Coalition for Responsible Home Education

[snowbeltmom]

 

How could one go from homeschooling for educational reasons to being sucked into a fundamentalist lifestyle? I'll answer that. We began homeschooling after being dissatisfied with public school. Right around then the Internet became more important. I joined a Catholic moms group and some were homeschooling. After a miscarriage I asked for help dealing with things and was directed to Managers of their Homes by Steve and Teri Maxwell. It made sense, some parts helped me. I joined their board. I became involved with fundamentalist moms. I read fundamentalist books. Etc. I never went as far they did -  I distinctly remember the points at which I said, "They are crazy!"

 

There's a strong feeling within the homeschooling movement that we don't need anybody else. When I had non-verbal 3yo twins, I had people telling me (probably on this very board) that all I needed was some homeschooling speech therapy program that I don't remember the name of and I could do the therapy myself. I could do Barton myself with my dyslexic daughter. and on and on and on. Move out to the country so you can be self-sufficient! Garden! Grow all your own food! Can it! Raise livestock! Live off the grid! Don't participate in that evil society! Your children don't need friends - they can be each other's best friend through homeschooling! And God forbid, DON'T put your children in public school! And that's not just fundamentalists - Seton has a book called Catholic Homeschooling that pretty much says that putting Catholic children in public school is a sin.

 

Oh, and do all this while you continue to have baby after baby. I'm sure it will all be fine. Because there are no negatives to homeschooling! nothing to see here, folks, move along. Don't you know homeschoolers are always superior to publicly schooled children?

I have not experienced any of these feelings within the homeschooling movement.  I think these issues are really lifestyle or religious issues, not homeschooling issues. 

 

You can't live in a free society and legislate lifestyle or religious choices. 

 

 

[Χά�ων]

Yep. Not the religious part for me though, but otherwise this was my experience. When I sought help for DS I was given the same lines. Well no. no one suggested any program as good as Barton and no one mentioned OG anything. I learn about OG on these boards after failing with so many other programs. But still, even after DS went through all the programs that were suggested with no luck I was told I should spank him because he wasn't being compliant. *sigh* I knew better, but that advice given to a vulnerable parent with no further resources or information could end very badly. The idea of considering public schools came with the threat of being banned from the support group. And the HORROR I put DS on medicaid and I get funding from one of my states programs for special health care needs children. OMG the horrified looks when I admitted that. I am glad that other people can afford $90/day 5 days a week for OT and PT plus the cost of monthly medication (hint: it ain't cheap) and still afford to have heat and eat. I can't and there is just no way to make it work in my budget even if I gave up eating. 

 

 

 

There's a strong feeling within the homeschooling movement that we don't need anybody else. When I had non-verbal 3yo twins, I had people telling me (probably on this very board) that all I needed was some homeschooling speech therapy program that I don't remember the name of and I could do the therapy myself. I could do Barton myself with my dyslexic daughter. and on and on and on. Move out to the country so you can be self-sufficient! Garden! Grow all your own food! Can it! Raise livestock! Live off the grid! Don't participate in that evil society! Your children don't need friends - they can be each other's best friend through homeschooling! And God forbid, DON'T put your children in public school! And that's not just fundamentalists - Seton has a book called Catholic Homeschooling that pretty much says that putting Catholic children in public school is a sin.

 

Oh, and do all this while you continue to have baby after baby. I'm sure it will all be fine. Because there are no negatives to homeschooling! nothing to see here, folks, move along. Don't you know homeschoolers are always superior to publicly schooled children?

 

[ColleenInWis]

I have not experienced any of these feelings within the homeschooling movement.  I think these issues are really lifestyle or religious issues, not homeschooling issues. 

 

You can't live in a free society and legislate lifestyle or religious choices. 

 

 

But we can open one another's eyes and minds as we discuss the issues.  

[ColleenInWis]

Is it a problem? Unfortunately, yes.

 

Is it a widespread problem affecting a large percentage of HS children today? Or is it a problem particular to a tiny subset of HS families who are involved in cult-like churches/movements?

 

Do we have any statistics to answer these questions?  Not as far as I know.  You have your experience which tells you it's a tiny problem.  Cathmom shared her experience which tells her it's a fairly common problem, which lines up quite well with my non-catholic experience.  What I am trying to say throughout this thread is that if we are aware of the attitudes that lead to rogue homeschooling (hmmm... not sure that term works...?), we might as individuals find ways to combat the attitudes.    

[snowbeltmom]

But we can open one another's eyes and minds as we discuss the issues.  

 

Absolutely.  These issues should be discussed within these religious homeschooling groups.  However, the Coalition for Responsible Home Education is not proposing that these issues simply be discussed. Rather, they are proposing that these issues be solved by imposing more regulations on homeschoolers. 

 

 

[La Texican]

Aren't they saying that we don't have data about how many home-educated students are abused/neglected? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding... but police and social workers don't have that data.

 

I think as the CRHE works together, they will grow and change. I've already seen changes to their website every time I go there. And they will learn what flies and what doesn't... They are young. They want to set the world on fire... burn brighter than the sun. :)

They would have the data if the would quit trying to redefine abuse for their statistics. Spanking (even with a belt, paddle, or switch) is still legal all across America (except, google says Deleware), despite concerted efforts and debates for years about banning it. Strict ness concerning friends and dating is not uncommon (I was raised penticostal, you better bet they're strict on friends and dating).

This is exactly why this group deserves derision. It's not because they shared their stories. It's because they clearly speak with a forked tongue, changing the story so that it suits them. "We need data on homeschool abuse to compare to the available data on public children abuse (to prove we need undefined regulation, which we assure you won't affect you).

Go to the police and social services. They have data on cases they needed to intervene on. You'll need to make a good plan first, so you can convince them you need the data, and ask in a way that gives you numbers for statistics without divulging confidential information about people.

Of course the numbers won't be as impressive as if you could count belt spankings against homeschoolers, but not against public schooled children. But it will be real data, from a reliable source, with verifyable numbers about actual abuse that homeschoolers have definately done. Are you telling me that's not more data, and better data, then the conjecture and anecdote they currently have?

 

*spanking with a paddle is still legal, though rarely used, in public school by the principal, unless the mother writes a note exempting her child.

[La Texican]

Absolutely. These issues should be discussed within these religious homeschooling groups. However, the Coalition for Responsible Home Education is not proposing that these issues simply be discussed. Rather, they are proposing that these issues be solved by imposing more regulations on homeschoolers.

I assure you that's not going to happen. Preachers and religious missions are employed to spread their idealogy. People go spend time there if they feel they're getting something from it. What are you suggesting, that we make missionaries to go into the churches and convert people out of them? Hehe. Funny

 

This might make sense for the poster who was almost sucked in, but thought "this is crazy", to reach out to as would listen for the short time she was deciding not to be sucked in.

