Wed 3 Oct 2007
The Problems with Calls for Tougher Home Education Guidelines
Posted by admin under Articles, England, Local News, The NEWS
Take Cheshire County Council by way of an example. Cheshire CC has issued a press release which comes with the tagline:
"Cheshire Calls For Tougher Guidelines Concerning Home Education"
Stop. Go no further than that just now, for there’s already a problem. The thing is, guidelines do have to respect the law and if you go any tougher than the current draft guidelines, the law will have to be changed to reflect this.
OK, that’s the first howler, (more on which below). The second one is that members of Cheshire County Council clearly haven’t asked themselves whether they really do want such changes in law, for if they had, they wouldn’t be asking for tougher guidelines. Doh dum.
They blunder on:
More of this article by Carlotta
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November 7th, 2007 at 21:06
LOCAL AUTHORITIES WIDE OPEN TO LITIGATION IF CHESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL GET THEIR WAY, says AHEd:
MEDIA INFORMATION FROM ACTION FOR HOME EDUCATION (AHEd)
Thursday 18th October 2007
AHEd (1) members have accused Cheshire County Council of discrimination against home educators because of the council’s apparent attempt to use government guidelines as an opportunity to modify the law in line with their prejudice rather than clarify it, following calls for tougher guidelines on home education including compulsory registration of all home-educated children. (2)
The home education action group AHEd has written (3) to Shirley Harris of Cheshire County Council and the Cheshire Children’s Services asking if they have misunderstood the current legal position or are in fact calling for a change in legislation. “What they may not realise,” says Barbara Stark, spokesperson for AHEd, “is that, apart from the moral aspect of removing the right to parent one’s own child, the changes for which they are calling would leave Local authorities wide open to mass litigation from disgruntled parents unhappy with the provision in some of the country’s failing schools including those in Cheshire.”
“Furthermore, in calling for a separate compulsory registration system for home educators, Ms Harris, appears to be demonstrating a lack of faith in the efficacy of ContactPoint, the children’s database, which nominally should provide a system of de facto registration of all children including those being educated otherwise than at school. If she does not believe that the database will be efficient, perhaps the electorate in Cheshire would be interested to hear that their councillors consider the hugely expensive project unlikely to work?
In a letter to the County Council AHEd complained about Ms Harris’s failure to understand that parents are not accountable to the state and that quality assurance and accountability procedures put into place for those who utilise public services cannot be imposed on families. “At the very least there would have to be legislative change introducing rigorous statutory regulation of every aspect of parenting standardized in all families,” said Mrs Stark, “Is this really what Ms Harris requires?” she asked.
END
Notes for Editors:
(1) http://ahed.pbwiki.com/About-AHEd
(2) http://www.cheshire.gov.uk/PR/2007/september07/326-07.htm
(3) http://ahed.pbwiki.com/Cheshire-County-Council-One