Loyalty to the State by canttakesky

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
And I think you’ve been very irrational about the issue of legislation - for some reason you seem to think it’s a threat, ...

In my view, all legislation is a threat. Therefore, it should be used as a LAST resort, rather than the first. Whenever there is a problem, you will want the law to fix it, and I will want to find alternatives that do not involve law. You and I will never agree on this point.

Quote:
...but in reality it’s not only the only way to fix the homeschooling problem in California - it is the way all laws are fixed or should be fixed in America. If we can’t agree on this very basic concept then I don’t know where this discussion could possibly go.

I am unclear on what this basic concept is. Cause right now, I am reading, "[legislation] is not only the only way to fix the problem in CA, it is the way all laws are fixed in America." OK, legislation is the way the laws are fixed--yeah, no dispute there. Is that the basic concept you mean? Or something else?

I think the core of this dispute is whether the law in CA NEEDS to be fixed. (If it does, obviously legislation is the way to do it.) The only thing I see that needs fixing is to explicitly define "capable of teaching." If that is also the only thing you want to see fixed, then we have no argument.

But my initial post to you was my objection to your suggestion of having "minimum standards" to prevent parents from "abusing homeschooling." I definitely object to "fixing" CA law to add that kind of monitoring.

Quote:

I found a website that explains the issue a bit more honestly then some of the other homeschooling websites

Thanks for the link. It is good to have a different perspective, but I am not sure it is a more "honest" one.

Perhaps at the core of our conflict is our views of the law. Though either way is unpleasant, I would prefer the law to be vague, than for the law to be more precise but more controlling. But for you, taking advantage of imprecision to avoid control is "dishonest." You feel it is our duty to write good laws and obey them. I feel it is our duty to avoid laws, and where they can't be avoided, to have the version of law that controls as little as possible.

Maybe this is the basic concept you were talking about? You see those orange traffic cones as guidance to be followed, and I see them as obstacles to be avoided.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 1:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
And I think you’ve been very irrational about the issue of legislation - for some reason you seem to think it’s a threat, ...
In my view, all legislation is a threat. Therefore, it should be used as a LAST resort, rather than the first. Whenever there is a problem, you will want the law to fix it, and I will want to find alternatives that do not involve law. You and I will never agree on this point.

That’s right we won’t. What you are basically telling me is that you prefer a nation run by an autocracy of appointed judges, which is an anti-democratic government, instead of a pro-democratic republic of elected representatives. And as I said if you can’t agree on a braod governmental process then this discussion can go no where.

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Perhaps at the core of our conflict is our views of the law. Though either way is unpleasant, I would prefer the law to be vague, than for the law to be more precise but more controlling. But for you, taking advantage of imprecision to avoid control is "dishonest." You feel it is our duty to write good laws and obey them. I feel it is our duty to avoid laws, and where they can't be avoided, to obey as little as possible. (Not disobey, mind you--I'm not advocating illegal behavior.)

Maybe this is the basic concept you were talking about? You see those orange traffic cones as guidance to be followed, and I see them as obstacles to be avoided.

You’re so stuck on this anti-democratic concept that you don’t even realize what’s going on here. The whole problem in California is that the government defined in 1953 that “capable of teaching” means “having a teaching creditential.” So put this “vagueness” in the law that you think exists right out of your head. It’s an illussion. The “vagueness” in the law was nothing more then an excuse for an appointed judge to define exactly what he wanted the law to be over fifty years ago.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 2:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
What you are basically telling me is that you prefer a nation run by an autocracy of appointed judges, ...

No, no.. that is not what I am telling you at all. Judges are part of the legal system, which I want to avoid.

When I say alternatives that do not involve the law, I mean private, voluntary efforts that do not involve the legal system (legislature, judge, or politicians) at all.

And I do not give the one judge's ruling in 1953 equal weight as legal statute. So we continue to disagree on what current CA laws says, and what it means. I understand that you feel you are right, and I am wrong, but the fact that this issue is being debated by lawyers and judges in CA shows that there is no real clear answer. (Kind of consistent with the term, "vague.")

BTW, this is fresh off the presses. I know it is not legally binding, but it is reassuring.

Quote:
SCHOOLS CHIEF JACK O'CONNELL ISSUES STATEMENT
REGARDING HOME SCHOOLING IN CALIFORNIA

3/11/08

SACRAMENTO - State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack
O'Connell announced today that the California Department of Education
has completed a legal review of the February 28 California Court of
Appeal ruling regarding home schooling. O'Connell issued the following
statement:

"I have reviewed this case, and I want to assure parents
that chose to home school that California Department of Education policy
will not change in any way as a result of this ruling. Parents still
have the right to home school in our state.

"Every child in our state has a legal right to get an education, and I
want every child to get an education that will prepare them for success
in college and the world of work in the challenging global economy.

"As the head of California's public school system, I hope that every
parent would want to send their children to public school. However,
traditional public schools may not be the best fit for every student.
Within the public school system there are a range of options available.
Students can take independent study classes, attend a charter school, or
participate in non-classroom-
based programs. But some parents choose to
send their children to private schools or to home school, and I respect
that right.

"I admire the dedication of parents who commit to oversee their
children's education through home schooling. But, no matter what
educational program a student participates in, it is critical that the
program prepares them for future success in the global economy. I urge
any parent who is considering or involved in home schooling their
children to take advantage of resources and support available through
their county or district offices of education."

http://www.hsc.org/appellatedecision

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 2:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
What you are basically telling me is that you prefer a nation run by an autocracy of appointed judges, ...
No, no.. that is not what I am telling you at all. Judges are part of the legal system, which I want to avoid.

