How Changes to U.K. Homeschooling Laws Affect You
By Sun Kyu Bae |
Published June 13, 2009 |
Articles |
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Learn how some recent changes to U.K. homeschooling laws affect you!
The Rules - Examined
Now, from a rules and laws perspective, proposed rules 1 through 4 are what I would collectively call "strict" regulations. Compare these regulations with New York's homeschooling laws and you'll see similarities - see my article on Homeschooling Regulations. And despite these strict homeschooling laws, there are successful New Yorkers homeschooling today.
Rule number 5, however, deserves to be promoted to its own special category, and earns the title of "Regulation-Gone-Wild!!" - Yes, that's TWO exclamation points for double emphasis.
You see, I acknowledge the guiding principles behind these proposed regulations, "to strike the right balance between two important principles: giving parents the right to decide how and where their children should be educated and ensuring that every child gets the education they need to help them fulfil [U.K. English] their potential".
But when you place something like the "Regulation-Gone-Wild!!" on top of the other 4 "strict" regulations, well…it's kinda like dropping a 100 Lb. weight on a 20 Lb. scale. BAM! No more scale. Just broken pieces.
I'm specifically referring to the part about the local authority's power to interview children without the presence of their parents and how dangerous that can really be - children, can be made to say almost anything…even against their parents.
Now, I'm not sure whether our friends in the U.K. had this experience, but there was something here on this side of the pond called the McMartin Preschool Case in the 80's, in which the caregivers were charged with 321 counts of child molestation and abuse. The primary evidence? Testimonials from the children, who were interviewed by Children's Institute International, an anti-child abuse organization (I know you know where I'm going with this, but I'll go there anyway).
Ultimately, the jury just couldn't find any of the charged caregivers guilty since the tapings of the interviews apparently showed improper interview tactics. So, after 6 years of criminal trials, all charges were dropped. What a great way to spend those tax payer dollars!
I mean, here you have some allegations which, and I count myself as a guilty party, were assumed to be true because you had a reputable organization interviewing the children. I grew up in Los Angeles, and I remember at the time, even though I was just a six-grader, all the talk about how disgusting the caregivers were to do all those despicable acts to the children.
Can you even imagine what the caregivers were going through?
Anyway, the reason why I bring this case up is because it illustrates that children can easily be manipulated, which makes the "Rule-Gone-Wild!!" an especially onerous one. And don't forget, it was the taped interviews in the McMartin case that ultimately won the charged parties back their freedom.
At this point, I know nothing about whether the local U.K. authorities in charge of inspecting the children will be coming with recording equipment. I hope they do for the sakes of the homeschooling families.
One last point on the "Rule-Gone-Wild!!" - if you were a parent in the U.K. who sent your child to public school initially but then pulled out because the public school didn't offer what your child needed, how then, would you feel if representatives from that same school district came to your house to assess whether your child was safe and learning properly? Isn't that like a student who just flunked the driver's test determining whether your own driving habits are safe?
The thought just makes me shiver.
Ok - enough of talking just about the rules. Let's talk future outlook and what this all means for us.
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