Indiana has fairly liberal laws regarding homeschooling. The state Department of Education Office of Student Services states “The law does not allow public education to supervise nonpublic schooling through testing, inspection, or curriculum approval. The home educating parent has assumed legal responsibility for the child’s education and will be held accountable should minimum statutory requirements not be met.” Parents are required to teach 180 days per school year and present attendance records to the Superintendent upon request.
Kelley Course of the Advisory Editorial Board of the Courier & Press thinks perhaps that should change given the recent national media attention given to some high profile child abuse cases which occurred in homeschool situations.
In November, 2005, David Ludwig, 18 and homeschooled, shot his homeschooled girlfriend’s parents when they chose to ban him from seeing their daughter. In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children. In 2003, Deanna Laney beat two of her three sons to death with a stone and seriously injured the third. And in February of this year, Lynn Paddock murdered four year old Sean by tying him to his bed. He suffocated in the blankets.
Due to such cases of horrific abuse, Course suggests that homeschooling receive greater attention in upcoming School Board campaign debates and in the community at large. He offers four questions for discussion:
- Should we amend Indiana law to require home-schooled students to take and pass objective, grade-specific exams each semester, and require proficiency in all curricula required of public school students at each grade level?
- Should a home-schooled child who does not meet the minimum required level of ability be required to re-enroll in an Indiana public school until that child can pass such objective tests?
- Should home educators be required to have minimum requirements and follow specific curricula outlines, as do the public schools, in order to adequately prepare the student for a comprehensive exam to obtain a high school diploma?
- Should home-schooled children’s physical exams be made part of the school corporation’s records, and should the children be visited by social service representatives throughout the year to evaluate their condition?
The first three are adequately answered by current Indiana law. The parent takes on the responsibility of educating their child and, without specific reason to believe that this responsibility is being neglected, it is a violation of parental rights to subject a parent to investigation. Some sort of probable cause should be established before investigating a family for educational neglect through testing. Normally, homeschool students outscore public school students on such tests where they are required or parents voluntarily submit to them. Homeschooling has been so closely linked with academic success that many prestigious colleges and universitites have changed their admission systems to accommodate them and even actively recruit homeschoolers. Why increase regulation on homeschoolers as a whole because of fear that some may be failing in their responsibilities? And even for those students who do not pass such tests, who is to say that the public school system will do any better?
The fourth question implies that homeschooling is such a dangerous threat to the health and safety of children that all homeschools must be regularly monitored by the state, with visits from social workers and their medical records kept by school officials. This is clearly a violation of the rights of U.S. citizens. The Fourth Amendment to our Constitution states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Homeschooling alone is not probable cause to warrant the state to send social workers to every homeschooling family to investigate them for child abuse, possibly leading to the seizure of their children. In a study done by the University of North Carolina, two of the best predictors of a maltreatment report were low maternal education and receipt of Medicaid. Should we therefore send social workers to investigate all families in which the mothers fall in these “high risk” categories?
Child abuse statistics are not currently disaggregated to include whether the child was homeschooled or public schooled, but family violence is not a new phenomenon. In fact, family murder is so common it has its own page in the Bureau of Justice Statistics, where we find out that 3.5% of murder victims died at the hands of their own parents. In 2002 alone, an estimated 1,500 children died from maltreatment, comprising either of physical abuse, neglect or a combination of maltreatment types. Since homeschooling families comprise approximately two percent of the population, one would naturally expect that at least 30 of these cases would have occurred in a homeschooling family without raising any concerns about the method of education chosen.
Some worry that homeschooling is an easy way for abusers to hide. This does not seem to be the case in the murders I mentioned in homeschooling families. Ludwig had stated previously to peers that he thought he could kill someone and get away with it. Similar statements were made by the perpetrators at Columbine, and those shootings still occurred. Yates had a long history of mental illness and postpartum depression, similar to other women who also committed murder. Two of these cases had previous contact with social workers. Laney appeared mentally healthy to most, but her psychotic, religious delusions were not connected directly to her choice in education. And Paddock herself had contact with social workers prior to murdering Sean. Social Services placed Sean in her home to be adopted, even after a report of a spanking that left a bruise on his bottom (all corporal punishment is illegal for foster parents). On average 39% of children who die in abusive situation have had previous contact or were known to child protective services.
