A circuitous round of blog-reading this afternoon led me to this rant, which is about a CBS special, "A Dark Side To Home Schooling", that apparently tries to paint as many homeschooling parents as possible with the child-abuse brush.
From the CBS site:
The school bus never stopped at the secluded trailer on Hickory Crossroads in rural North Carolina because for five years Nissa and Kent Warren home schooled their children. Then, as CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, county workers got an anonymous tip: better check on those kids...
For weeks, the parents tried to keep social workers out until the day detectives and Lock were called in.
"I was stunned at the squalor that I saw," says Lock. "There was rotting food, animal feces on the floor. I can't imagine anyone living in a residence like this..."
In the bedroom, 14-year-old Brandon had committed suicide with a rifle after killing his brother Kyle and sister Marnie. Their mother discovered the bodies.
One horrible case - in which, it should be noted, the mother (who had been previously convicted of abuse) contacted the authorities to report the crime. CBS's conclusion? After noting that the number of homeschooled students has risen to 50,000 in NC, CBS bemoans the lack of state employees overseeing the program, and quotes advocates as saying that because there is so little "supervision," there is by definition a lack of "protection" for these kids.
However, simply because the number of homeschooled kids has risen, that's no proof that kids in those homes are more likely to be abused, and that more "supervision" and "protection" is needed. Yes, homeschooled kids can remain more hidden from public eye - but I think it's ridiculous to conclude, as one advocate does, that homeschoolers "deliberately keep [kids] out of the public eye because the children do have injuries that are visible, and they don't want them to be seen."
Interestingly, there are no statistics presented here about the prevalence of abused kids who attend public schools, because if that percentage was higher than the percentage of homeschooled kids for whom abuse has been discovered, that would shoot CBS's theory all to hell, wouldn't it?
Live From The Guillotine takes a different approach, attacking CBS's assumption that increase government supervision necessarily leads to greater protection:
CBS is running a two part story called A Dark Side To Home Schooling today and tomorrow and it's slant makes me furious. The basic story is about alleged homeschooling parents who kept an incredibly filthy house and had a prior conviction of child abuse from another state....Here’s a question for CBS and Ms. Herman-Giddens. Logically following this argument how on earth were these sadists investigated in Arizona if the looming threat or cause of this tragedy is home schooling?
In addition, let’s talk about the supervision or overseeing that is taking place in this country right now. A Dark Side to Pennsylvania:
According to the annual child abuse report, there were 49 children who died in Pennsylvania as a result of abuse or neglect in 2002, which is two more than in 2001.
Also A Dark Side to Social Workers. Or this statistic from A Dark Side to Colorado:
An average of 25 children die in Colorado each year because of neglect or abuse, about 5 percent of the total number of child deaths in the state.
From 1990 to 1995, 47 percent of families with children who died from abuse or neglect had previous Colorado Department of Human Services involvement.
If you want to read story after story of children who’ve fallen through the cracks of just Social Services alone, go here and read A Dark Side to Social Services all night long.
Supervision doesn't seem to cure the problem. Using the logic of the CBS story, we should be leery of allowing Child Protective Services or the foster care system anywhere near our children. These people are already supervised and overseen and they still have stupid or evil people in their systems. The states of Pennsylvania and Colorado should also be avoided since children are dying and one supposes that CBS would advocate every parent in these states being be put under a microscope. After all, some of them kill their children.
Sending the kids to school isn’t necessarily going to protect children either. I hope you didn’t miss the very personal case on my blog of a mother who choked her child, left bruises around her neck, was reported to CPS, and is still living with her mother...
If you don’t understand why I find an attempt to force supervision on innocent home schooling parents this should help you relate. Do you have a child under school age or do you ever watch a child under school age? You just might be next on the list of the perpetually supervised even though you’ve committed no crime. Be waiting for the report on A Dark Side to Parents of Under School-Aged Children...
I know a lot of homeschoolers read N2P, and if the CBS special enraged you too, I'd like to hear about it. You should be mad. As Mrs. DuToit points out, CBS is obviously hoping that any correlation between homeschooling and abuse (which hasn't been established, as far as I'm concerned) should lead one to believe that homeschooling causes abuse. While there may be a causal relationship in the other direction - abusive parents may decide to keep their children out of the school system - the suggestion that parents who homeschool should be automatically monitored for abuse is appalling.
Update: Not surprisingly, Daryl Cobranchi was displeased with CBS's efforts to suggest that all homeschooling parents are potential abusers. He prints a letter from a "Faithful Reader" (his are faithful, mine are devoted):
This report is expected to focus on the handful of child abuse cases over the past 5 to 10 years involving "presumed homeschoolers" including the murder/suicide of "Non homeschooled homeschoolers" in Johnston County, NC two years ago. The CBS reporters will be highlighting various murders, suicides, etc. involving "homeschoolers" nationwide and will attempt to argue that "Homeschooling is out of control". The woman producer stated directly to Hal that he "would not be pleased with the report", and that the intent of the report is to encourage further state and federal government regulation of homeschooling.[emphasis added by Daryl]
Daryl has a few other regulation suggestions for the government. What's more, he's discovered a similar homeschooling=abuse screed in The Scotsman, which not only doesn't provide data to support its conclusions, but flies in the face of studies which support homeschooling. The amount of condescension and contempt in related op-ed that Daryl cites is truly appalling, especially considering that it was written by a teacher, Hugh Reilly:
Parents have been pupils, ergo they are education experts, in much the same way that telly addicts of medical soaps can self-diagnose all manner of ailments without recourse to so-called "health professionals". For this reason, surely it is proper that the Executive hands over educational responsibility to those mums and dads who believe they could do a better job than overpaid classroom duds such as yours truly.
To be fair, parents already do a wonderful job when their kids are young. They encourage literacy skills by reading bedtime stories, albeit abridged versions as they miss out every other page to ensure the bonding experience ends in time for the start of EastEnders. Other kids have numeracy skills developed at a very early age, e.g. when dad walks out of their life, 2 minus 1 equals single parenthood.
Mater and pater could theoretically teach certain aspects of the curriculum. I’m certain that some hard-bodied, toned-up pecs parents would be able to pass on physical fitness techniques but what about the teenagers of the chocoholic, chain-smoking chumps trudging the shopping malls in search of the nearest McDonalds? It’s a recipe for an even greater rate of obesity among the young.
So, parents are no better at educating youth than hypochondriacs and ER devotees are at diagnosing illnesses, all parents rush through reading time to watch soap operas, and all parents turn their kids into grossly obese little cows by treating them to McDonald's every day? Have I got that right? Funny, that doesn't sound like any homeschooling parents that I know.
Mr. Reilly's arguments rest on the general assumption that parents are lazy, irresponsible, and dumb - but my impression is that lazy, irresponsible, dumb people don't take on the immense and difficult task of being solely responsible for their children's education. I think that those types of parents are much more likely to send their kids to school to be indoctrinated by idiots such as Mr. Reilly, and more likely to be satisfied with Mr. Reilly's "teachings."
Posted by kswygert at October 14, 2003 04:56 PM