When I say alternatives that do not involve the law, I mean private, voluntary efforts that do not involve the legal system (legislature, judge, or politicians) at all.

What? What does that even mean? How do you deal with a legal matter without dealing with the law? And it doesn’t make any difference how much weight you give the California appellate court - they have plenty of weight with or without your opinion, or mine.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 5:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
When I say alternatives that do not involve the law, I mean private, voluntary efforts that do not involve the legal system (legislature, judge, or politicians) at all.
What? What does that even mean? How do you deal with a legal matter without dealing with the law?

Because I wasn't talking about a legal matter. I was talking about problems in general, such as the educational neglect concern that started this debate.

See if you can spot where we both dropped the ball in this thread. Focus and keep your eye on the ball....

-----Begin Thread History------

Court decides these children's homeschool require credentialed teachers.

Finn: I'm not entirely sure that I don't agree with Court in this case...if some parents are abusing homeschooling, then maybe attention needs to be drawn to this.

CTS: You can't penalize millions of legitimate homeschoolers because some people abuse homeschooling. [penalize, as in require parents to get credentials in order to homeschool]

Finn: We should have mechanism in place to try to prevent abuse, ... if ...California has not defined the law well enough to provide that some mechanism exists to assure that homeschooled children are receiving minimal education, then perhaps the legislation needs to go back and review the law. [Read: Change the law so that a standard for minimum education is required from homeschoolers.]

CTS: We do not disband most of schooling because *some* teachers engage in educational neglect. Similarly, we should not disband most of homeschooling because *some* homeschooling parents engage in educational neglect. [Because a standard like requiring credentials would effectively disband homeschooling.]

Finn: [Unlike a school] A single parental household that receive neither monitoring by the state or some form of guidance ...has the potential be very damaging to a child's education without anyone ever knowing. ...so I say that the issue might need to be reviewed by the California legislators.

CTS: Educational neglect does not happen because no one caught it. Catching it, likewise, is not the solution. The solution is to match students to teachers that CARE.

Finn: It sounds to me like what you are suggesting is that we should just ignore the problem, continue with inadequate legal protection...

CTS: My alternative solution does not involve legislation...it calls for educational reform... Disagreeing with YOUR solution is not the same thing as ignoring the problem.

Finn: Then it’s probably useless, unless you‘re in favor of banning homeschooling. Because California law has banned homeschooling since 1953 and that can only be rectified through legislation. [Read: !!!CHANGE OF TOPIC!!! Segue from legislating to prevent educational neglect, to legislating to legitimize CA homeschooling.]

We digress and discuss whether homeschooling is legal in CA or not.

CTS: My dispute with you is your recommendation to "review the law," as you call it, to monitor homeschoolers and prevent "homeschooling abuse" (educational neglect). My point is the current standards in the law (including the allowance of non-credentialed teachers) are adequate and do not need to be augmented. We do not need MORE bureaucratic hoops to jump through to prove we can and are teaching our kids.

Finn: Yes, “review the law” as I call it, which means for the legislators to “review” or reexamine the “law” or language in the California code to make homeschooling legal. [Read: Another segue from the issue of educational neglect to whether homeschooling is legal or not.]

CTS: I don't have a problem with making homeschool "legal" (if in fact it needs to be made "legal"). It is your assertion that part of this "legality" requires some minimum standard and monitoring for homeschooling abuses that I have a problem with. [Read: I don't have a big conflict about legality. Let's get back on topic of educational neglect.]

Finn: ...for some reason you seem to think it’s [legislation] a threat, but in reality it’s not only the only way to fix the homeschooling problem in California - it is the way all laws are fixed or should be fixed in America. If we can’t agree on this very basic concept then I don’t know where this discussion could possibly go. [Read: No, we are staying on the CA legality issue. We have to fix it through legislation, why can't you understand that?]

CTS: In my view, all legislation is a threat. Therefore, it should be used as a LAST resort, rather than the first. Whenever there is a problem, you will want the law to fix it, and I will want to find alternatives that do not involve law. [Read: I don't like legislation. You got a problem, you solve it without legislation. By "problem," I'm mean educational neglect, cause I am going back to that issue.]

Finn: What you are basically telling me is that you prefer a nation run by an autocracy of appointed judges.. [Back to the CA legality issue...]

CTS: When I say alternatives that do not involve the law, I mean private, voluntary efforts that do not involve the legal system (legislature, judge, or politicians) at all. [Back to the educational neglect issue...]

Finn: What? What does that even mean? How do you deal with a legal matter without dealing with the law? [Back to the CA legality issue. How do you make homeschooling legal without the law?]

-------End Thread History----------

CTS: I wasn't talking about making homeschooling legal. I've already dropped that topic because I made it clear I don't have a problem with making homeschooling legal, as long as nothing else changes. It is the "nothing else changes" part I am talking about. All other problems such as educational neglect can be addressed without changing the law.

[Read: Let's drop the legality issue because for argument's sake, let's just say I agree with you that it is good to have homeschooling unequivocally legal. Happy now? Can we get back to the part where I don't want minimum educational standards again?]

