Quote:The Wunderlich family wanted to do what thousands of families in America do with no questions asked: educate their children at home.

But homeschooling is not allowed in Germany, and the state has relentlessly pursued the Wunderlichs and even seized their children. One morning in August 2013, 33 police officers and seven social workers showed up at their front door, threatening to open it with a battering ram. The parents cried as their children were carried screaming out of their home.
The children were later returned, but ordered to attend public school. Since then, the Wunderlichs have continued their fight in court, ultimately reaching the European Court of Human Rights.

Last week, they lost their case. The court sided with Germany, reaffirming that Germany’s ban on homeschooling does not violate the family’s rights under international law.

I represent the Wunderlich parents. The question I most commonly get from people when I explain their case is, “But what’s so bad about school?”

Quote:Parents are the natural nurturers of children. They create children, provide for them, and make a whole host of judgments about how they will raise them. Education is just one of those areas of parental judgment.

It’s hard to imagine many decisions bigger than where your child will go to school. Indeed, in my country, parents literally sell homes and move to the other side of the same street to get into a particular school’s zone in order to make the educational choice they want.

Dirk and Petra Wunderlich wanted that same freedom. For a combination of religious, philosophical, and practical reasons, they decided they wanted to educate their children at home.

And they are not alone. Millions of other parents have decided to homeschool their children, too. In fact, homeschooling is growing in many parts of the world, and statistics from the U.S. estimate that more than 2 million American children are homeschooled. This right is protected by every major human rights treaty that exists. Major documents like the European Convention on Human Rights protect the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.

Quote:Germany has agreed to be bound by these documents, and yet is one of very few countries that do not allow homeschooling, going so far in some states as to criminalize parents who try.

The German rationale is to prevent “parallel societies” from emerging. Lawyers representing the state presented this rationale to the European court without any evidence to support it as a theory.

We presented evidence to the contrary, showing that in countries with the longest history with homeschooling and the highest number of homeschoolers, the practice is tested, credible, and continues to grow.

Yet the court sided with Germany.

We should all be worried when the state overrides a parent’s decision based on the vague notion that it will be “better for society.”

Quote:In its decision last week, the European Court of Human Rights has undermined its claim to being the “conscience of Europe” and pitted parents against children. The court was set up to adjudicate disputes between individuals and the state, and yet it misframes this case as one in which the courts must mediate between parent and child: “[International law] requires that a fair balance must be struck between the interests of the child and those of the parent.”

The overt assumptions here—that parents do not have their children’s best interests at heart, and that the state knows better—should trouble any parent, whether your children are educated at home or at school.