A recent British report calls for the government takeover of home schooling.
The report was released in June 2009 by Graham Badman, who was commissioned to conduct the report by the Children's Secretary of Britain -- England's version of the U.S. Department of Education. Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), says the report is bad news for Britain. "It would require all home schoolers to have to register with the equivalent of the federal government here [in the U.S.]," he says. "Secondly, they would have to be available for home visits...from government officials to separate them and ask them questions about their home schooling, whether they like it, etc." Smith is even more troubled by another aspect of the report: all home-school curriculum would be controlled by the state. "In other words, homeschoolers would not be able to choose their own curriculum," he explains. "These are some of the recommendations that have the home schoolers in Great Britain and around the world concerned." Smith says Badman used Articles 12 and 29 from the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child Treaty to justify the report. HSLDA founder Mike Farris is concerned that the same U.N. treaty could be used to the same ends in the United States. Another group Farris started, ParentalRights.org, is calling for concerned parents and individuals to contact their senators and urge them to support a recently introduced parental rights bill.
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