a shared educational ideology to describe their form of home education and those very new to home ed who’ve read US based websites.
June 25th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
“Considering I was a child with ’special needs’ I do have some experience of the inadequacies of the state system but it doesn’t mean I think that that home schooling is necessarily the answer.”
No Ziggy it’s not necessarily the answer but it is a necessary and welcome escape for many. Having worked with children with special needs in all sorts of schools, I wish that more had this option, I wish their parents realised that it’s not as hard as they’d imagine and that the benefits to children and to family life are imeasurable.
The needs of some children with special needs are compounded by the school system, parents often find that many of the problems disappear when they are in a more natural and supportive learning and social environment than school.
I’ll grant it takes guts and either a bit of cash or the will to live on less but many feel the sacrifices are well worth making.
June 25th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
@Elizabeth
>Glad to see a chink of light in the Lib Dems, I was >shocked by their lack of response to date, having always >voted for them in council and general elections, to >suddenly find they are not very liberal on this issue that >will have a profound impact on our family life. Still, >it’s all learning isn’t it!!
It certainly is. My partner has always voted Lib Dem, but it looks like that may be about to change. As I said before, we’re watching these political parties like hawks.
June 25th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
‘No Ziggy it’s not necessarily the answer but it is a necessary and welcome escape for many.’
Where did I say home schooling should be banned?
June 25th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
@ziggy - one of the reasons the Nazi link keeps coming up is that it was Hitler who banned home education in Germany very clearly and specifically so that no child could escape party indoctrination. Graham Badman was even tasteless enough to site the illegality of home education in Germany in his report, as if it were a good thing, and with no reference to its unpleasant history.
Oh yes, the DCSF tells us that they don’t intend to ban home education, and you think we should just take them at their word do you? Badman’s recommendations, which have been accepted in full by Ed Balls, will allow any Local Authority to refuse ‘permission’ to home educated on any grounds they like.
People on here keep talking about who ‘owns’ children, the answer is they own themselves, they are in fact people too. Many adults tend to forget that. So the question is more about who supports their rights better, parents or the state? Who loves them, who wants the best for them, who wants them to be happy, who would lay down their life for them? Who thinks that they matter, not in a generic “Every Child Matters” way but really, them, individually?
Bishop Hill is right, this is a civil rights issue, but it also shows Labour’s anti-family agenda and asks the other parties where they stand.
The question here is, are the Lib Dems just NuLabour lite, or does the Lib stand for something?
June 25th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
<
AH SO LIKE RABBI’S THEN???
Jokes aside.
It is no laughing matter when the Laming report can set out a beautiful table of how many children are known to social servies in the uk and even add a notation that some of the categories may over lap-for example some children known to be in extremely violent households are ALSO subject to a cre order AND YET the DCSF is turing down request under exemption in the FOI Act to publish exactly the same for the Badman report.
I am not a Lib dem supporter,infact i have yet to find a party that i can vote for -however this is one issue that will turn me into a single issue voter,and it is interesting to see who is coming out against this review.
I was raised with socialist ideology and realised i was too individualistic for that to work- i wanted to have child-led breastfeeding and use reuseable nappies and the collective on kibbutz could not cater. The end of my dream the beginning of another.I have realised since that I also have quite a few views that are not at all left wing . so who knows where i am on the spectrum.all i know is that i wish to be vocal about the Badman review as my own personal ethical standards have always been in line with the quoted poem when trying to decide whether a government is acting in the best interest of its people
Badman mentioned Germany’s Law which banned home education in the opening gambit as to why the Uk is maybe too liberal compared to other EU and world countries. What he failed to mention is that it was Hitler who banned home education in Germnay in 1938 and it has never been repealed and also that there are countries with equally liberal home education policies.
At least I know where my quote came from and why.
Ziggy maybe you are in the wrong forum? If you do not like Lib -dem policies you may be of further service to other parties who agree rather than trying to change opinions of those who disagree with you by using aggressive language .
June 25th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Nobody is proposing home schooling should be banned just that it needs regulation.
As per usual libertarians think that if there is government regulation then we are living in a fascist state.
Maybe its libertarians being emotive & disporionate which gives them a kookish reputation.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
@ziggy - I think you’re missing the fundamental point here. They want to regulate how we educate our children, which is both our legal duty and an integral part of parenting. They want to regulate parenting.
They want regular access to our homes and unsupervised access to our children without a warrant or even reasonable cause. What would you call this if the word Fascist bothers you? Authoritarian? Orwellian?
June 25th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
@Tani
Maybe libertarians shouldn’t go about arrogantly assuming they’re the genuine voice of liberty.
