What Does the State Presume To Do?

Rieser Nachrichten Newspaper, 8th October 2002

The state-approved mandatory school attendance for all children is the only form of education in Bavaria with no alternatives. Parents who will not accept this are depriving their children of their right to education and a decent life, and have to be compelled with police force to accept the state school. That is the way the authorities present their way of thinking in word and deed. They simply ignore that what the parents of these children want is something that works in other states, and even more so in other European countries, with state approval. Every form of schooling has its advantages. The homeschooling of the "Twelve Tribes" takes place in small classes allowing an intensive care, and makes a point of passing on human and non-material values, the absence of both being lamented in increasing manner in the school system. And according to the Twelve Tribes there were no problems for members who wanted to graduate or go to college later on -even through night school if necessary. Besides, the state school system certainly is not the ultimate, which one should by all means be forced to participate in - the Pisa Study proves that the German school system is not the ultimate.

Yet, all value judgments aside, what will it profit to force children to learn with police force? Once again, the Bavarian authorities figure as rigid state power, which puts the reasons of state first. The escape into violence seems helpless and destructive. The state only helps the members of the "Twelve Tribes" to publicly demonstrate their unshakable faith.