And if you didn't follow that, well, this debate is beyond resuscitation.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 5:28 PM

If a student spends ten yours being homeschooled by parents who care nothing for the child’s education or have no idea how to care and that child grows to adult knowing nothing, (not how to read, not to write, speak, etc) then this constitutes actual child abuse or neglect, which is illegal. You cannot have an education system designed to abuse children, which is exactly what a homeschooling system would be if the parents/educators had no intent of applying any minimum standard of education. So legislating homeschooling to be legal and applying minimum standards of education to homeschooling are essentially tantamount.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 5:50 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
If you cook at home, the state is not looking over your shoulder with a "few checks" to make sure your meals are sanitary and nutritious for your kids.

wow there is quite a difference in cooking at home than providing a complete education for a child.

Firstly, most of us cook at home.
Secondly, you can see malnutritian quite easily in a child. And Social Services do find plenty of examples of children who are not fed properly to the point of health damage.

How do you work out if someone is being educated, or craply educated? Pretty hard to tell by looking.

Quote:
The default assumption is, you're innocent unless proven guilty

not necessarily about guilt or innocence, but about capicity. The assumption we should all have is that children need the opportunity to receive an education. This is not the 17th Century. We live in a highly technological society where education matters more than ever before. There are not that many jobs for illiterate poorly educated people anymore.

Quote:
There is nothing magical about education that it requires only professionals or professional supervision. Really. Teaching your kids is like cooking meals, fixing cars, and doing taxes. You can do it yourself.

So surgeons, architects, engineers, computer programmers, biologists, mechanics, electricians, pilots all learn through magic, do they? Think I'd prefer to use the services of those who have a formal qualifications, thanks all the same.

Quote:
Places without formal, compulsory education also have major socio-political problems that prevent DIY education. You can't assume it is the absence of compulsory education that is the cause of illiteracy and poverty--more often than not, it is something else that is causing it.

really? can you prove that? the correlation between availability of education and standard of living is incredibly strong. It's why people cry out to be educated in developing countries,why its one of the first steps in picking up the rubble in warzones. It picks them up out of the crap, basically.

Quote:
However, I will agree that children do need guidance and resources to learn. Just how much guidance is needed, and how should that guidance be presented is entirely debatable. I submit though, that the guidance currently offered by professional teachers is only one of many effective ways, and is by no means the ONLY effective way, as those professionals like to claim.

I agree with you here.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 7:22 PM

Speaking of that...

Conn. student suspended for buying candy
Wed Mar 12, 7:21 PM ET

Contraband candy has led to big trouble for an eighth-grade honors student in Connecticut.

Michael Sheridan was stripped of his title as class vice president, barred from attending an honors student dinner and suspended for a day after buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate.

School spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo says the New Haven school system banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a districtwide school wellness policy.

Michael's suspension has been reduced from three days to one, but he has not been reinstated as class vice president.

Superintendent Reginald Mayo said Wednesday that the principal was just trying to keep students safe, but that he would review the decision to suspend Michael.

Michael says that he didn't realize his candy purchase was against the rules, but he did notice that the student selling the Skittles on Feb. 26 was being secretive.

Just one more of the problems sparked by folks taking a system meant purely for education, and using it for indoctrination.

Even worse, hypocrisy - anyone wanna make a bet with me that this self-same school has students selling candy to boost it's field trip and athletics budget ?

So what does THAT teach em, eh ?

-F

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 8:18 PM

They're preparing him for the insanity of the 'real world' I guess.

But I think that it's kind of a good thing in the grand scheme. Teaches kids that rules (and later laws) have nothing at all to do with right and wrong. Besides, every time they pull this shit it's just one more recruit for us criminals. They keep fucking around and they'll be more of us then there are of them.

Score one for the bad guys.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008 11:15 PM

Tumbled to my nefarious plan, have you ?

Yes, truth is that not all of my recruits come from the rabbithole - I got a kinda socrates club goin at the local high school, started as a straight-up advice thing with a friends kid, who thought it was so cool to get straight answers from an adult for once they brought their friends, and we talk, sure.

I do discourage any outright illegal behavior on their behalf, but given the value of an ally in the "adult world" they're ok with that.

It's a bit amazing how limited technical/mechanical education is these days, as of late the topic has been appliance repair and how one can benefit from spending sixty bucks instead of six hundred when your washer breaks down.

-F

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 4:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
So legislating homeschooling to be legal and applying minimum standards of education to homeschooling are essentially tantamount.

Tell me Finn, is it legal to give kids chewing gum? Are there statutes regulating the minimum quality of chewing gum for kids?

Let's bring the analogy closer to our debate. Is it legal to give kids food, water, clothing, shelter, and medical care? Are there statutes defining minimum standards of food, water, clothing, shelter, and medical care?

All you need for something to be legal is to NOT MAKE IT ILLEGAL. Everything not prohibited by law is legal by default. Yeah, that's how chewing gum gets away with it (sneaky bastards). All you need to make homeschooling legal is delete the phrase "capable of teaching." Short of that, define it to include parents. That's it. As soon as it is NOT prohibited, as soon as it is exempted from current prohibitions, it is legal. Just like that.

Now back to the issue at hand (keep your eyes on the ball, Finn): educational neglect. How does the state define other types of neglect without some minimum standard? Generally, they use evidence of harm combined with a judgment call from the judge and/or jury.

