HomeSchooler.org.uk

If you plough through it, and the links, it seems pretty institutional... but good background...

Reprinted from Roger's letter with permission. First shared on the Badman Review Action Group Yahoo List:

The presumption of innocence has collapsed and we are now required in all sorts of ways to prove to the state that we are behaving in ways they require. The Badman report this week on home education is one such case. Home Educators, a peaceable, law-abiding group have been smeared by a government department (Ed Balls' DCSF) prior to the release of a predetermined report that treats innocent parents as criminals. It assumes guilt unless parents allow inspectors into their homes and, grotesquely, permit them then to remove their children for 'questioning.'

The assumption (based on the totally unsubstantiated smear that Home Educators are 'potential abusers') is that in the exercise of our democratic rights we must submit to state control and concede our ancient civil liberties. It is us today. Tomorrow it will be the family of any carer who looks after a young or vulnerable member. You have an under 5/aged parent/sick brother for whom you are caring? How can we, the omniscient state know that you are not abusing them? We must enter your homes, even if there is not the slightest suspicion of wrongdoing, and inspect. Indeed, your wrongdoing is precisely that you have not conformed to our statist conception of what is right and good. You are guilty because you wish to be different. You are guilty because you wish to be free.
This is the ID card mindset. We are becoming conscripts of an obsessive, paranoid state.

"We used to think that Communism would arrive in this country on the bayonets of Soviet soldiers, if it came at all. We never realised that it would instead materialise amid our freedom and prosperity, step by tiny step, in the form of bureaucratic interference and political correctness.
As one of the few British people who has actually lived in a Communist country (Moscow in the early Nineties, since you ask), I know better than most what such societies feel like, and how they work. And in the past two weeks I have seen several developments in Britain which seem strangely familiar..."

Government site aimed at children. Mentions right to privacy...

Article 16: Children have the right to privacy. The law should protect them from attacks against their way of life, their good name, their families and their homes.

"The Badman Review into Home Education, out today, has been slammed by UKIP as a heavyhanded Government attempt to tell parents how their children should be taught

'The release of the Badman Review into Home Education today is yet another example of this government's controlling, heavy handed approach to society,' said UKIP chairman Paul Nuttall MEP...."

"From the outset, the government has emphasised that 'There are no plans to change parents' well established rights to educate their children at home'. But home educators are concerned that the government is manipulating current anxiety over child abuse to intrude further into the sphere of home education when it has no legal right to do so..."

"I have to say, I was shocked by Badman's report and recommendations. They really couldn't have been much worse, unless he had advocated outlawing home education. All in good time. As regular readers will be aware, I do not recognise the legitimacy of this review - it was founded on false allegations, spin and predetermined outcomes. Badman himself said as much when he asserted the status quo would not remain..."

"Imagine a world where...

All vegetarians* are required to register with their local authorities, and inform the authorities whenever they move house.
Vegetarians must be visited annually by an inspector (usually a former employee of the meat industry), who will assess their dietary plans for the coming year against government standards.
Inspectors have the right to interview children in vegetarian families, without their parents present, in order to find out whether the children are safe and well, and ask them if they are happy to be living on a vegetarian diet...."

"The Libertarian Alliance today denounces Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in the British Government, for taking the first steps towards what will be the outlawing of home education.

[Mr Balls has accepted a report recommending that all home educating families in England will have to register annually and demonstrate they are providing a suitable education. It further recommends that children should be forced into state schools if parents do not meet certain standards set by the education bureaucrats. See here for further information: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2009_0105 ..."

"The Times has published this piece on the complete insanity that has taken over the state schools:

Edu-babble is turning schoolchildren into ‘customers’

Performativity is forcing curriculum deliverers to focus on desired outputs among customers in managed learning environments...."