Maybe a bunch libertarian entryists some who go about saying they’re aspiring anarcho-capitalists & others are out & out anarchists shouldn’t try to usurp the Liberal Democrat Party.
Maybe they should go off & form their own party rather then try to intellectually manipulate that somehow liberalism is in fact the road to anarchism.
I’m a Social-Liberal & the last time I looked the Liberal Democrat party was a Social-Liberal party not the f**king anarchist collective.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
‘They want regular access to our homes and unsupervised access to our children without a warrant or even reasonable cause.’
Sure that’s out of order but it doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any regulation I think you’ll find that generally libertarians are opposed to any regulation.
Basically if Daddy wanted bugger Timmy as part of his home school education they’d be plenty of libertarians who’d defend such actions.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Ziggy Encaoua Says:
June 25th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
“‘No Ziggy it’s not necessarily the answer but it is a necessary and welcome escape for many.’
Where did I say home schooling should be banned?”
Ahh sorry not acusing you of trying to ban it!!
But it needs protecting, seriously read the review it’s trying to make it pretty bloody difficult.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
In fact the other night on free Talk Live I heard Walter Block of the Von Misses Institute say that if it came to that only option to escape from starving was to have some pedo pay him to fiddle with his kid he’d take that option.
I’d rather build a society where people don’t have to consider such options.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Ziggy
What regulation do you think is required for HE? Specifically do you think then that the state should, without a warrant, have the right to enter the homes of:
a)people of religious faith (on the off-chance they are indoctrinating them)
b)home-educators in general (on the off-chance they are child abusers)
c)everyone (on the off-chance they are abusers)
d)none of the above.
It’s all very well saying that religious indoctrination is wrong, but as I’ve said, the issue here is a civil liberties one - when the state should have the right to enter someone’s home without a warrant.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
>Nobody is proposing home schooling should be banned just >that it needs regulation.
No, but it’s not that far off the mark if you know anything about home education styles and the discriminatory treatment already meeted out by local authorities.
The proposal to insist on 12 monthly plans with listed outcomes will effectively ban all forms of home education except school at home. Most forms of home education, to a greater or lesser extent, take their lead from the child and their interests. They respond to the changing needs and interests of children.
The proposed power of an LA to determine who will and will not be allowed to home educate is a massive power to hand over and plays into the hands of personal prejudices. Home educators already see a different attitude towards them by LAs depending on their social class, religion, marital status, style of home education and where they happen to live.
The proposed power for an LA to simply state that in their opinion a home educator is not satisfactory and that the child must go to school is an almost godlike power with absolutely no checks on it.
A it stands right now there is no complaints procedure for home educators dealing with local authorities. Even the most serious complaints by local groups of home educators are already ignored by those LAs who believe themselves infallibe and always right.
Currently if a local authority believe an education is not being provided they can ask for evidence that an education is taking place, if they are not satisfied they can ask for more detailed evidence from the parent and finaly if not satisfied they can apply to the court for a SAO (school attendance order). The parent at least gets a day in court to prove or disprove the LAs account.
Any serious welfare concerns can already be reported to social services in the same way as for any other family in the UK. Also if their are serious child protection concerns raised social workers can in law insist on seeing a child without their parents present.
Graham Badman’s proposal is to change this, for home educators only, into any concerns an LA may have…which is very ambiguous and which not only takes it outside of social services it takes it outside of child protection concerns as well.
Malicious referal of home educators to social services by is already a known problem for home educators. Bullying by local authorities is also a problem.
Local authorities already behave as masters of rather than servants of the people. They behave in an overbearing autocratic way and home educators are somehow being expected to accept this complete handover of all power as simply a bit of harmless regulation in the interests of their children.
This report is basicaly a remit for local authorities to really throw their weight around.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
‘They want regular access to our homes and unsupervised access to our children without a warrant or even reasonable cause.’
Sure that’s out of order
Yes it is!! completely out of order!how can you teach kids to keep themselves safe and tell them they must do as they are told and be alone with a stranger even if they feel uncomfortable about it.
Why are people who call themselves liberal not up in arm about this?
“Basically if Daddy wanted bugger Timmy as part of his home school education they’d be plenty of libertarians who’d defend such actions.”
What??? No one is saying abuse is OK no one is saying that any parent who abuses a child should be allowed to do it.
On the contrary it is those parents who protect their children and listen to their perspectives most who will be most constrained by this review that’s the irony of it.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Ohh I missed you post at 7.28 crazy hypotheticals are hardly helpful!
June 25th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Ziggy
‘I don’t think that home schooling is necessarily the answer’
I agree, Home education is not *the* answer, but simply one option among many. Let’s keep it that way.
Parents are often not aware that they are legally responsible for the education of their children, at school (state, private, day or boarding) or otherwise (this is home education).