That's right. The statutes don't spell out exactly how many calories you are legally required to feed children or from which food groups. They don't spell out how many hugs to give a day, or minimum amount of parent-child bonding time. They just prosecute you if your child is noticed to be undernourished, or chronically depressed/aggressive/anxious. That is, they prosecute you if they find evidence of harm. There is no reason why this same model can't be applied ot educational neglect as well.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 5:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Secondly, you can see malnutritian quite easily in a child. ...How do you work out if someone is being educated, or craply educated? Pretty hard to tell by looking.

So the biggest difference between cooking and educating is how easily you can detect severe neglect in that area "just by looking"? By that reasoning, every type of abuse that you can't detect just by looking should have annual screenings. Do you also want mandatory psychological evaluations for every child every year to prove that parents aren't abusing them emotionally? Why stop at only educational abuse?

And as to your first point, imagine if you will, that you are born into a society that believes proper physical nutrition is a universal right for all children. In fact, they tax all citizens to provide free, public meals for all children. From age 5 to age 18, breakfast, lunch, and dinner are provided by the state, who employs professional dieticians and cooks to
design and prepare those meals. Private mealhouses use the same model to provide meals for parents for a low fee, and join public mealhouses so families can still eat together. After a short while, almost everyone eats at these mealhouses, 3 meals a day. Meal planning becomes considered a specialized activity that should be left to credentialed professionals.

After a while longer, some parents decide they can cook just as well, if not better than professional meal planners. They are disturbed that the annual nutritional testing given at public mealhouses show widespread deficits in nutrition. They want their kids to eat at home. They withdraw their children from public and private mealhouses, and call themselves homecookers. The state makes it legal to cook at home, but requires that parents submit annual proof that their cooking meets professional meal planning standards, including having their children tested for nutritional deficits. Parents wonder why they have to meet these criteria to continue cooking, when failure to do that same in public mealhouses results in no loss of cooking privileges for them.

Despite all the hoops and hurdles, homecooking parents grow as a group. More and more children withdraw from public and private mealhouses to eat homecooking, and they like it. However, whenever a child suffers from nutritional neglect from homecooking, the case is touted as an example of the potential dangers of allowing homecooking. Homecookers and professional meal planners struggle on the legislative battleground over how much oversight the state needs to have over cooking at home.

Whether "most of us" cook at home or educate at home is an artifact of societal norms and regulations.

Quote:
not necessarily about guilt or innocence, but about capicity.

You mean, capability? Which capabilities exactly?

Quote:
So surgeons, architects, engineers, computer programmers, biologists, mechanics, electricians, pilots all learn through magic, do they? Think I'd prefer to use the services of those who have a formal qualifications, thanks
all the same.

There is a distinction between education and training. Education is the acquisition of knowledge. Training is the acquisition of skills, usually very specialized skills. No one would dispute that training
usually requires apprenticeship to persons (usually professionals) with the desired specialized skills. For the average person, it is hard to acquire piano playing skills without being trained by someone who plays the piano. Same thing goes for surgical skills, piloting skills, car fixing skills, and any other skill that involves physical manipulation.

Some fields such as history, political science, and philsophy are entirely based on mental knowledge obtained through education. Education can be obtained in different ways, one of which is Do-It-Yourself (DIY). Other fields are a mixture of education and training, such as medicine and architecture and piloting. There is no reason that the education part can't be done by yourself, to be followed by conventional training. In fact, that is what homeschooled surgeons, architects, and pilots do. They get their education at home as children, and then go to college for conventional training afterwards. See? Plenty of homeschooled people have formal qualifications as well.

Quote:
Quote:
Places without formal, compulsory education also have major socio-political problems that prevent DIY education. You can't assume it is the absence of compulsory education that is the cause of illiteracy and poverty-- more often than not, it is something else that is causing it.

really? can you prove that?

Is it fair to ask me to prove my assertion without proving yours? Listen, it is a matter of logic. Correlation does not equal causation. Just because blond people often get sunburns doesn't mean blond hair causes sunburns, and that dying your hair black would prevent sunburns, you see?

I used to live in Paraguay. Five year old kids there wake up at dawn to sell chewing gum or newspapers on the streets, just to get enough money to eat for the day. There is compulsory education laws, but many kids can't afford to go. So they moved some public school hours to 5-8 pm, so that kids who have to work during the day can go to school at night. Despite the compulsory education, kids continue to be illiterate and impoverished. One, the education they got wasn't any good. Two, they were too tired after a long workday to retain anything. And three, the reasons for their poverty goes way beyond the issue of compulsory education and includes such factors as absence of parents and a crippled economy. I'm saying the issues are way, way more complicated than whether education is compulsory or not.

Quote:
the correlation between availability of education and standard of living is incredibly strong.

No doubt it is. But education is a different issue from compulsory education. I support education wholeheartedly. In fact, most of my solutions for the world's problems start with education. If you read my other posts, I advocate increasing teacher's pay and social status to those of physicians. We are entrusting them with our children's MINDS. It has to be a economic and social priority.

I am just not sure making education *compulsory* is necessary or even beneficial. Not everything that is important needs to be regulated by law. Sometimes it is sufficient to make abuse a crime, and let everything else be legal (not prohibited).

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 5:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
So legislating homeschooling to be legal and applying minimum standards of education to homeschooling are essentially tantamount.
Tell me Finn, is it legal to give kids chewing gum? Are there statutes regulating the minimum quality of chewing gum for kids?

Yes.

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Let's bring the analogy closer to our debate. Is it legal to give kids food, water, clothing, shelter, and medical care? Are there statutes defining minimum standards of food, water, clothing, shelter, and medical care?