[La Texican]

They say homeschooling data is only self-selected for the best results. Mining the police and social workers would only get the worst results. Obviously, there's a range in the middle. Adult victims retroactively prosecuting for illegal abuse will clarify the statistics further. These statistics will not show if homeschooling is better or worse than public school. Is that persuasive debate their core cause? Is proving that homeschooling can be a tool that covers abuse their core cause? They need to stick to the legal definition of abuse. They just need to show that it happens and how their lawmaking policies can help. The statistics from the police and social workers will show that it happens. What do they plan to do with that data. All I've seen is "we need data because those folks say homeschooling is great and we know it isn't always great.". What data do they need and why? What good can they do with it? Why are the worst statistics, on abuse from the police and social workers not a great source for this data?

[snowbeltmom]

I assure you that's not going to happen. Preachers and religious missions are employed to spread their idealogy. People go spend time there if they feel they're getting something from it. What are you suggesting, that we make missionaries to go into the churches and convert people out of them? Hehe. Funny

 

This might make sense for the poster who was almost sucked in, but thought "this is crazy", to reach out to as would listen for the short time she was deciding not to be sucked in.

 

What I am suggesting is that this organization, instead of promoting stricter regulations for homeschoolers, go back into the religious groups they grew up in to share their experiences.

 

What the members of this group experienced is not a homeschooling issue - it is a lifestyle/religious issue.  They are misguided in thinking that their problems were due to homeschooling and that somehow imposing their ideas of regulation for homeschoolers would actually solve these problems. 

 

 

[La Texican]

http://stopspanking.org/tag/catholic-church-against-spanking/

Another excellent idea, snowbeltmom. I'm not sure how that would work. Here's one ministry in the church that wants to end spanking. If the coalition could look up groups like this they could learn marketing and church politics for how to get a rebuking testamony accepted for presentation to church groups.

It would be tough. Usually guest speakers are comped for time and travel and housed while they're there. It would be trickier to market yourself to share your testimony when you're rebuking the grouo you're asking to host you, or even listen to you.

[Crimson Wife]

What the members of this group experienced is not a homeschooling issue - it is a lifestyle/religious issue.  They are misguided in thinking that their problems were due to homeschooling and that somehow imposing their ideas of regulation for homeschoolers would actually solve these problems.

One of them even says as much in this blog post: http://becomingworldly.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/this-is-not-homeschooling-is-hslda-part-of-a-bible-based-cult/

 

That’s right. This HSLDA/NHERI/Vision Forum/Bill Gothard ATI thing is not a Christian thing. This is not a homeschooling thing. This is an extremist thing. It may even be a cult thing. Yes, as in “new religious movement.†So please, homeschooling parents, run from this crazy stuff so it doesn’t do to your family what it did to mine. Stop supporting these extremists, stop inviting them to speak before congress, stop allowing them to suggest what laws and politicians you vote for or against, stop buying their flawed explanations and liar statistics, stop letting them tell you how to live your lives and raise your children.

[La Texican]

http://icher.org/blog/?p=936#more-936

I’ve long wished some legal scholar would use the powerful online search capabilities of digitized records to do a more systematic review of court cases involving child abuse to see how many of them involve homeschooling.

end quote.

[La Texican]

See! I'm not the only one thinking along those lines. And this isn't even my project!! Those coalition people are dropping the ball by not pursuing documented cases of actual illegal abuse hidden by homeschoolers. They want to vaguely demand, "we need data", "we need regulation", while ignoring sources of actual data. (Still not sure what they think they're going to do with the data.)

[Pen]

...

How could one go from homeschooling for educational reasons to being sucked into a fundamentalist lifestyle? I'll answer that. We began homeschooling after being dissatisfied with public school. Right around then the Internet became more important. I joined a Catholic moms group and some were homeschooling. After a miscarriage I asked for help dealing with things and was directed to Managers of their Homes by Steve and Teri Maxwell. It made sense, some parts helped me. I joined their board. I became involved with fundamentalist moms. I read fundamentalist books. Etc. I never went as far they did -  I distinctly remember the points at which I said, "They are crazy!"

 

There's a strong feeling within the homeschooling movement that we don't need anybody else. When I had non-verbal 3yo twins, I had people telling me (probably on this very board) that all I needed was some homeschooling speech therapy program that I don't remember the name of and I could do the therapy myself. I could do Barton myself with my dyslexic daughter. and on and on and on. ...

 

 

Thank you for sharing how you could get sucked into a fundamentalist lifestyle. 

 

-------------

 

I don't know if you got the sort of response on this board you mention. I have not been on here as long as you have been. I have not seen any such questions from you nor responses to them either in the time I have been here, nor by trying to do a search.

 

I post on Learning Challenges fairly often, but have not happened to have seen posts from you, either asking question nor replying to others. Perhaps you post often there but just not when I have been checking.

 

I do see people posting that parents can do Barton themselves with their children. And, frankly, I happen to believe that that is probably true, since I did another dyslexia remediation program myself with my son. I did this after both a public school and a brick and mortar private school had failed him. Having seen him be failed by two types of bricks and mortar schools, I am very much partial to homeschooling and do not want to see it ruined or illegalized.

 

If you think these sorts of advice--like the idea that people can successfully do Barton at home-- are wrong I hope you will join in and give your own experience as it may help others. Also since your user name suggests that you are Catholic, maybe people who would not listen to my ideas as a primarily secular person would be more inclined to listen to yours.

 

I do think there is a degree to which people tend to pay attention to answers from people whom they perceive as being like themselves. Possibly people even tend to give replies and suggestions to people who tend to be more like themselves. I think it possible that if I see a username or a curriculum list that suggests to me that someone is a fundamentalist parent, I am less likely to post ideas, even if it has to do with dyslexia, because I assume that such a parent wants an answer compatible with their belief system, or an answer from someone of a similar faith, and that what I have to say would probably be a waste of time and energy. I think there are certain words or program names that to me tend to give a message of "oh, no point responding to that one." Unless the question up front seemed welcoming to other viewpoints, secular materials and so on.

 

An aside: There was a poll and long thread on bikinis, which seemed irrelevant to me since I think I would, but have no daughter, but I did note that the results of the poll showed far more people not allowing bikinis than I would have expected (I assume at least some for religious/modesty reasons though also some for sun exposure reasons). Since I did not read it, I do not know, but did people post things that might help other parents who might be being too ... restrictive ... of their children perhaps be opened to other more moderate views and ideas in a friendly supportive way? I mean I gather that having to wear modest clothes like jumpers is one of the issues that the group who wants homeschool reform is all upset about. I believe I read that at some point. I'd rather see it taken up in an open and friendly way between parents on a forum like this than laws that mandate that children must be able to wear bikinis... not that I think that likely, but in an extreme that seems to me the direction of the group that wants these reforms.