Child abuse is a despicable act and those who commit it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The desire to protect children, however, should not so easily sway us into giving authority to the state to enter private homes without any allegations of abuse and check the physical condition of children simply because a family chooses to homeschool or accepts Medicaid or has not graduated high school, etc. If we allow such state intrusion, we cease to be a nation characterized by rights.
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mr.ed
Sep 10, 2006
Somebody should have visited my sister-in-law’s home, where ignorance and intolerance was drilled into her poor kids’ heads every day. They live in a diverse neighborhood of terrific public schools. Too bad they never got a taste of the rest of the world. It was brainwashing masquerading as love.
Michael Hampton
Sep 10, 2006
You never visited yourself? I’m confused.
Lora
Sep 10, 2006
Three major cases of abuse linked to homeschooling. How many other children were reported abused or were murdered by their parents during the same period who were in the school systems?
I don’t dispute that some homeschoolers abuse their children, but more often than not, homeschoolers are parents who care so deeply about their children’s welfare that they are willing to make greater commitments to them. They are least likely to be the ones to abuse their children, overall.
Dana
Sep 10, 2006
Michael, that’s a good poiint…there are many of the same opportunities to witness and report abusive situation in homeschooling families. They have neighbors and relatives; many go to churches and participate in other organized activities. Some even take part in extra-curricular activities offered by the local school district. And in the cases of murder I have heard associated with homeschooling families, I have not yet noticed any extreme isolation, attempting to hide abuse.
And as to ignorance and intolerance specifically, which may or may not be abuse issues in and of themselves, the same things can be found in public schools every day.
Jason
Sep 11, 2006
Lora made the same point I was going to.
Three cases, out of how many students actually home schooled in that state?
Remember, for every bad cop that makes the news, there are a squad of good cops not even mentioned because they continue to do their job at least halfway adequately (or preferably, they do their job greately).
I’ve met some nice cops during my southwest road trips, I see the videos and hear the complaints about cops, and I just think that “they haven’t yet been in my world”. Not to say they never will be, but I sure as hell hope they never are.
Home abuse is not at all limited to Home Schooling (also like Lora said), the best students with a small report card blemish can get abused.
Honestly, the idea that is being brought up is just… dumb.
Lisa
Sep 11, 2006
Unbelievable. All of these people have severe mental problems. To
associate severe mental illness with homeschooling is ignorant. I can’t
believe people can write things like this and be taken seriously. I am
a homeschool mom and am severely offended. To compare your average
homeschooling mom to Andrea Yates would be like comparing Gandhi to Hitler.
Sharon
Sep 11, 2006
Andrea Yates did not homeschool her children.
I know the idea that she did is so ingrained in the Yates legend that it will never, never be uprooted; but I feel an obligation to fight the losing battle.
All of her children were below mandatory school attendance age in Texas. The oldest would have started first grade that fall (the murders occurred in summer). Unless and until “homeschooling” has become a term so fuzzy as to include preschoolers not sent to preschool or (optional) Kindergarten, it’s simply false to say that she was homeschooling her children.
Anonymous
Sep 11, 2006
Yes, but the association comes because of the descriptions of the little school room she had set up. But what if social services had been involved previously? My understanding is that no abuse precluded any of these murders…other than the Paddock case in which social services placed the child there to begin with.
Dana
Sep 11, 2006
Sorry, that last comment was from me, Dana. Didn’t mean to be anonymous, I just wasn’t paying attention.
Sharon
Sep 11, 2006
Dana,
You’re right about the source of the association; but the fact remains, if we’re talking about regulation (which seems to mean the state, generally in the form of the local public school bureaucracy, looking over the shoulders of homeschooling families), the red flag must be raised when tragedies like the Yates or Paddock murders are trotted out as having been avoidable through increased regulation.