Yes.

Most of these things are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. I’m not sure how clothing is regulated but I’m pretty sure allowing your child to go naked in an environment in which clothing was needed would be viewed harshly.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 6:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
...would be viewed harshly.

Huh

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 6:26 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Most of these things are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA regulates *businesses* that sell these products.

You want to make me work for it? Fine. Are there statutes that regulate how PARENTS are required to dispense these products to their children? Are there statutes that regulate how many calories parents must give to kids and from which food groups? Are there statutes that tell parents what kind of housing they must provide to be good parents? Or what kind of clothing their children must wear in each season? Are there laws that explicitly govern PARENTS and PARENTING choices?

Don't go misinterpreting these questions again. I know you are smart enough to know what I am asking. So if you go off on some tangent about business regulations again, I would have to interpret that as intentional refusal to counter my point and continue the debate.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 6:30 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I think CTS is so full of parent's "rights", Sarge is so full of anti-government, and Frem is so interested in "recruits" that they've entirely lost sight of child's welfare. Seems- once again- to more an issue of control than anything else. More later.

---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 6:54 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Don't go misinterpreting these questions again. I know you are smart enough to know what I am asking. So if you go off on some tangent about business regulations again, I would have to interpret that as intentional refusal to counter my point and continue the debate.

Just because you find yourself unable to come up with any substanstive argument against the point I made, doesn’t mean I’m misinterpreting anything. Yes, the FDA regulates businesses. The businesses they are regulating sell products to the families of children. So the food that parents are providing their children, the food you think is completely unregulated, is in fact highly regulated by the FDA in the vast majority of cases before it ever reaches the mouths children in the US.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 7:26 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I think CTS is so full of parent's "rights",

Huh? I think you are so full of self-righteous hubris that you actually believe you are the only person here who cares about children's welfare. (No, I don't really think that because I feel I know you better. But your accusations sure make it sound like that.) Cmon Sig. Give people the benefit of the doubt that you would like us to give to you, eh? Of course we all want what's best for the children. The debate is what is the best way to achieve that in a complicated world. And if you *really* believe your way is the only right way, and everyone who has a different perspective must not care about children as much as you do, then there is no word for that except hubris.

The law already presumes parents to be both innocent and competent for child-rearing, until evidence of harm proves them guilty and incompetent. I am looking for some intellectual consistency of why education should be singled out as legally requiring routine monitoring, when no other child welfare need (food, clothing, shelter, even medical care) has that requirement. How does that translate into "so full of parents' rights," let alone "entirely lost sight of child's welfare"?

It feels like the War on Terrorism debate. If you question the way the problem is being addressed, some people immediately hand out accusations of not caring about America's welfare, or of being unpatriotic, or even of treason.

Let's just debate about the issues without attacking each other's internal commitments shall we? I mean, I don't agree with you and Finn and Mason, and I think in the end, your proposals would hurt many children. But I know you mean well, and I'm not going to attack your commitment to their welfare as part of the debate. How about you do the same for us? Let's move forward with the assumption that we all care about kids and not go there.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 7:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
the food you think is completely unregulated, is in fact highly regulated by the FDA in the vast majority of cases before it ever reaches the mouths children in the US.

Oh good grief. I didn't say food is unregulated. I said parents are not regulated in how much food and what kind of food to give? What part of putting PARENTS in all caps did you not understand?

I think we've reached that usual point in the Finn-CTS debate where you obtusely refuse to answer a simple question by purposely miscontruing it and providing an answer to a different question that was never asked. Despite attempts to redirect the question, you insist on parroting the same irrelevant answer. Apparently, this is your style. Fine. It just means the debate is over. Have a nice day.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 7:48 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
The law already presumes parents to be both innocent and competent for child-rearing, until evidence of harm proves them guilty and incompetent. I am looking for some intellectual consistency of why education should be singled out as legally requiring routine monitoring, when no other child welfare need (food, clothing, shelter, even medical care) has that requirement.

Bullshit. As YOU know, a child's physical, mental, and emotional development are routinely assessed by contact with doctors, day-care workers, teachers, and school nurses. Even their vaccination status... which is one of your particular hobby-horses... is open to examination and regulation. Schools offer eye screening, for instance, in order to make sure tha vision problems aren't going unaddressed. Teachers and others who routinely come in contact with children are REQUIRED by law in most states to report suspected abuse, and that includes being underfed and underclothed as well the more obvious signs of hypersexualization or physical abuse. School lunch programs have to meet minimum standards, and in many cases schools are stepping in to provide children with breakfast and even clean clothes. If child's general welfare were so invisible to "the authorities" you wouldn't be here complaining about their interference so often, would you? And yet, that is your pet peeve. So: NO education is NOT being "singled out", and attempts to portray otherwise is not only baloney, it contradicts your numerous and vociferous complaints on the topic.

Furthermore, the schools' educational performance is routinely assessed. States have had their own standarized testing for years, and schools routinely report their performance on the STATE standarized tests. In addition, for all that people hate "No Child Left Behind" it DOES provide a common national yardstick to measure school performance.

If I were to suggest an alternate to parent credentialling... say, that children who are homeschooled be tested against the same standards as the schools, and that the same actions be brought against non-performing parents as are brought agaisnt non-performing schools- you would probably cry "foul!" on that too. I get the very strong impression that in your mind parents should not be held to any standard at all. In fact, I think you believe that there should not only not be any standards, there shouldn't even be any oversight.