[ColleenInWis]

http://icher.org/blog/?p=936#more-936

 

Wow--the International Center for Home Education Research--sounds like a worthwhile pursuit.  Thanks for finding it and sharing, La Texican!  From their "About" page:

 

As longtime observers of home education across a variety of contexts, we have great appreciation for homeschooling’s value and importance, but our purpose is not to promote home education or argue for its superiority over other forms of schooling.

Instead, our goals are threefold:

• to provide nonpartisan information about homeschooling to media outlets and the public
• to offer detailed analyses of emerging research on home education
• to encourage networking and collaboration among scholars

[ColleenInWis]

Ok, CRHE is already involved with ICHER--"The International Center for Home Education Research (ICHER) exists to provide expert information and analysis regarding homeschooling research and to facilitate networking among researchers studying home-based learning. While CRHE is not affiliated with ICHER, some of our researchers have worked with their researchers, and we highly approve of their data-collection efforts on homeschooling laws."

 

 

 

[ColleenInWis]

Those coalition people are dropping the ball by not pursuing documented cases of actual illegal abuse hidden by homeschoolers. They want to vaguely demand, "we need data", "we need regulation", while ignoring sources of actual data. (Still not sure what they think they're going to do with the data.)

 

Are you aware of Homeschooling's Invisible Children, affiliated with CRHE, in which they list documented cases of abuse by homeschoolers?

 

Honestly, though, I'm a little puzzled about why you are so worked up about the data issue, La Texican.  I'm not really interested in this aspect of the discussion, so I have nothing else to say about it.  If you think you have a valid point, maybe you should...  oh, wait--I've already suggested that to you twice.  ;)  

[ColleenInWis]

Started a spin-off thread about a House Joint Resolution in Virginia, "Requesting the Department of Education to study the religious exemption to compulsory school

attendance."

[La Texican]

.

[cathmom]

Thank you for sharing how you could get sucked into a fundamentalist lifestyle. 

 

-------------

 

I don't know if you got the sort of response on this board you mention. I have not been on here as long as you have been. I have not seen any such questions from you nor responses to them either in the time I have been here, nor by trying to do a search.

 

I post on Learning Challenges fairly often, but have not happened to have seen posts from you, either asking question nor replying to others. Perhaps you post often there but just not when I have been checking.

 

I do see people posting that parents can do Barton themselves with their children. And, frankly, I happen to believe that that is probably true, since I did another dyslexia remediation program myself with my son. I did this after both a public school and a brick and mortar private school had failed him. Having seen him be failed by two types of bricks and mortar schools, I am very much partial to homeschooling and do not want to see it ruined or illegalized.

 

If you think these sorts of advice--like the idea that people can successfully do Barton at home-- are wrong I hope you will join in and give your own experience as it may help others. Also since your user name suggests that you are Catholic, maybe people who would not listen to my ideas as a primarily secular person would be more inclined to listen to yours.

 

I do think there is a degree to which people tend to pay attention to answers from people whom they perceive as being like themselves. Possibly people even tend to give replies and suggestions to people who tend to be more like themselves. I think it possible that if I see a username or a curriculum list that suggests to me that someone is a fundamentalist parent, I am less likely to post ideas, even if it has to do with dyslexia, because I assume that such a parent wants an answer compatible with their belief system, or an answer from someone of a similar faith, and that what I have to say would probably be a waste of time and energy. I think there are certain words or program names that to me tend to give a message of "oh, no point responding to that one." Unless the question up front seemed welcoming to other viewpoints, secular materials and so on.

 

An aside: There was a poll and long thread on bikinis, which seemed irrelevant to me since I think I would, but have no daughter, but I did note that the results of the poll showed far more people not allowing bikinis than I would have expected (I assume at least some for religious/modesty reasons though also some for sun exposure reasons). Since I did not read it, I do not know, but did people post things that might help other parents who might be being too ... restrictive ... of their children perhaps be opened to other more moderate views and ideas in a friendly supportive way? I mean I gather that having to wear modest clothes like jumpers is one of the issues that the group who wants homeschool reform is all upset about. I believe I read that at some point. I'd rather see it taken up in an open and friendly way between parents on a forum like this than laws that mandate that children must be able to wear bikinis... not that I think that likely, but in an extreme that seems to me the direction of the group that wants these reforms.

Yes, I have been a member for a long time and I don't really post much anymore. I am not exclusively homeschooling anymore. I also have gotten wary about posting lots of info on a public board.

 

I was using the speech therapy and Barton programs as examples of a strong thread I see in the homeschooling world of not relying on experts or using experts to assist us. It makes sense, because that's in part why we choose to homeschool. I know that parents can successfully use Barton with their children - I have a friend who did so. You can't find posts about my personal situations with speech therapy and remediation for my dyslexic dd because these things happened more than five years ago and the board has probably changed formats since then.

 

Using speech therapy as an example, I know that I was told multiple times about a program that I could buy and use with my twins. They had turned three and had one madeup word between them.  I had 5 other children from college to newborn and was homeschooling all of them. If they had been my only children, if I had any sort of a background with speech therapy, if I understood how to form sounds in my mouth, perhaps I could have helped them. Instead, we got a real speech therapist, who knew what she was doing to come do the job that she had a master's degree in. It was her who recognized that my 5 yo also needed speech therapy (he was on a 2yo articulation level). To me he sounded a lot better than the twins so I wasn't worried. There is nothing wrong with letting others assist us in their areas of expertise, but again, I have seen a strong prejudice against it. A homeschooling mom CANNOT do everything and be everything to everyone. That is how educational neglect begins, or one way anyway.

 

So, yes, a parent can do Barton at home. Perhaps a better organized parent than me, with bunches of other children, could still manage it. My daughter was blessed with two tutors trained in Orton-Gillingham who volunteered to tutor her 3x a week for nearly 2 years.

 

I disagree that this group wants homeschooling to be ruined or made illegal. I don't see where they say that.

 

In my years of experience, the biggest negatives I've seen with homeschooling are isolation, lack of support, and financial impacts. If I knew this back when we were looking for a house 15 years ago, I might have reconsidered buying one out in the country, as that only aggravates all of these negatives. But I didn't know that, and I hardly ever see people discussing the negatives and how to mitigate them. I was just discussing with another long time homeschooling mom, who is now working again, about finances and she said, "You always hear about how much less we spend than the schools by homeschooling, but I never heard anyone talk about the long term impact of losing one income." 

 

If we could have honest discussions about the negatives of homeschooling and make it clear that you're not failing if you need outside help, maybe we can prevent anymore grown up homeschoolers going on Homeschoolers Anonymous and talking about how they didn't get an education that their parents told the state they would provide.

[Harriet Vane]

Are you aware of Homeschooling's Invisible Children, affiliated with CRHE, in which they list documented cases of abuse by homeschoolers?

