The European Court held correctly when the German ban was brought to it that the plaintiffs were the children, not the parents. Personally I've always found it disconcerting when people say kids are their property or that society has no interest in them.
I'm not quite sure I follow. These same parents went to the European Court - which one, BTW, the EHCR or the ECJ? - to try to enforce their right to homeschool their children?
Personally, I've found it disconcerting when people follow up a statement like that with "...and therefore they're government property."
I don't think that's what Tsusaka said. The government has a legitimate interest that children are educated, so that they can become productive members of society. Just like the government has a legitimate interest that children are looked after by their parents - in case of neglect, Child Services steps in, isn't it? Likewise, in case parents fail to send their children to school, the school inspection steps in.
I don't know about the legal minutia the European Court was getting at, but they are not correct if they think the parents have no interest in the raising of their children, and therefore, yes, parents are plaintiffs here. It's patently ridiculous to suggest a parent has no standing to argue about how their children are schooled.
You have a good point there. Did the court throw out the case on the inadmissibility of the plaintiffs, or did they just remark it?
Indeed, I'd guess that's probably part of what's behind this in the US. There's a very strong anti-indoctrination feeling in the US, with respect to the government and mandates in education. Normally the government doesn't get involved unless a home schooler is doing a really, really crappy (read: nonexistent) job of teaching. And even then I can't recall any cases offhand.
Europeans tend to have less mistrust in government in general, and I guess that's a big part of the difference. Homeschooling is much less widespread over here. Germany seems to be particularly restrictive, having compulsory school attendance with only few exceptions to be freed from that. And I guess that, when parents apply for such an exception, they have to draw up an education plan etc. for the school inspection (and rightly so, I think).
Besides the education angle, there is a second reason for being restrictive on homeschooling: that kids who are homeschooled miss out on a large part of contact with other kids, and thus miss out on a part of their socialization.
The articles in the Guardian and the Sydney Morning Herald only gave the parents' perspective. I found
this article (in German) in the taz, a German left/alternative newspaper. It quotes a spokesperson from the Baden Wurttemberg Ministry of Culture (which is responsible for education), saying they suggested the parents to send their kids to a private school or even to found a private school themselves, before they went the legal way.
Having said that, I don't defend what these people may want to teach, as content, per se. But the anti-indoctrination by-force-of-government thing outweighs that.
I can see various reasons for homeschooling, but not so much religion. Calling public education "doctrination by the government" is quite over the top. It's not that there are various alternative schools available, in Holland, in Germany, in any country I guess. In fact, various alternative education forms, such as Waldorf schools and Jenaplan schools originate in Germany.