I dare you to show me otherwise.
---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 7:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
I think we've reached that usual point in the Finn-CTS debate where you obtusely refuse to answer a simple question by purposely miscontruing it and providing an answer to a different question that was never asked. Despite attempts to redirect the question, you insist on parroting the same irrelevant answer. Apparently, this is your style. Fine. It just means the debate is over. Have a nice day.

In other words, you’re attempts to obscure the debate with extremist arguments failed and so you have nothing left to put forward, so I’ll accept this as your resignation from the argument.

You’re trying to redefine my point about “minimum standards of education,” but I’m not talking about regulating every aspect of homeschooling, and you know it. The truth is, I suspect, that you can’t come up with an argument that convinces yourself that the state shouldn’t at least seek to protect children from parents who either can’t or won’t teach anything, which is a perfectly reasonable requirement.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:14 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Quote:
The law already presumes parents to be both innocent and competent for child-rearing, until evidence of harm proves them guilty and incompetent. I am looking for some intellectual consistency of why education should be singled out as legally requiring routine monitoring, when no other child welfare need (food, clothing, shelter, even medical care) has that requirement.
Bullshit. As YOU know, a child's physical, mental, and emotional development are routinely assessed by contact with doctors, day-care workers, teachers, and school nurses.

But NONE of this routine monitoring is LEGALLY REQUIRED. (Scroll up and read again--I said "legally requiring routine monitoring." Gosh, a lot of our back and forths can be streamlined if you guys would only read what I wrote.) Recommended by authorities, sure. But if I don't ever want to take my child to a well-child visit, nothing in the LAW compels me to. Nothing in the law compels me to rear my children in a specific way--except education. It is the ONLY aspect of child rearing that is LEGALLY compulsory. Why is that?

Quote:
Teachers and others who routinely come in contact with children are REQUIRED by law in most states to report suspected abuse, and that includes being underfed and underclothed as well the more obvious signs of hypersexualization or physical abuse.
There we are getting to the evidence of harm. But until there is such evidence/suspicion, the LAW (not society but the law) presumes innocence and competence and leaves parents alone. In all aspects but education. Why is that?

Quote:
If child's general welfare were so invisible to "the authorities" you wouldn't be here complaining about their interference so often, would you?
I never asserted that children's welfare is invisible to authorities. I said the LAW does not REQUIRE routine monitoring of any aspect of children's welfare except education. And I asked, why is that?

Besides, I agree with you that society has many avenues of routine monitoring of a child's welfare--even though most of them are not LEGALLY REQUIRED. A good community voluntarily does that--keep an eye out for those who can't speak for themselves. This voluntary system is relied on to catch all types of abuse right now. So why can't we rely on it to catch educational abuse as well. Why does that one area LEGALLY REQUIRE routine monitoring, when all other areas makes do with voluntary routine monitoring? Why is that?

Quote:
Furthermore, the schools' educational performance is routinely assessed.
As I told Mason, restaurants are routinely assessed as well. So are all businesses. Being assessed is part of providing a service to the public. It does not mean DIY services at home need to be subject to the same routine assessments. Home cooking, for example, does not require a health dept inspection annually. If you're ok with that, why not be ok with home education being unassessed as well?

Quote:
If I were to suggest an alternate to parent credentialling... say, that children who are homeschooled be tested against the same standards as the schools, and that the same actions be brought against non-performing parents as are brought agaisnt non-performing schools- you would probably cry "foul!" on that too.
I would first want to know if you want home-cooked meals to be tested against the same standards as restaurants. And legislate that private families follow the same standard for housing that foster families have to. And if you want to legislate routine physical and psychological evaluations to screen for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. If you say yes, to everything, I would at least know you are consistent and are not singling out education as somehow more worthy of monitoring than emotional, physical, or nutritional welfare. I wouldn't agree with the solution as the best way to address the concern, but I would at least have some respect for your intellectual consistency.

Quote:
I get the very strong impression that in your mind parents should not be held to any standard at all.
The standard I hold is evidence of harm. Child abuse is rightfully a crime. If there is suspicion of a crime, it needs to be competently and compassionately investigated (compassion for the child). If there is sufficient evidence of harm, then it needs to be fully prosecuted like all crimes. If there is no case for the commission of a crime, then the LAW needs to leave the parents alone.

If abuse or neglect is suspected, but there is insufficient evidence of a crime, that is where voluntary efforts of the community come in.
Examples include educational campaigns to improve parenting skills, child mentoring programs (real ones, not covers for abuse), community support for child care and parental mental health, and private charities to improve standards of living. I would like major welfare reform, but while it is there, I support the right of parents to take advantage of it to make life better for their children. As I keep saying, it isn't that I don't see or care about the problem. I just believe solutions that don't involve legislative mandates as more enduring and empowering, and ultimately best for the children.

[Edited to add:]
I happen to very much believe in "it takes a village to raise a child." But not in the sense that the village is responsible for monitoring the parents, then force the parents to measure up to some village "standard." Not in an antagonistic sense. I believe it takes a village to empower parents to be the best parents they can be, so they can provide the best quality of care for their kids. Ultimately, I believe the best parent-child relationship possible is what is best for the child. The community can inspire that, instead of attempting to require it legally.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 10:14 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Nothing in the law compels me to rear my children in a specific way--except education... the LAW (not society but the law) presumes innocence and competence and leaves parents alone.