June 25th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
‘Home education is not *the* answer, but simply one option among many. Let’s keep it that way.’
Yes I generally agree with that statement
June 25th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
‘What??? No one is saying abuse is OK no one is saying that any parent who abuses a child should be allowed to do it.’
There are some libertarians who might under the premise that if a child agrees then that’s a contract bewtween the child & parent & no business of the state.
Basically you neeed to beware that most libertarians are anti state too the point of being bigots.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
“Basically you neeed to beware that most libertarians are anti state too the point of being bigots.”
This is just name-calling.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
No its not just listen to any edition of Free Talk Live in fact listen to any libertarian podcast or read many a libertarian blog & its always government to blame no matter what & no matter government never can do any good.
That’s bigotry
June 25th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Oh let me add I’d say the same of Marxists who no matter what always blame capitalists for the troubles of the world
June 25th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Hmm. Let’s not go there now.
Tell me what your proposed regulation of HE involves.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Ziggy, for the love of God.
Libertarians do *not* state that one person should be “free” to do anything to another person. We believe in the rule of law.
eg. Raping someone is illegal, for pretty obvious reasons. Hence, to use the absurd example above, if Daddy is buggering Timmy “as part of his home education” then Daddy gets put in front of a fair, impartial court and if found guilty gets locked up.
This is, of course, completely irrelevant to the debate in question here.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
One that sustains standards of education & helps improve standards
I’m surprised that so far nobody has suggested the voucher system on this thread.
It would bring the free market into play as well as sustain standards
June 25th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
‘ We believe in the rule of law’
I think you’ll find anarcho-capitalists don’t they believe in the contractual society
June 25th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Ziggy
That’s just motherhood and apple pie.
Inspections without a warrant, yes or no?
Unschooling, yes or no?
June 25th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Sorry, that sounds a bit blunt. Imagine I said it nicer than that…
June 25th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
And one other thing - anarcho-capitalists are hardly “most libertarians” are they?
June 25th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
‘Inspections without a warrant, yes or no?’
Those who decide to home school need to agree to be inspected
June 25th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
‘anarcho-capitalists are hardly “most libertarians” are they?’
The author or the original post went on the radio a few months back & said he was I quote ‘an aspiring anarcho-capitalist’.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
This is not a very good argument Ziggy. It is very childish. The next question will be whether all parents will need to be licensed in some way and what your are ‘allocated’. Identity cards are not that very far away. It is the same argument and the loss of any parent rights is a cause for concern. Even if you are not a parent it is a worry that you will have lost another ‘option’ you thought you had - later in life.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
OK.
Now let’s step back and take a look at general principles here. Are you now saying that in general, the state should be allowed to demand entry to the home without a warrant, in order to ensure that no offences have been committed?
June 25th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
‘Now let’s step back and take a look at general principles here. Are you now saying that in general, the state should be allowed to demand entry to the home without a warrant, in order to ensure that no offences have been committed?’
No if they wish to home school they agree to some form of scutiny or inspection
June 25th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Why are homeschoolers a special case?
June 25th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
They’re not all schools are subject to inspection or should be
June 25th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Do you think that homes of preschool children should be inspected?
June 25th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Of course not
June 25th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
What’s the difference? If a parent can be neglectful of a home educated five year old, they can also be neglectful of a preschool four year old. (thanks for being so responsive by the way, I’m learning a lot from this).
June 25th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
True I think that’s why we have Child Welfare etc
Okay not always on top of their job as the Baby P incident proved.
Look not all parents are molesters or abusers in fact very few are.
Not alll parents are religious nutcases or have kooky ideas about the world.
But I do fear some parents motives as to why they want to home school.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
I don’t think child welfare have the right to demand entry to the home either. I’ve pointed out elsewhere that once a paedophile is released from gaol, the police cannot enter his home without a warrant. It’s disappointing to hear that people who HE should have fewer rights than this.
Fears about motives for HE are not relevant IHMO. There are many, many crimes and other offences that might be committed in the home and we have a tried and tested method of dealing with them. Where there are reasonable grounds for suspicion, the state can obtain a warrant.
Even religious nutcases and those with kooky ideas about the world have rights.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
I don’t think child welfare have the right to demand entry to the home either’
What if a child is being really being abused or is at serious of being so?
June 25th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Then there’s suspicion and they can go and get a warrant. (Don’t quote me on this being the way it is in practice - but it’s certainly the way it should be).
June 25th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
I’d agree with you they do need warrant
June 25th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
We’ll make a libertarian of you yet.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
If you want to drive on the roads you agree to a driving test to ensure you can drive at an adequate level
Well it should be the same for home schooling if a parent wants to home school a their child then I believe they need to prove they can do so at an adequate level
June 25th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
How are qualifications relevant to unschooling? Many HE parents talk about learning alongside their children. Is this to be outlawed?