 

Honestly, though, I'm a little puzzled about why you are so worked up about the data issue, La Texican.  I'm not really interested in this aspect of the discussion, so I have nothing else to say about it.  If you think you have a valid point, maybe you should...  oh, wait--I've already suggested that to you twice.   ;)

 

This site lost credibility for me when I saw that they included both Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Lee Duggard in their list of abused homeschooled children. Both women were kidnap victims. Their abductors did not in any way attempt to either school them or comply with any homeschool laws. Their cases are adamantly not homeschooling issues, but rather kidnapping/violent crime issues. There is no way at all that laws about documentation or reporting to school authorities would have changed what happened to them.

[TracyP]

This site lost credibility for me when I saw that they included both Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Lee Duggard in their list of abused homeschooled children. Both women were kidnap victims. Their abductors did not in any way attempt to either school them or comply with any homeschool laws. Their cases are adamantly not homeschooling issues, but rather kidnapping/violent crime issues. There is no way at all that laws about documentation or reporting to school authorities would have changed what happened to them.

 

I completely agree. Not to mention the Yates family and a girl who was kidnapped by her public school teacher. I quit reading at that point, so I didn't even see the two you mentioned. And the creators of that site are two of the five people who created the CRHE....

[ColleenInWis]

That is interesting. Are you familiar with ICHER? Could you share what you know?

 

Dialectica, I first heard of them when La Texican posted a quotation and a link in message 355 above.  I looked around the sites a little, main site here and their blog here, where they post articles that include research on home schools.  I see articles about tetanus vaccinations in Oklahoma homeschool families, homeschooling in Spain, home-schooled children are thinner, gender/religion/homeschool...  

 

Part of what they say about themselves:  The International Center for Home Education Research was founded in 2012 by a group of international scholars with more than 70 years of combined experience studying homeschooling.  What sets ICHER apart from most national and international homeschool organizations is that we are not an advocacy group.  As longtime observers of home education across a variety of contexts, we have great appreciation for homeschooling’s value and importance, but our purpose is not to promote home education or argue for its superiority over other forms of schooling.

[La Texican]

To be clear I was quoting the unaffiliated appraiser whose review is the bottom half of the page linked. It was to support the arguement that I have been making, that there is actual data available on homeschool abuse. I thought the police and social workers have it, but the appraiser says it's avalable through google search from the courts online. The homeschool coalition does not want this data, they want data that backs their policy. (Including belt spankings and subpar education as homeschool abuse, to compare to public school data on abuse, which does not count spanking as a crime and education is not a legal American right.)

 

You've asked me why I'm "so worked up about the data issue", and stated earlier that you "weren't interested in discussing the legislative part" of a thread about a group whose stated purpose is developing regulation and getting data. Then to prove it you started another thread about....wait for it... legislative regulation.

 

I dropped it because you basically told me to take it off your thread, "I told you where to take it if you think you have a point." Of course I came back to read because obviously I think this topic is interesting. I guess I saw my name and took it as my chance to blurt out that middle paragraph, which has been burning a hole on the tip of my tongue.

[Elisabet1]

This makes me mad.  I grew up in and out of foster care because my parents were so abusive. And they are HUGE fans of the public school system. A child can be abused in the public schools or out. I actually suspect there are more abused kids in the system, because abusers often cannot stand to spend that much time with their kids, than out of the system. I hear tons of public school parents complain when their children are home from school, have a day off, and make remarks about how they could never stand to home school because they cannot stand spending that much time with their children.

 

Children get abused inside the public schools every day. My oldest was abused by a staff member who had her own child taken away by CPS but was allowed to continue working with children. Later, after enough parent complaints, and I am talking many many many complaints, they pulled her from having direct contact with the kids. Another child here committed suicide after repeat abuse by a principal where it had been reported many times over. Google fire miss land to see the details on that. Then my child with aspergers kept coming home with bruises, even ones that looked like hands. He said the special ed aide was doing it. A staff member confirmed it. I pulled my son and started home schooling him at that point. But the aide is still there. The public schools do not answer to CPS. 

 

And educational neglect? Many times, the definition of educational neglect can be labeled as the public schools. When a district spends millions on football, but cannot seem to come up with funding for special education, or foreign language teachers, or they set the kids in front of computers and tv shows all day instead of actually interacting, then there is a definite educational neglect. But no one will call that out for what it is. If our public schools would put as much time, money, and effort in to education as they do football, then we would have amazing education here. I am actually offended that I have to pay so much in tax dollars to "education" when it really comes down free babysitting and arrogant football craze.

[Pen]

Yes, I have been a member for a long time and I don't really post much anymore. I am not exclusively homeschooling anymore. I also have gotten wary about posting lots of info on a public board.

 

I was using the speech therapy and Barton programs as examples of a strong thread I see in the homeschooling world of not relying on experts or using experts to assist us. It makes sense, because that's in part why we choose to homeschool. I know that parents can successfully use Barton with their children - I have a friend who did so. You can't find posts about my personal situations with speech therapy and remediation for my dyslexic dd because these things happened more than five years ago and the board has probably changed formats since then.

 

Using speech therapy as an example, I know that I was told multiple times about a program that I could buy and use with my twins. They had turned three and had one madeup word between them.  I had 5 other children from college to newborn and was homeschooling all of them. If they had been my only children, if I had any sort of a background with speech therapy, if I understood how to form sounds in my mouth, perhaps I could have helped them. Instead, we got a real speech therapist, who knew what she was doing to come do the job that she had a master's degree in. It was her who recognized that my 5 yo also needed speech therapy (he was on a 2yo articulation level). To me he sounded a lot better than the twins so I wasn't worried. There is nothing wrong with letting others assist us in their areas of expertise, but again, I have seen a strong prejudice against it. A homeschooling mom CANNOT do everything and be everything to everyone. That is how educational neglect begins, or one way anyway.

 

So, yes, a parent can do Barton at home. Perhaps a better organized parent than me, with bunches of other children, could still manage it. My daughter was blessed with two tutors trained in Orton-Gillingham who volunteered to tutor her 3x a week for nearly 2 years.

 

 

I disagree that this group wants homeschooling to be ruined or made illegal. I don't see where they say that.  No, no, of course they did not say that. And I do not even think it is what they want in their hearts. But I think it could be the result of asking for things that will not help the situation they want to remedy--and for some of us, perhaps many, and myself included would ruin it. See below. You know the saying about the road to you you know where being paved with good intentions, I am sure.

 

In my years of experience, the biggest negatives I've seen with homeschooling are isolation, lack of support, and financial impacts. If I knew this back when we were looking for a house 15 years ago, I might have reconsidered buying one out in the country, as that only aggravates all of these negatives. But I didn't know that, and I hardly ever see people discussing the negatives and how to mitigate them. I was just discussing with another long time homeschooling mom, who is now working again, about finances and she said, "You always hear about how much less we spend than the schools by homeschooling, but I never heard anyone talk about the long term impact of losing one income." 

 

If we could have honest discussions about the negatives of homeschooling and make it clear that you're not failing if you need outside help, maybe we can prevent anymore grown up homeschoolers going on Homeschoolers Anonymous and talking about how they didn't get an education that their parents told the state they would provide.   Yes!