Both the Yates and Paddock cases involved children under the age for compulsory school attendance. When we start talking about a need to “regulate” families with preschoolers to make sure they aren’t abusing their children, we open a Pandora’s Box that even opponents of homeschooling must see will affect *all* families, whether they eventually send their children to school or not.
Dana
Sep 11, 2006
When we start talking about a need to “regulate†families with preschoolers to make sure they aren’t abusing their children, we open a Pandora’s Box that even opponents of homeschooling must see will affect *all* families, whether they eventually send their children to school or not.
I definitely agree with that and you make a very good point. All these cases are sad, but in all of them, homeschooling itself played little or no role. While I can imagine some abusers would and do pull their children from school to hide abuse, my main point was that is not true in any of these cases. They were homeschooling for other reasons. And Paddock’s seems to be the only one in which long-standing abuse which perhaps could have been noted by authorities in a visit was occurring. Sean was only four, but if I remember correctly, she had older children who were of school age who had also been abused and were covered in bruises (I’d check that, but my quirky computer isn’t opening the link at the moment).
sandy from virginia
Sep 13, 2006
it is most unfortunate for thoes of us who love and care for our kids that we have to be victums of gross impositions as a result of social services assuming certain status applys to all parents who do one thing or another .sterotyping …
A nother thing that troubles me(please do not miss interpit what im trying to convey here murder is murder ,evil is evil etc and i know the diffrence between good and evil right and wrong ) is that the media makes such a big deal out of these parents who kill kids when just acrossed the water thousands of children are being mercylessly slaughtered by armed grown men considered sain and civil by this law. yet how come the media isnt making a big deal out of this? why is it americans who kill american kids are mentally ill and sick but americans who slaughter children in forien countries are just doing their job ?abuse and murder are abuse and murder as far as im concerned .why dose the media focus on the murder of just a few and condem them with such fury while mass slaughter is covered up and kept quiet?to harm any child is an evil sin but to harm and main and posion thousands will bring nothing but the worst karma on heven and earth to thoes who blindly preform such evil with out question or conscious .there is no honer in this any more than there is honer in the murder of any child any where by any one .
Anisha
Sep 13, 2006
As a ‘Waldorf school mom’(a private alternative school based on the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner)for 11 years now, I can attest to the incredible process of educating our two children who are now 16 and 14. Waldorf school was the alternative for homeschooling for us, since my husband and I did not feel qualified(despite our university education)for the rigors of educating our children. We have met over the years many many parents who decided to homeschool their children because either/both the costs of a ‘private’ school was too much for their family and they felt qualified, and/or the public schools did not fit their philosophy of how they wanted their children educated. The latest concern I can say would have to be this ‘No Child left behind’ imposed by the federal government, which sparked concern for more parents because of the stress on teacher accountability and test taking and less emphasis on ‘educating’ the children, not to mention the excessive reduction of education spending from state budgets are just insane!
To try to catch or minimize child abusers through enforced reporting of homeschoolers is completely absurd. Most homeschoolers are very deeply involved with the raising and educating of their children. In fact, they are more likely to be sensitive and very touchy about the ‘treatment’ of their children in schools. I personally know of a child who was hideously abused by her father since she was an infant. When she was 13, she told the school nurse what was happening to her at home. The father was arrested and after the trial put in prison. That is not to say that someone abusing their child might choose homeschool as a way to hide. Its just not the norm. They most likely would get found out some other way.
My sense of this ‘pressure’ on homeschooling parents has more to do with a political agenda to ‘herd’ people back into the system, much like the issue with vaccines. There are an increasing number of people simply not willing to hand over their children to government run schools nor subject them to possible dangers of vaccines. Freedom of choice has always been an American value. Let’s keep it that way!
James
Sep 19, 2006
Is this what Hillary meant when she said “It takes a village to raise a child”?