June 25th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Its been interesting reading the comments and I’d like to make a few points.
At no point am I advocating that anyone gets away with abusing their children. As I stated in the article, abuse against one’s will is a crime - there is a victim, and the law should deal with this.
I am saying that parents have the right (because of ownership or responsibility?) to decide what is best for their children and as such, if they feel the State is not providing their children with what they need and to the standard that is acceptable to both parents and children, then the parents have the right not only to opt out of the State system, but also to have no dealings with it whatsoever.
This latter point is the more stark by the comments made that the State proposes to give itself the ‘right’ to force its way into peoples’ homes - indeed into their private domain - without reason other than they want to ensure the childrens’ welfare. To endorse State fishing exercises is illiberal.
There is also the concept - again highlighted in the comments - of being guilty until you have proven to the authorities that you are innocent of any crime they think you might commit. This in itself undermines civil liberties and merely endorses the view of ‘kooks’ like me that we are heading towards a police state.
When the people have to justify their actions to the State, and in effect fear their government, the relationship between the State and the ‘citizen’ is wrong. The reason I object to the ID Card is because my neighbours and I are meant to be the bosses in this representative democracy, and Government and the State is meant to be our servant.
ID Cards, just like attacks on home educators, show how it really is - that Government and the State believe it is our boss, and it can do what it likes when it comes to telling us how to live our lives, and what lifestyle choices we can make.
I made the comment in the article: “Sure, if a group of parents want to voluntarily come together and register their children with the State and the evil database that is ContactPoint, then let them do so. I would say they are foolish in their choice but they should be free to do so nonetheless.” . . . which has been picked to pieces by Irdial http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=1901.
I can see his point. But I don’t want to aggress upon my neighbours. I believe they should have the freedom to make the choices in life that make them most comfortable. If however as a result of their choices people with a liberty mindset are aggressed against, them we become victims and we have the right to retaliate with force, through protest, or through civil disobedience.
The point Irdial makes is a tricky one in that it highlights whether or not anyone can forgo their personal liberty and become a slave, but this is a major topic in itself - possibly another article?
My only interest here is in personal freedom and how we can work to achieving a society based more on voluntary interaction, and less on coercion and force.
Thankfully I don’t have this sickness that seems to permeate all aspect of life at the moment which is the belief that there are child molesting, murdering scumbags on every street corner or in every home.
I hold onto the faith that overall the human race - despite its flaws and mistakes - is capable of much good and that given ability to exercise their free will, individuals within this inherently flawed race will engage voluntarily with each other in peace.
To have any other mindset - particularly fear of what harm other people might do - does no-one any good.
One final point to conclude. Yes, I am an aspiring anarcho-capitalist. I believe in voluntary exchange of goods and services, and I would like to believe that if we allow individuals greater autonomy over their own lives - people empowerment if you like - that one day humanity will see no need for government as exists today, and will have discovered a voluntary way to live and work together in peace.
One has to have a dream, and I prefer this one to a future of hate, fear and oppression. But call me a kook if you like
June 25th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Home education is already regulated by statute and law. All parents are legally responsible for their child’s education whether in school or out.
The current parental responsibility is to provide an education suitable to the child’s age, aptitude, ability and any special educational needs they may have. It is a broad and inclusive responsibility and perfectly adequate to the task.
Schools are inspected because they are funded by the tax payer so have to show value for money and are also acting on parents’ behalf (who are legally responsible for their child’s education) so are also answerable to them. Home educators neither recieve, or in the most part want, any tax payers money. Home education is not a public service, it’s a private family matter.
If it comes to the attention of a local authority that education is not taking place it is the duty of the local authority to make enquiries and to take action if necessary.
This is currently a similar duty to social services in that it is not social services job to inspect every family up and down the land just in case they may be abusing their children. This finds the right balance between protecting children and upholding human rights. It upholds the right to the presumption of innocence.
The right to the presumption of innocence is a fundamental tennet of law. To dispense with it is something a government does at its peril. It is the basis of a civilised, humane society.
The review report stated it found no evidence that home educated children were at any more risk of abuse than any other section of society.
In the case of the review proposals it quite clearly calls the suspension of the presumption of innocence in relation to home educators and to replace that with regular inspection to, in essence, check for criminal activity or neglect of responsibility.
Yet there is no evidence that home education is linked with child abuse and no evidence of massive educational failure of home educated children either. The review report failed to turn up evidence of either. In fact the report appears to be mostly one person’s personal view point and very little in the way of proper research appears. Academic, peer reviewed research in support of home education is dismissed without any other supporting evidence but the report compiler’s personal feeling.