 

Thank you again. Yes, I think such discussions would be very important to have. 

 

I will also keep in mind your comments about addressing things like dyslexia at home when I am replying to others about it. I wonder if you'd be willing to post this one single message (or relevant parts of it) on Learning Challenges for people to see actual experience, in a place they probably look when having such dilemmas...and because even if this thread were linked it would be a lot to wade through to find this post.

 

I have only 1 child, and yes the remediation was intense. I do not think I could have done it if I had had a bunch more children, especially if  even a couple others also had significant but different problems that needed remediation also. And when it came to speech therapy which was also needed, he did have a professional for that, and once he lost services for that, I had advice about what to then do. In addition, while I was not specifically trained in any area of education I have a lot of education in general, with a degree in English from an Ivy League Uni., so that probably helps me. I would feel weird though to write to someone, well, I could do this, but you probably can't. But there are probably ways to put that nicely. OTOH, actual been there done that experience from someone like you would probably be better yet. Anyway, if I write about being able to do _____ at home, I'll try to remember to add something like that it was very hard, and very time consuming, and that an outside tutor might be a better option in some cases.

 

 

 

 more on: "I disagree that this group wants homeschooling to be ruined or made illegal. I don't see where they say that."  

 

I live in a state that does have some homeschool requirements: registration, standardized testing every other year by an approved tester (not a parent, but things like Sylvan Learning Center) on a specified acceptable test-- if the child consistently is above a certain percentile, every year if not, and possibly tutoring by a professional educator, and if not above the percentile level, and the school board does not find a reasonable answer for that they can require the child to go to public school.

 

First, there is a problem with the above potentially in that some parents may find it hard to pay for the testing, and yet be able to do a decent job of education with used materials, hand me downs, library books, etc.  For that reason, and also because I think the test and testing methods used at the public schools are better, I think homeschoolers should  be allowed to test at public schools using the OAKS that public schoolers do. ETA: also distance to approved learning centers--for us, given my circumstances, it is extremely onerous, and for some people it could be a true barrier, while presumably everyone has a public school somewhere that is within reasonable driving or bussing distance.

 

There used to be another big problem because the law was worded that if a child went down in his/her test percentiles it triggered all the requirements for more oversight, outside tutoring etc.   So, if someone had a child who stayed at 15th percentile consistently, they were fine, no interference. But if a child was in 95th percentile one year, and then 94th the next, it triggered all the oversight, and even perhaps (someone told me) demand that the child be put in public school if the figure didn't get back up to 95th percentile in an extra mandated test. This was so, to the extent that one old publication I saw on homeschooling in the state suggested that parents should try to have their children deliberately perform poorly the first time they took the test, so that improvement could then be shown. Well, this is now fixed here, but I offer it as a real example of things that can happen when one is trying to legislate such matters. (ETA: the rules even now are more heavy on homeschoolers than bricks and mortar schools-when in public school my son had a zero on his standardized exams, it was just dismissed and he was put at a table with the drug addict parent kids and left to flounder and sink with a parent of one of the class kids coming in and working with that table, but "working with" seemed to mean...I dunno, busy work with crayons...but since it was a PS, I guess a zero is just fine. No oversight or anything comes into play. And the private school was exempt from any testing.)

 

But second, is what I see as the bigger issue with trying to legislate improvements in what I see being complained of.

 

Not everyone registers. I know people who for various reasons are homeschooling, but not registered. In fact, I think a little more than half the homeschooling families I have known have been registered and a little less than half have not been registered (to the extent that sort of information gets shared, or one knows because the family is about to be doing their stdized tests etc.). I rather doubt that people who are having their children at home and not applying for birth certificates are going to tend to be ones to get and fill in and send back the homeschool registration paperwork. So, it is not that I do not believe that there are children for whom not having records is a problem, it is that I do not believe that requiring homeschool registration will solve the problem. 

 

I understand that people are saying well it could help because there would be a paper trail. Sure, if the parents would comply with that. And what is to say they will?

 

Moreover, it is not that I do not believe that there are abused children, both in school, and in homeschooling, and that some families use homeschooling to cover this up. It is that I do not believe that registration and other requirements would solve the abuse problem. I also do not think that the things complained of in the article even thought they sound abusive in a normal talking about it sense, rise to the level of legal abuse unless the belt hitting was so hard that it caused significant injury to rise to that level. (And in which case, one would have hoped the pastor of the church, or at least big sister, once gone from home, would have brought that to the attention of the "authorities.") But in most of the USA including where I am now, corporal punishment is not considered legally speaking, child abuse.

 

Thus whatever increased rules and regulations and hoops to jump through get imposed, they are going to impact people like me who, in my state, are already registered doing the required standardized testing with certified outside testing centers, and otherwise keeping in proper legal compliance. They are going to have no effect whatsoever on people who do not bother to fill out paperwork for things like birth certificates or homeschool, for whatever reason that may happen...neglect, or that a pastor or religious ____ says not to do so, or whatever it may be.

 

There is no one going door to door to determine if children are properly registered for homeschool or not, no more than there are social service people going door to door checking for abused children. I think that would be violative of rights in any case.

 

It is illegal to abuse children, but people still do, law or no law. And some who do are right in the schools as has been pointed out. (I was in Catholic school during problems between priests and boys time.) Making it illegal not to register children for homeschool or follow certain requirements does not mean that people will be following that law. Quite aside from that I also do not personally think the rules that I read they were considering wanting would stop abuse.

 

Would some of the rules they seem to consider wanting "ruin" homeschooling? For me, yes. I do not have a degree in education, or a state teaching license from my state--and my understanding is that is one of the rules some of the people wanting reform would like to see imposed. So for us (and all but one homeschool mom I know) it would make it not possible to homeschool legally, despite that I have two Ivy League degrees and probably know a good bit more and can teach a good bit better than most of the certified teachers I have met.

 

So, for us rules like that would mean my son having to go back to brick and mortar schools that were totally failing him. While, I suspect, the people who are having their children at home and not doing any teaching at all would just continue to do that without bothering to register in the first place.

 

Also, if we had had to follow what the public schools do, but just from home, I expect my son would still be unable to read -- the public school materials and methods simply did not work for him. Homeschooling with freedom to use one's own curriculum and methods is what has worked for him, and a reason that many of us homeschool. Had the public school not failed him, I would never have pulled him out. Even then I tried to keep him in a brick and mortar school hoping that a private one would be better, but he still was not learning. Only doing it at home with a large degree of flexibility allowed me to find things that would work for him. And this is another homeschool group that needs to be kept in mind--not just the children of fundamentalists.