Again, bullshit. There are implicit standards of parenting being enforced. Aside from gneral health and well-being, if your particular brand of religion involves human sacrifice or kidnapping a child-bride, I'll bet the authorities get involved! That's not even taking vaccinations... your own bugaboo... into account. Standards for parenting? YEP! They exist!

Quote:
I never asserted that children's welfare is invisible to authorities. I said the LAW does not REQUIRE routine monitoring of any aspect of children's welfare except education.

For the simple, practical reason that the "other" monitoring is piggybacked onto education. I find it quite revealing that the best way to keep a sex slave, or routinely starve or abuse your child, or to deny them necessary medical care, is to keep them out of school. That is the one instance where physical isolation... which is a BIG RED FLAG FOR ABUSE... can be broken. If compulsory school attendance were eliminated wholesale then other monitoring laws would prolly be enacted, most likely though the health system.

Quote:
It does not mean DIY services at home need to be subject to the same routine assessments. Home cooking, for example, does not require a health dept inspection annually. If you're ok with that, why not be ok with home education being unassessed as well?

But if a child shows up at the ER with food poisoning three times a week, or appears to be grossly under-, over- or malnourished then the regulators WILL step in. No, the health department isn't in your house joggling your elbow, but the final result of your "home cooking" IS being assessed. (And let's not forget your pet peeve: vaccinations.)

I would propose something similar for education: Test the "final result" of your homeschooling with standardized testing. Nobody is in your home telling you how to do the education, just as the Health Department isn't telling you how to do your cooking. They're just interested that the job gets done. And IF HOMESCHOOLING IS AS EFFECTIVE AS YOU SAY IT IS THERE SHOULDN'T BE ANY PROBLEM.

My guess is that your real beef is with ANY kind of outside assessment. The only kind of monitoring that you'd allow is the toothless kind: The kind that leaves children vulnerable to parents who're SO scary that nobody from "the community" dares approach them, or to parents (or other adults) who "disappear" children.
And that happens far too often for you to be claiming that it isn't a problem.
---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 11:25 AM

Well, I think we found your personal preference for the Kool-Aid there Siggy.

That's pretty damn insulting, to accuse me of not giving a damn about kids when most of what I do is try to keep people like you and your fucking systems from treating them as subhuman fodder.

You think I need to bother 'recruiting' these kids to their own damn cause ?

No one ever asks them nothin, just gives out orders, and it's carte blanche to manhandle, neglect, and deprive them as long as it's a system doing it rather than the parents - and I am supposed to be ok with this ?

No, I don't think so.

My issue with schools is that for the price of an education is that they are then submitted to an environment so abusive it's only effective comparison is the penal system, an environment admitted to be hostile to everything human that is in a person - that's a damned high price, and the environment itself interferes with the education offered.

To me they are PEOPLE, human beings, and maybe somehow the rest of the world doesn't GET that, but they are, and maybe instead of treating them as something a little less than housepets, we start treatin em like people, is that so goddamn hard a concept to wrap your mind around.

That's why "ask the kid" is practically a mantra for me, cause you know, they ARE capable of telling you that, if they think you'll listen, if they honestly believe your not just fishing for the socially-acceptable challenge-response they've been trained to give - you ASK them, and you mean it, and then you LISTEN instead of dismissing, and they'll TELL you.

Somethin you also seemed to never notice so wrapped up in your defense of control based systems, is that I don't give orders... not to no one, ever.

Lemme explain in detail how yon socrates club came about so maybe you'll understand the point here...

A friends kid was having trouble at school, part of that is him struggling in math, something I ain't likely to be much help with, but part of it is that he has authority issues, both by his nature and the fact that he's used to autonomy cause it's a single parent family and his dad has a full time job, right ?

This lead to trouble, and his dad asked me to help out if I could cause it's a known fact that I can communicate with kids his age.

One of the issues, for example, was him being late to school, he missed the bus and walked in, causing him to miss one class, and be late for a second one - the school asserted that he missed the entire day, which he disputed in a somewhat over the top fashion, causing a problem.

I pointed out to him that perhaps he should get the teachers whose class he DID attend to sign a paper stating that fact, so that instead of going head to head in a shouting match which he would lose simply because people would not give his non-adult word any credence, something unfortunate, but true nonetheless.

He did this, and they docked him the late class, but he got credit for the rest, which he wasn't happy about but acknowledged that was a better result than he'd hoped for, and we got to discussing how to deal with such problems without sticking your hand in the meat-grinder of non-adult vs adult confrontation, cause that's a losing game every time you play it.

Also had a long talk about how important that piece of paper is, whether you know anything or not, and to this stuff applies in the real world, something no one has ever bothered to discuss with him, like how math skills are damned important when you're on a budget and trying decide whether 12oz for $1.99 or 16oz for $2.19 is a better deal, cause there's times when that education MATTERS.

One of his friends expressed interest, and somewhere in the ensuing conversations I mentioned how learning stuff can save you money by citing the stove example - our stove broke down, the oven would not work, and with some research I found out that those heating elements do eventually fail, yet could be replaced with naught more than a wrench and a screwdriver, ending up replacing an $80 heating element instead of a very exepensive stove.

He brings up the fact that his washer leaks, and with a few questions I get some idea of what the problem might be and he asks if I can fix it, to which I suggest a practical application, that if his mother agrees, I will help him learn to fix it instead - his mom is ok with that since if that fails she will get a new washer like she was planning to do anyhow.