It is no accident that many many times in the report Graham Badman uses the term ‘I believe’ with very little in the way of supporting up evidence.
Many local authority personnel see home education as a personal insult to their profession. They have spent their whole careers in schools and cannot see anything else as valid. In fact they do not want to see anything else as valid. Home education is an anathema to them. Hardly a fair or equal starting point. In fact many now have a vested financial interest in compulsory inspection as education services are outsourced to private companies and staff paid per inspection.
Why do you persist in continuing to use the term home schooling when you have been told this is not the term used in the UK? I can only assume you are using it deliberately to bait those more susceptible to being wound up.
What if what if? This is the really dangerous bit. People can imagine just about anything, they can imagine terrible things and then use that imagining to call for draconion law changes.
In terms of welfare, if there is suspicion of child abuse social services can be informed and and if there are serious concerns of a child protection nature social services already have the right to see a child without parents present. That is the law as it stands which is fit for purpose and no changes are required.
It may interest those who are not home educators to know that the one thing home educators experience above and beyond that most parents experience is high visibility within their communities.
A family with children at home during the day attracts attention from neighbours and many others. Simply being our and about with children during the day can lead to questioning from checkout staff in Sainsbury’s, Librarian, swimming pool attendants and security staff.
We suffer greater scrutiny and sometimes prejudice from health professionals, many parents have experienced appointments times being wasted being questioned about their home education rather than the professional attending to the health needs of the child.
I myself have answered questions many times when shopping in Sainsburys and even found myself answering question about home education from a delivery driver who had knocked on my door to ask if I’d take a parcel for my neighbour.
All this proposed new reppressive regulation of home education will do is take money away from essential services for children, as their is not a bottomless pot of money, and when looking for an abused child is like looking for a needle in a haystack it will make that haystack very much bigger.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
>Well it should be the same for home schooling if a parent >wants to home school a their child then I believe they >need to prove they can do so at an adequate level
I have only ‘O’ levels. My older child, home educated from the age of seven, is at University. We are a low income, inner city, working class family living in social housing.
The secondary school my older child would have attended was a failing school now closed. My child is not only dyslexic, but has dyscalculia, short term memory, attention and auditory processing problems.
I’m fairly certain that if my child had attended that school her aspirations would have been low and she would have been written off. It was not qualifications as such that enabled her to escape what would have been a burger flipping future had she gone to school. It was her self confidence and the concept that even if she failed at one thing she could try again or succeed at something else that enabled her to gain a place at University.
Under Ziggy’s rules we would not have been allowed to home educated as we home educated at first eclecticly and later autonomously.
It’s a long journey to take to understand autonomous home education. I’ve been home educating for 14 years and I’m still learning. If someone has no interest in understanding autonomous home education then to them it will always look like educational failure as it often looks nothing like school.
Education is a much broader church than school. School is just one branch of many. Graham Badman sought in his report to regulate home education in part because he understands nothing outside of school. He has spent almost his entire life submerged in schooling and local government culture.
He was handpicked because he was never going to be impartial. He is an educational bureacrat and was tasked to break home education down into a series of easily tickable boxes. Unfortunately home education is as diverse as children are and children are not easily confined in boxes unless they are forced into them.
It’s got nothing to do with welfare or education achievement. It’s got everything to do with ease of bureacracy and LAs feeling comfortable because they can say they ticked some boxes rather than actually engaging with something and trying to understand it.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
‘being guilty until you have proven to the authorities that you are innocent of any crime they think you might commit. This in itself undermines civil liberties and merely endorses the view of ‘kooks’ like me that we are heading towards a police state.’
Utter garbage
Because if that were the case then things like driving licences & medical practice licences would undermine civil liberties
‘To have any other mindset - particularly fear of what harm other people might do - does no-one any good.’
Unless people have done serious harm to you then you’d understand
as for
‘hold onto the faith that overall the human race - despite its flaws and mistakes - is capable of much good and that given ability to exercise their free will, individuals within this inherently flawed race will engage voluntarily with each other in peace.’
RFLMAO
There have been something like 12 years of peace where there’s been no war at all in this world since the birth of Jesus.
thats 12 years in over 2000
June 26th, 2009 at 7:16 am
‘being guilty until you have proven to the authorities that you are innocent of any crime they think you might commit. This in itself undermines civil liberties and merely endorses the view of “kooks” like me that we are heading towards a police state.