[ColleenInWis]

To be clear I was quoting the unaffiliated appraiser whose review is the bottom half of the page linked. It was to support the arguement that I have been making, that there is actual data available on homeschool abuse. I thought the police and social workers have it, but the appraiser says it's avalable through google search from the courts online. The homeschool coalition does not want this data, they want data that backs their policy. (Including belt spankings and subpar education as homeschool abuse, to compare to public school data on abuse, which does not count spanking as a crime and education is not a legal American right.)

 

You've asked me why I'm "so worked up about the data issue", and stated earlier that you "weren't interested in discussing the legislative part" of a thread about a group whose stated purpose is developing regulation and getting data. Then to prove it you started another thread about....wait for it... legislative regulation.

 

I dropped it because you basically told me to take it off your thread, "I told you where to take it if you think you have a point." Of course I came back to read because obviously I think this topic is interesting. I guess I saw my name and took it as my chance to blurt out that middle paragraph, which has been burning a hole on the tip of my tongue.

 

Sorry I wasn't clear.  I'm not interested in arguing whether or not the CRHE should be crying out for data.  I think you may be splitting hairs in your complaints about what they say about data, or you may be right.  I don't have anything to say about your concerns about the data, but they might be able to answer your concerns.  That's all I meant.  

 

I never said I wasn't interested in discussing the legislative part...?  Again, sorry for the misunderstanding, La Texican.  You have added lots of valuable thoughts to this discussion, imho.    

[ColleenInWis]

Honestly, though, I'm a little puzzled about why you are so worked up about the data issue, La Texican.  I'm not really interested in this aspect of the discussion, so I have nothing else to say about it.  If you think you have a valid point, maybe you should...  oh, wait--I've already suggested that to you twice.   ;)

 

Quoting myself for La Texican b/c this is where I tried to express what I personally am not interested in.  If someone else wants to discuss the "data issue" on this thread, go ahead.  I have nothing more to say about it.  

[ColleenInWis]

I completely agree. Not to mention the Yates family and a girl who was kidnapped by her public school teacher. I quit reading at that point, so I didn't even see the two you mentioned. And the creators of that site are two of the five people who created the CRHE....

 

Tracy, what is your concern about the Yates family being included on the Invisible Children site?  I'm not very familiar with the case, so I don't immediately see a discrepancy in including it on a site that lists children who were harmed while adults claimed to be homeschooling.    

[ColleenInWis]

This site lost credibility for me when I saw that they included both Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Lee Duggard in their list of abused homeschooled children. Both women were kidnap victims. Their abductors did not in any way attempt to either school them or comply with any homeschool laws. Their cases are adamantly not homeschooling issues, but rather kidnapping/violent crime issues. There is no way at all that laws about documentation or reporting to school authorities would have changed what happened to them.

 

Maybe there is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the HSing's Invisible Children site.  Their stated mission:  The mission of Homeschooling’s Invisible Children is to raise awareness of the horrific abuse and neglect that can take place when unfit caregivers use homeschooling as a cover for criminal child maltreatment (emphasis Colleen's).

 

As I understand it, the portion I underlined would include kidnappers who tell people, "We're homeschooling."  The kidnappers use the term, homeschool, to allay any suspicion and the possibility of reports of truancy.  

 

They are trying to research how the label, "homeschooling," has been used to hide abuse.  So they are including in their database abnormal cases, like kidnappings, not just cases in which children were actually being home-educated.  

 

How regulation would have helped the girls in these kidnapping cases--good question, Harriet Vane.  

[Crimson Wife]

An aside: There was a poll and long thread on bikinis, which seemed irrelevant to me since I think I would, but have no daughter, but I did note that the results of the poll showed far more people not allowing bikinis than I would have expected (I assume at least some for religious/modesty reasons though also some for sun exposure reasons). Since I did not read it, I do not know, but did people post things that might help other parents who might be being too ... restrictive ... of their children perhaps be opened to other more moderate views and ideas in a friendly supportive way? I mean I gather that having to wear modest clothes like jumpers is one of the issues that the group who wants homeschool reform is all upset about. I believe I read that at some point. I'd rather see it taken up in an open and friendly way between parents on a forum like this than laws that mandate that children must be able to wear bikinis... not that I think that likely, but in an extreme that seems to me the direction of the group that wants these reforms.

There's a world of difference IMHO between not allowing minor daughters to wear a bikini and denying them education because you believe they should just be housewives & mothers.

 

I don't allow my girls to wear a bikini beyond the toddler years (we do have a size 3T Stawberry Shortcake bikini that is very clearly a little girl style with ruffles and a wide-strapped tank top). When they are adults they can decide for themselves what to wear, but until then, no bikinis. However, I am very determined to provide both my girls and my boy with as rigorous a K-12 education as they can handle.

[kiana]

There's a world of difference IMHO between not allowing minor daughters to wear a bikini and denying them education because you believe they should just be housewives & mothers.

 

I don't allow my girls to wear a bikini beyond the toddler years (we do have a size 3T Stawberry Shortcake bikini that is very clearly a little girl style with ruffles and a wide-strapped tank top). When they are adults they can decide for themselves what to wear, but until then, no bikinis. However, I am very determined to provide both my girls and my boy with as rigorous a K-12 education as they can handle.

 

Yes.

 

Quite honestly, I also see a large difference between "may not wear a bikini" and "may not swim because even a burkhini is too immodest." I would consider the second one excessive (though not abusive) and the first one a reasonable difference in parenting styles.

[Pen]

Yes.

 

Quite honestly, I also see a large difference between "may not wear a bikini" and "may not swim because even a burkhini is too immodest." I would consider the second one excessive (though not abusive) and the first one a reasonable difference in parenting styles.

 

 

One of the problems I am having is keeping clear what is the CRHS's ideas, versus what was in the Apostate article, versus what is in many of the quotes from homeschoolers or outside links. But somewhere there seemed to be the idea that wearing a jumper for modesty was felt by some of these former homeschoolers to be abusive. I do not agree with that. But I think that something other than legal routes and social services should be dealing with those sorts of concerns.

 

Some of the things I may think CRHS may want, may have been in quotes from former homeschooled kids, rather than in the official policy section. So maybe CRHS wants all states to take what is currently the most oversight given in any area and apply it to all states. 

 

 

 

Another thing I think should be studied is whether states like mine, Oregon, which are near the top for surveillance of homeschoolers, testing requirements and so on, show less abuse issues than ones down toward the bottom. Though clearly location in or out of the "Bible Belt" and other factors such as economic well being, would play a role--maybe a statistician could work out how to allow for such differences.

[Pen]

OTOH,  I should also add that when it does not come to calling for more legislation and oversight, but rather is giving information direct to students about getting help if they are being abused, and to parents about things like reaching out for help if they need it, I think many things I saw on CRHS are fine.

 

ETA: ...and also useful information for children in bricks and mortar schools, and parents who are not doing homeschooling.

 

[TracyP]

Tracy, what is your concern about the Yates family being included on the Invisible Children site?  I'm not very familiar with the case, so I don't immediately see a discrepancy in including it on a site that lists children who were harmed while adults claimed to be homeschooling.    