Seriously, this is the logical conclusion of the Socialist mindset that pervades the American left. The Government knows what your health-care should cost. The Government knows what you should drink. The Government knows what you should eat. The Government knows what your kids should learn. The Government knows what’s OK to think. (Hey, I think I have the beginnings of a pretty bad song there).
Anyway, freedom to raise your (minor) children as you see fit is a basic human right. I know the proposed changes in state law aren’t going to *end* homeschooling per se, but adding state intervention in every homeschooling situation is the first step down a slippery slope.
I’m not sure if we’re going to home-school my daughter yet, but you *will* have to pry her from my cold, dead hands before somebody tells me I can’t.
Dana
Sep 19, 2006
Yeah…unfortunately, I think it is. I had quite an interesting discussion about that statement…my tagline on my email used to be, “I’ve seen the village. I don’t want it raising my children.” Unfortunately, Mrs. Clinton doesn’t seem to know much about the actual sentiment behind that African saying because it does not mean that the state raises the children.
I agree that the freedom to raise your children is a basic human right…I’d say that it is your responsibility as well. It is fine to delegate that to another person through public or private school, but ultimately the parent should be the one disciplining, training and helping the child to be successful in school and in life.
State intervention over that presupposes that the education of the child is the primary interest of the state rather than the parent. That already, even if the intervention is minimal, usurps parental rights and makes educating your children a privilege rather than a right.
I like states like Texas where all you need to do to homeschool is not send your kids to school. I don’t mind it here in NE, either. All I have to do is turn in a plan and the state acknowledges that I homeschool (as opposed to giving permission). Technically, state law allows them to check homeschools, but they have decided to not do that at this time. And I have to keep attendance, but I don’t have to turn it in. Not too bad, and it helps with truancy issues, I guess.
Blank
Sep 20, 2006
here just go to my website if you wanna know the real truth about abuse not just child abuse.
Mike
Sep 20, 2006
Public school amounts to brainwashing. That is why these people will be investigated they are teaching their kids to think for themselves and not be just another cog in the machine.
Caroline
Oct 27, 2006
If the “powers that be” are worried about abuse I suggest they take a look at the entire public school system.Teachers molesting students,stabbings in the classrooms,students shot down at their desks,metal detectors in the schools as well as bullying.Walk down any middle school or high school hallway watch and listenthen tell me if you can find ANY behavior that you would like for your child to emulate.I highly doubt it.I believe home schooling is the wave of the future and educators are merely fighting to keep thier jobs.In my town,educators had to close down one school and combine it with another district because enrollment was so low)
Nov 04, 2006
Homeschooling and public school students assaulted in Michigan - Homeland Stupidity
Mar 18, 2007
Owl Flutter » depression in homeschooling moms
Kat
Sep 04, 2007
I wish there were regulations on homeschooling children. Unfortunately, there are situations where children receive less than they deserve for education, and parents who utilize their children as ’slaves’ to benefit their selfish desires. I do not believe that all homeschool is bad, or that homeschool equals abuse. I do, however, believe that the most liberal of homeschool laws prevent the monitoring of homes that need it most. When there is no set curricula parents can tell their kids, “we are going to clean house this week and call it home ec.” This isn’t labeled abuse by the state, nor neglect. The parent is not technically doing anything wrong. Is there an unregulated injustice here that needs addressed and corrected? Damn right!
Dana
Sep 04, 2007
Kat, you haven’t given anything but imagined hypotheticals. And being asked to clean the house hardly compares to the educational neglect found in so many schools which have led many to pursue homeschooling in the first place.
I don’t know where you get the idea where it has anything to do with “parents who utilize their children as ’slaves’ to benefit their selfish desires.” Homeschooling is hard work. Shipping them off to public school would be a lot easier.
If parents don’t care enough to actually educate their children, I don’t see why they would even bother to attempt it. And those same children would be unlikely to do much better in the public school since the number one indicator of school success is parental involvement.
Feb 18, 2008
Principled Discovery » The life and death of homeschooling, a eulogy