“Utter garbage. . . Because if that were the case then things like driving licences & medical practice licences would undermine civil liberties”
In other words, growing up is like practising medicine. Or driving.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Gavin
“I made the comment in the article: “Sure, if a group of parents want to voluntarily come together and register their children with the State and the evil database that is ContactPoint, then let them do so. I would say they are foolish in their choice but they should be free to do so nonetheless.” . . . which has been picked to pieces by Irdial http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=1901.
I can see his point. But I don’t want to aggress upon my neighbours. I believe they should have the freedom to make the choices in life that make them most comfortable. If however as a result of their choices people with a liberty mindset are aggressed against, them we become victims and we have the right to retaliate with force, through protest, or through civil disobedience.”
Yeah if there are parents out there who really want the joined up information services such as those provided by Contact point then they should be free to ask for them and use them, if they think they are safe. Some would argue though that such data bases are not entirely unsafe, they may be right!
I know no parent who would ask for such a service though, none whatsoever! Every parent I know would prefer to be the person who shares information about their child, no one in their right mind would think it a good idea to leave it up to a government database that could be accessed by all sorts of people.
There may be some people who think it’s a good idea for other people’s children but none who actually think it’d benefit their own.
Anyway thanks for what you are doing, this freedom to learn without interference from bureaucrats is important.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:04 am
If Contact Point is safe then it should be safe enough to store the information of the children of MPs and celebrities. As it is their children won’t be on it.
It also begs the question, as Contact Point will have the educational setting of all children on it anyway why the need for a separate register of home educated children?
As I said before. The report recommendations are a bureacratic exercise, created by and for local authority bureacrats for the ease of bureacracy with a little bit of arse covering by tick box built in. It has very little to do with the welfare of home educated children as the report is quite clear that home educated children are no more at risk than any other.
So a massive database which is going to be as leaky as hell and is already being called the paedophiles address book. Another tier of local government to police parents going about their lawful business ‘just in case’ they might be a wrong un, along with another database listing home educating families. All this while essential childrens services for truly vunerable children are creaking under the strain.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:55 am
@ziggy “If you want to drive on the roads you agree to a driving test to ensure you can drive at an adequate level”
A far more apt comparison would be to suggest that you need qualifications to cook your own meals at home, that you should be licensed and inspected.
“Well it should be the same for home schooling if a parent wants to home school a their child then I believe they need to prove they can do so at an adequate level”
No. As has been pointed out repeatedly parents are the ones legally responsible, they doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone unless there is a very good reason to believe that they are seriously failing in their duties.
Take the cooking analogy. If a child presents at their GP with signs of malnutrition then it is reasonable to investigate what they are being fed. It is NOT reasonable to demand menu plans and kitchen visit for EVERY family in the country ‘just in case’ and woe betide anyone caught with a packet of crisps in the cupboard!
I understand, if you’ve been to school it is very, VERY hard to get your head around the idea that school is not the same as education. That, as has also been pointed out to you, is why we do not call it Home Schooling in this country. A lot of us don’t SCHOOL our children.
Badman decided to ignore all the research showing superior outcomes for home educated children because it undermines his contention that we need monitoring to improve standards. We don’t.
June 26th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I’m always astounded at people’s faith in the talisman of teacher training qualifications. Aside from those who do a full B Ed the rest have about 10 months training in total and almost no training in special needs.
We have a fair few friends who fell into teaching. They got a degree, never really settled into anything so decided to go into teaching as it’s regular work with good holidays. Some just do supply teaching. Hardly the superior beings that some people hold them up to be. I think that gifting teachers with superior powers is dangerous. It’s not good for teachers or children.
In reality it still falls down to the individual. Some teachers are good at teaching and others are terrible. A lot of the really good ones would be good without having the piece of paper that says they are qualified. The truly awful ones are still awful despite having the piece of paper saying they are qualified to teach and they are out there with their piece of paper teaching children right now.
Having to teach a class of 30 children or more children of mixed ability and some with special needs is very different indeed to home education. An awful lot of teaching is about crowd control, it has to be. What you can do at home simply would not work in a classroom because of numbers and the variation in needs.
Yet what would not work in a classroom, but is practiced at home, is somehow seen as bad/wrong because it would not work in a classroom. Teaching is a method of education it is not the only method of education.
I also think you completely missed the point that schools are answerable to tax payers and parents which is why they are regulated. Also I don’t see how a stranger who does not know a child at all somehow is supposed to have such superior knowledge of that child that they can decided their future.
Parents are the experts on their children and when it comes to special needs this counts double. Home educators are the experts on home education. The government and local authorities are the amateurs, yet claim superior knowledge of something they have no experience of and often no real interest in aside from exercising control over it.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I agree with the above comment entirely. The whole concept of ‘experts’ employed by the state is one that has led to legal challenges which have found to be at odds with the facts later. The Badman Review has a lot of presumptions and opinions posed as facts to support the recommendations. The more exhaustive past educational reviews are dropped to suit the current (DCSF) administration secretary. Educational experts are a contradiction in terms. Parents do know best.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
‘I understand, if you’ve been to school it is very, VERY hard to get your head around the idea that school is not the same as education.’