 

I'm going off memory here, but this is the gist. Andrea Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis. Even though she homeschooled, her kids were not even over the compulsory education age in many states. She drowned her 5 children in the bathtub one by one under some delusion that she was saving them from Hell. This wasn't even slightly a homeschool issue.

 

Maybe there is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the HSing's Invisible Children site.  Their stated mission:  The mission of Homeschooling’s Invisible Children is to raise awareness of the horrific abuse and neglect that can take place when unfit caregivers use homeschooling as a cover for criminal child maltreatment (emphasis Colleen's).

 

As I understand it, the portion I underlined would include kidnappers who tell people, "We're homeschooling."  The kidnappers use the term, homeschool, to allay any suspicion and the possibility of reports of truancy.  

 

They are trying to research how the label, "homeschooling," has been used to hide abuse.  So they are including in their database abnormal cases, like kidnappings, not just cases in which children were actually being home-educated.  

 

How regulation would have helped the girls in these kidnapping cases--good question, Harriet Vane.  

 

Good grief. Kidnappers are not "unfit caregivers".

[Pen]

So, er, any time I meet someone who says they are homeschooling and I do not know for sure, I should  call the cops because it might be a kidnapper? I assume if brick and mortar schooling were mandatory for all and there were no option of saying "we homeschool" kidnappers would use some other way to allay suspicion. Or keep the child where it would not be seen that there was a child present and not going to school.

[La Texican]

I'm sorry I looked, but I was right that the data on abuse and homeschooling is already available. At first I was saying (since some of the group are grad students) they should make a paper saying how and why they need the statistics and then ask the police and social workers for the data. After reading some more I realized I meant the courts would have these records, and it might be possible to get a lot of this data online. After a little googling I found this awful begining to compile the data.

http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/20821

 

They do have valid concerns that real children are suffering real damage in the world right now. They are on a mission to save some of those children. They just don't care if it affects other families who are doing the best they can for their own kids because the reality of abuse is truly so horriffic.

I agree with what Pen said above, the true abusers would hide it, wouldn't register. The most drastic cases wouldn't get a birth certificate, they probably wouldn't register their homeschool either. Perhaps some of the moderately neglectful parents would be spurred into action by the realization that there would be yearly testing.

Who are they trying to save? The kidnapped and the abused? The non-schoolers? They don't know who they want to save because we don't have good data on who all's homeschooling, but some are suffering anything from strict religious parents, to non-schoolers, to kidnapping?

 

 

I'll say, once again, that I think the people behind CRHE make some incredibly valid points. You'll have to agree, though, that including kidnappers' use of homeschooling as an excuse to make people less suspicious really doesn't have anything to do with homeschooling abuse.

[La Texican]

I'm asking what kind of data can they collect connecting the two? Decades worth of this data is already available in America's court archives. The coalition has grad students who should be able to figure out how to access it. Why do they need the data? That's my issue with the data. They say they need data to fight abuse. Why? What are they going to do with it, really?

[La Texican]

When I hear the phrase "we need data on homeschoolers to make policy" I worry because it makes individual homeschool families into a group to take statistics on and regulate policy for the group.

What have they done with the public school system? They have focused on the underperforming students . The school district makes policies with a broad brush for the whole group and this often means providing for the needs of the struggling student not the high achiever. I think they would act the same way with homeschool regulation. I think it would affect good homeschooling families.

 

I guess my biggest concern is that homeschool regulation would affect my family. I'm afraid legislation paints with broad strokes. I'll admit my concerns are "what ifs". Everybody here knows the shortcomings of the public school districts. One of their biggest shortcomings is a one-size fits all approach to education.

 

What are some of the least imposing regulations they can pass? What about the amount of hours you should homeschool? What about good homeschool parents who teach quality homeschool materials in the early years (1/3 rd of a kids educational years) and cut out the busy work. Many homeschoolers say this can be done in one hour per day per grade. Does the state regulation want to see that a second grader does 2 hrs of school a day? Does the homeschooler have to lie about her hours or keep her kids from playing outside too much during the day? They did in the old days. Then the choice is either to lie or else it did affect good homeschoolers.

 

Do I want the State to come in to adjust my homeschool environment just to spurr some mediocre non-school parents into a pretense of action once a year near testing time? Not really. Maybe that's why "mobs of homeschoolers swarm in protest at the mention of regulation." (Yes, one of these sites said that.)

[La Texican]

I get that I'm selfish to say I don't want to risk cutting down on the hours my kid can play in the yard during the daytime in the same thread where I just posted a link describing homeschooled children who were beaten, cut, burned, forced to eat their own vomit, and killed.

 

I'm just not convinced that one has to do with the other and I can see homeschool regulation efforts controlling how many hours my kid plays and studies much more easily than I can believe the proposed legislation will actually save those children.

[Pen]

... reliable data cannot be available, by definition, unless all homeschoolers subject themselves to very rigorous oversight.

 

And there is another question which would have to do with the potential abusiveness and trauma of the oversight.

 

As a foster parent we would have a monthly (as I recall) visit from a social worker to check on the well-being of the child(ren), safety of the home, and so on. These visits can themselves be traumatic to children . ETA, and my understanding is that it is far far more traumatic for the child(ren) (and stressful for the adults which can add to problems for children) when social workers are looking at a home that is considered suspect--where a question of possible abuse has come up (which seems to be the implication of this group-- that all home schoolers are necessarily suspect for possible child abuse), and where the children are afraid of being taken away (assuming that the situation is one that is not so terrible they want to be taken away), and the parents afraid of losing their children.

 

Medical exams where a doctor is searching a child's genitals looking for evidence of abuse can itself be traumatic. 

 

And so on.

 

For those children where it picked up some major problem such that they would be better off removed from their homes and placed in foster care maybe having such things would be helpful. But foster care is itself for many children not a good experience. And there are certainly children who get removed from homes where the removal and subsequent placements are probably as bad as whatever they are being taken from.

 

For what I think are the large number of homes where the child is being home schooled, but not abused, all the surveillance, oversight, and so on that various voices quoted on the CHRC website seem to want (whether that is CHRC policy or the words of former home schoolers) might, from my experience being a foster parent, itself be stressful, traumatic, damaging.

 

"Oversight of homeschooling should focus both on ensuring that children receive a basic education and on ensuring that homeschooling is not being used to conceal abuse or neglect. There are a variety of ways to achieve these goals.

'Homeschooling needs to have some sort of regulatory oversight for the sake of abused children. The most important element of this oversight should not be standardized testing—I’m in favor of a portfolio option for homeschoolers rather than simply required testing—but should focus instead on putting every child in regular contact with social workers, doctors, teachers, and/or other professionals with the goal of increasing reporting of abuse. ~ Jeremy, 29, homeschooled K-12th'"

--bold added by Pen, from:

http://www.responsiblehomeschooling.org/resources/for-lawmakers/

[snowbeltmom]

The foster system is so complex and so full of heart-break and trauma, and so full of human error. I'd hate to see that feeling of uncertainty imposed on all homeschooling families. 