No I know the difference one learns thorough out their life well other then libertarians (& other extremists} who get so entrenched in dogma & can’t understand that not everybody wants to live in Libertarianland.
Maybe libertarians should take on board the concerns people have rather then accuse them for being fascists & orther for having legitimate concerns.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
@ziggy - OK we get it, you can’t stand libertarians. But back to the point.
What concerns do you think I should be ‘taking on board’? The ‘concern’ that I might be a child abuser? That I might not be bothering to educate my child?
If someone has SPECIFIC concerns then I will of course deal with those concerns through the appropriate channels.
If people who haven’t even passed me in the street have generalised ‘concerns’ based on nothing more than my decision to home educate and their ignorance and prejudice, well {shrugs} what do you expect me to say? I don’t accept that such concerns are legitimate.
I’m sure there are people who are ‘concerned’ that all Muslims are terrorists, that all gays are paedophiles, but you don’t see anyone, at least anyone half way sane and in a position of power, suggesting the kind of across the board violation of their civil rights that I’m being asked to put up with.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
‘What concerns do you think I should be ‘taking on board’? The ‘concern’ that I might be a child abuser? That I might not be bothering to educate my child?’
I’ve forgotten about something but Richard Garner reminded me home schooled kids do take exams & I guess that is the means of judging standards
June 26th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
“I’ve forgotten about something but Richard Garner reminded me home schooled kids do take exams & I guess that is the means of judging standards”
Ziggy
Tests are fine for a purpose e.g. driving test, Uni exams to show comptence, A levels possibly to show you have the knowledge to move to your next chosen stage in life, tests to check competency of plumbers, doctors etc
The relentless tests which are supposed to check standards in schools are not testing the teachers skill they are testing the ability of the kids to pass tests. They are of no other use.
We have no tests to check the standards of parents teaching kids to walk or talk, specialists only look at these if something is wrong. Learning is natural, testing can interfere with it and so should be kept to a minimum. Testing should be justified. It need only be done if there is a concern that might be helped by the knowledge gained from assessment e.g. testing eyesight if reading is a problem or if there is a need for the person to prove knowledge e.g. driving test etc.
If those who use schools think testing is crucial then fine, but many of those who HE think that much testing is pointless and damaging.
Ziggy our world is rich with learning opportunities, people love to learn unless they are forced to (then they begin to hate it). Testing is only necessary to aid learning if a coercive system of educaiton is used. In a non-coercive system of learning testing is only needed to show competence to employers etc as described above. In a non-coercive system the learning happens naturaly without the need for measurement to propel it. In fact any attempt at measurement, particularly standardised measurement, would fail to provide a picture of the true depth and breath of the learning.
Ziggy you should meet some HE families to see how it works, it’s very different from school. That’s why lovely as the word Homeschooling sounds we prefer to call it Home Education. Though I personally long for a day when we remember that we learn like we breathe and there is no need to call education anything, it is simply what free people choose to spend their lives doing, it’s an integral part of being human.
This is shocking stuff to experts in education who cannot imagine that people will learn without imposed teaching.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:47 am
“I’ve forgotten about something but Richard Garner reminded me home schooled kids do take exams & I guess that is the means of judging standards”
Actually, the only test either of mine (15 and 10) has ever taken was the amateur radio license exam.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Teacher can be treated like a parent but they can’t become parents
June 27th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Ziggy
Given the interest you are taking in Home Education the following links might be useful to you.
http://childrenarepeople.blogspot.com/2009/04/comparative-thoughts-about-school-and.html
http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.com/2009/06/review-report.html
http://pjrothermel.com/phd/Home.htm
Research on HE
http://daretoknowblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-from-guardian.html
http://daretoknowblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/view-of-schooling-parent.html
http://childrenarepeople.blogspot.com/2009/05/thoughts-about-state-surveillance-of.html
http://www.infed.org/biblio/home-education.htm
June 27th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Ziggy
Given your interest in Home Education and your efforts to reduce risk of chilren not being provided with an adequate education the followign links might be useful:
http://www.infed.org/biblio/home-education.htm
http://childrenarepeople.blogspot.com/2009/04/comparative-thoughts-about-school-and.html
http://www.home-education.org.uk/research/review.htm
August 9th, 2009 at 10:26 am
This letter has recently been sent to a HE parent by David Laws
Dear xx
Thank you for your recent letter and attendance at my various surgeries.