 

This is exactly what a state senator in Ohio tried to do last month with a bill she introduced.  The bill repealed all of the state's current homeschooling laws and gave the CPS worker the final authority on whether or not the family could homeschool.  The CPS worker would base his recommendation on whether or not he felt homeschooling was "in the best interest of the child" after interviewing the parents and the children separately.  Thankfully, the bill was killed, but it is terrifying to me that a state senator and her co-sponsors proposed such a bill in the first place.

 

[cathmom]

This site lost credibility for me when I saw that they included both Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Lee Duggard in their list of abused homeschooled children. Both women were kidnap victims. Their abductors did not in any way attempt to either school them or comply with any homeschool laws. Their cases are adamantly not homeschooling issues, but rather kidnapping/violent crime issues. There is no way at all that laws about documentation or reporting to school authorities would have changed what happened to them.

 

Wasn't Elizabeth Smart homeschooled before she was kidnapped? Or am I remembering wrong?

[at the beach]

Wasn't Elizabeth Smart homeschooled before she was kidnapped? Or am I remembering wrong?

 

She was not homeschooled prior to being kidnapped according to this article: http://www.biography.com/people/elizabeth-smart-17176406

 

"She attended Bryant Intermediate School, where she was known as an intelligent and diligent student."

[Harriet Vane]

She was not homeschooled prior to being kidnapped according to this article: http://www.biography.com/people/elizabeth-smart-17176406

 

"She attended Bryant Intermediate School, where she was known as an intelligent and diligent student."

 

Right.

 

Even if she had been homeschooled prior, her case would still be irrelevant for the purposes of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education. Her kidnapping and repeated assaults were violent crimes unrelated to homeschooling.

[ColleenInWis]

Wasn't Elizabeth Smart homeschooled before she was kidnapped? Or am I remembering wrong?

 

I don't see anything online that states she was homeschooled before the kidnapping.  She was included on the site because her captors used the word "homeschool" as a cover.  

 

"'He told me to say I had been home schooled and that we traveled around ministering to different people,' Elizabeth reported during later testimony,"  http://hsinvisiblechildren.org/2013/11/26/elizabeth-smart/

 

From http://hsinvisiblechildren.org/frequently-asked-questions/:

 

Why did you start the Homeschooling’s Invisible Children Database?  Heather Doney and Rachel Coleman, both former homeschool students who have spent time studying homeschooling at a graduate level, became interested in the ways homeschooling can be used to conceal child maltreatment and allow it to continue unimpeded. They began collecting cases of severe abuse and neglect in homeschool settings and soon felt the need for a way to organize and present these cases. They were inspired to found Homeschooling’s Invisible Children by Pound Pup Legacy, an organization that works to raise awareness of problems in the adoption and foster care systems.

What is your criteria for including a child in the HIC database?  We include all school aged children (ages 5 to 17) who were the victims of severe or fatal abuse or neglect who were legally homeschooled or whose parents, guardians, or captors claimed to be homeschooling them at the time an incident occurred.

Why do you include murdered children whose deaths don’t look like they have anything to do with homeschooling, such as the Moore children or the Yates children?  We include every child abuse or neglect death of a homeschooled child regardless of how this death took place. Our hope is to create a comprehensive database of homeschooling fatalities in an effort to locate themes and work toward solutions. In order to effectively analyze the data, we must include all the cases.

Why do you include abducted children whose captors falsely claimed to be homeschooling them?  Homeschooling has on numerous been used by kidnappers to help hide their abductions. By claiming to homeschool, abductors do not have to face the choice between enrolling a kidnapped child in school and worrying that someone will notice a child not in school and report them as truant.

[ColleenInWis]

For those interested, both of these sites have updated their FAQ pages recently:  Homeschooling's Invisible Children FAQ  Coalition for Responsible Home Education's FAQ

 

I also heard that CRHE's Policy Recommendations have been edited.  I haven't taken the time to look it over myself, yet.  

[cathmom]

OK, yeah, I started thinking I remembered that Elizabeth Smart was homeschooled and that's how the guy who kidnapped her saw her, because she was home while he was there working. But obviously I was remembering that wrong or making it up.

 

I will say that I do think the Andrea Yates case could have something to do with homeschooling. Yes, only one child was old enough to have been in school and the second oldest would have probably started kindergarten that fall, and probably under Texas law the oldest was not mandated to be in school yet. However, most people who do not plan to homeschool DO send their children to kindergarten - I've never heard of anyone who didn't this day and age - and many have their children in preschool as well. At one time I had four children 5 and under and it's extremely stressful, and that's putting it mildly. To never get a break, to never have any hope of a break because you are homeschooling, is an enormous amount of pressure. I've read that the reason she said she drowned them because she was a bad mother. Her feelings of failure as mother could have been exacerbated by feeling responsible for their entire upbringing and education. If they were constantly with her and she was a bad mother and a bad example, then they would turn out badly and so it would be better for them to die as innocent children. I'm not saying that this is what happened, because I do not know. But having been a homeschooling mother with lots of little ones, I understand the stress and pressure.

 

If the oldest had been in school, and the 5 and 3 year olds in preschool, that would have left her with only a 2 yo and a baby to deal with for several hours a day at least. I do believe that her husband was remiss in not making alternative educational arrangements for the children.

 

I don't mean to turn this into a thread about the Yates family; I just wanted to make that comment pertaining to homeschooling.

[snowbeltmom]

I will say that I do think the Andrea Yates case could have something to do with homeschooling.

 

Andrea Yates suffered from postpartum psychosis and had been under the care of mental health professionals for years.  Homeschooling had absolutely nothing to do with this tragic event. 

 

Also for those that think that more homeschooling regulations would have resulted in a different outcome: CPS had been contacted about this family's situation:

 

"Tauriac called Texas's Child Protective Services abuse hotline on June 23 to report the family's "living arrangements and the fact that patient's husband allows the 31/2-year-old son to use a power drill."

 

Seven days after Tauriac's complaint, Dan Willbur, CPS Supervisor II, wrote to thank her for her concern. However, "because the situation does not appear to involve the occurrence and/or substantial risk of abuse or neglect�we plan no further inquiries," he said. The letter stated that her concerns had been forwarded to the Houston Police Department, because "they do appear to have jurisdiction in such matters." Tauriac jotted a note on the bottom of the CPS letter: "Important. Please place in the chart of Andrea Yates." The letter lay dormant in her file until the murders."

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Andrea-Yates-A-Cry-in-the-Dark/3#ixzz2re0m7tp9

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[shinyhappypeople]

Does anyone remember the Rachel L case in California about 5 or 6 years ago?  I wonder what happened to her and her siblings.  I wonder how they're doing now.