You raise a number of questions and I answer below
1) As I have made extremely clear, my primary concern has nothing whatsoever to do with child abuse. I simply think that there needs to be a sensible system of oversight to ensure that all children-those that are being educated in school and those that are being educated at home-have a reasonable quality of education.
2) Discussing what I mean by ‘light touch’, what I mean by this is that any oversight should be as un-intrusive as possible, and should focus simply on ensuring that there is a basic minimum standard of education which is being delivered-rather than seeking to intervene and meddle and impose the government’s own basic educational model by the back door.
3) I certainly think that there needs to be suitable training and guidance for local authority staff so that they strike the right balance between the various objectives which I set out above. There also needs to be proper funding to support those young people who are being home educated when they need other support for example with examinations.
4) I do not think I was conflating/confusing the issue of absence or truanting with EHE. But it is quite possible for there to be different motivations behind parents desire to home educate and decent system of oversight needs to recognise this and ensure that HE is a positive decision and is not simply a negative decision about existing local schools.
5) You ask whether I believe there should be a system of oversight even if there was only one or a small number of children ever found to be suffering from not having a suitable education. Frankly I do not thinking any of us know precisely what quality of home education is that is being received, therefore I do not think that there should be a system of oversight which is capable of taking into account the needs of all children. As I have mentioned on a number of occasions before, we still inspect schools even although there is no evidence that many schools are providing a poor education. However, inspection is usually proportionate to any evidence that there is about legitimate concerns-and this should be clearly the case with home education as well.
6) As far as statistics used on home educated are concerned, if you believe that the existing statistics used by Badman Review are inaccurate or misleading then I would strongly suggest that you write to the Chair of the Department of Children Schools and Families select committee, bringing attention to the statistics that you believe are correct. The chairman of the committee is Barry Sheerman, MP, and you can write to him at the House of Commons, London SW1A0AA
With best wishes
Yours sincerely,
David Laws MP
Lib Dem Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families
August 9th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I’ve seen that letter circulated on a lot of home education lists. What David Laws seems not to understand is that it is parents that are legally responsible for their childrens’ education not schools.
Schools are answerable to the tax payer as they receive funds and parents and it is parents who have ultimate legal responsibility. It is for this reason that schools are inspected.
The general concensus of opinion, after the circulation of this letter, is that home educators, their supporters and families, are about as likely to vote Lib Dem as hell freezing over. Certainly I would dissuade anyone I know from voting for them.
It’s a shame as some individual Lib Dem MPs have been found to be supportive and have fully grasped the issues, but it seems the party as a whole is not a friend of home education.
For MPs and other interested parties AHEd (Action for Home Education) has prepared a briefing paper regarding home education, the review, issues and the law as it stands.
http://ahed.pbworks.com/BriefingPaperHEReview
August 9th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
“The general concensus of opinion, after the circulation of this letter, is that home educators, their supporters and families, are about as likely to vote Lib Dem as hell freezing over.”
Indeed I have voted for them in ignorance for years, assuming that they were indeed liberal.
Still that was my misunderstanding. It takes an erosion of our liberty for some of us to understand what liberal really means.
This home education sure teaches us parents a great deal.
August 9th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
I agree the Lib Dem party line is out of step with public sentiment let alone HE parents. What David laws states may be the party line but if Badman ‘believes’ (as he states 17 times in his Badman Review) and he may well have misread the national statistics to both the CoE and the NSPCC. The NSPCC has just been critcised (August 2009) for using 10 year old statistics by the ASA (advertising Standards Association) The CofE and NSPCC have both apologised by Letter (July 2009)about the reports attributed to HE in the Press about potential ‘parental abuse’from DCSF and NSPCC. There is also the delicate matter of ‘Rewards’for favourable Reviews. Badman was awarded a CBE In January 2009 (at the start of the Review) and been made a chair of BECTA in July 2009 (at the end of the review). A UN ambassador in August 2009 mentioned (by Ed Balls) as being awarded a’Sir’ in the honours list in ther new year. The conduct of the Review is bought into question by the HM Parliamentary Select Committee this September and the entire bill is being rushed through at the end of an unpopular Government notorious for ‘dodgy dossiers’. You have the cheek to write to us about ‘quality of Education’ equality when we know that we have acted because of the lack of local ‘quality education’. The ‘Every Child Matters’ bill is full of presumption that YOU should be worried about. This stance is very worrying for Liberal party supporters. You are supporting an invasion of privacy not seen since the last war. It will not ’safeguard children’ but turn children into ‘victims’ and ‘liabilities’. It is discrimination of a most insidious creeping nature that bankrupts moral and legal parental responbibilty to perverts in the DCSF.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
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