The local library doesn't really have jack diddly on the subject, so I went and found him a copy of a right useful book* for about ten bucks, and split the cost with him - the internet can be helpful, but not so much when you're up in the back of a dryer covered with dust, tool-in-hand.

When it gets here, he's gonna take a shot at a DIY repair, and we'll see how it goes, his mom has agreed to cover the parts if they are not too expensive and this project has generated some interest among the classmates, resulting in a little expansion of our discussion group.

Not all education happens in the classroom, you know, although if the kid pulls this off imma see what the local Vo-tech has relative since he has the interest to begin with...

Now, how you get out of it that I don't care about their welfare, is incomprehensible, and if they want my support in dismantling our ridiculous curfew law, given that one of them works late after school, they've got it, and if they wanna help me in protecting and defending them and their peers from exploitive and abusive systems, what's it to you ?

While other folks stand and pontificate this and that, deciding what is best for them without their input or approval, I'm talking to these kids, listening to what they're telling me, and supporting their own self-realization.

As PEOPLE, which is what they are.
You seem to have forgotten that, somewhere in your axe-grinding.

-Frem
* http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0671765418/ref=dp_olp_1

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 11:55 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Okay Frem- So you wanna give kids an alternative to school which I can understand, while I wanna make sure that kids aren't "disappeared" by abusive parents and I find that school attendance is a useful way to keep kids in regular contact with people outside the family.

Any way to meet both goals?

---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 11:56 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Okay Frem- So you wanna give kids an alternative to school which I can understand, while I wanna make sure that kids aren't "disappeared" by abusive parents and I find that school attendance is a useful way to keep kids in regular contact with people outside the family.

Any way to meet both goals with the best interests of the child in mind?

Don't give me any bull about "communities", tho. We don't have communities anymore.

---------------------------------
Let's party like it's 1929.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 1:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I think CTS is so full of parent's "rights", Sarge is so full of anti-government, and Frem is so interested in "recruits" that they've entirely lost sight of child's welfare. Seems- once again- to more an issue of control than anything else. More later.

Good grief Signym. Remember when you used to contribute to the conversation? You like government getting into everybody's business, we don't. That's about three fourths of what we argue about on here, in one form or another. And now your trying to say "wait, this here topic is too important, I just get to win automatically. After all it's for the children ...".

Well guess what? I have some similar notions. See, as far I'm concerned blood is far too important to trust to the whims of government. So how about I win automatically? I'm sure you disagree, and I'd love to hear why. Hell, maybe you're right. But if you're going to sit there and insinuate that anyone not following your agenda somehow doesn't care about children, then you're no better than the asshats that railroaded us into an unnecessary war in Iraq on the insinuation that anyone not falling in line was a terrorist sympathizer.

In other words, kiss my ass. But for christ's sake brush your teeth first.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 1:06 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
So the biggest difference between cooking and educating is how easily you can detect severe neglect in that area "just by looking"? By that reasoning, every type of abuse that you can't detect just by looking should have annual screenings. Do you also want mandatory psychological evaluations for every child every year to prove that parents aren't abusing them emotionally? Why stop at only educational abuse?

There are actually lots of checks that go on with regard to child abuse and neglect, which unfortunately is quite widespread. Doctors, Maternal and Child Health nurses, teachers and other professionals associated with children all report (as they are mandated to) if they suspect that abuse or neglect is occuring. You are right that emotional abuse is harder to detect and also harder to do anything about. You work with what you can to protect children. It's an imperfect world

Educational neglect is hard to ascertain as well. That's why registering parents who homeschool and perhaps testing children at several levels would be a useful way to prevent parents deciding that its their right to not educate a child at all.

Quote:
And as to your first point, imagine if you will, that you are born into a society that believes proper physical nutrition is a universal right for all children. In fact, they tax all citizens to provide free, public meals for all children. From age 5 to age 18, breakfast, lunch, and dinner are provided by the state

Actually something like this did happen during ww2 in the UK when school lunches were freely provided to children because of the degree of malnutrition that was occuring.
Your Orwellian analogy was interesting, but its not really a useful one. Cooking is a skill, one skill that can be fairly easily learned. even if you can't cook, you can still feed your family so that they survive okay.

Teaching involves a whole range of skills and an incredibly broad range of knowledge, particularly if you plan to be 'it' with regards to your child's entire education. Even people of great intelligence often lack the skills to teach, so its quite different to cooking.

Quote:
You mean, capability? Which capabilities exactly?

I meant capacity. The capacity to teach your children to a reasonable level.

Quote:
There is a distinction between education and training. Education is the acquisition of knowledge. Training is the acquisition of skills, usually very specialized skills. No one would dispute that training
usually requires apprenticeship to persons (usually professionals) with the desired specialized skills. For the average person, it is hard to acquire piano playing skills without being trained by someone who plays the piano. Same thing goes for surgical skills, piloting skills, car fixing skills, and any other skill that involves physical manipulation.

Some fields such as history, political science, and philsophy are entirely based on mental knowledge obtained through education. Education can be obtained in different ways, one of which is Do-It-Yourself (DIY). Other fields are a mixture of education and training, such as medicine and architecture and piloting. There is no reason that the education part can't be done by yourself, to be followed by conventional training. In fact, that is what homeschooled surgeons, architects, and pilots do. They get their education at home as children, and then go to college for conventional training afterwards. See? Plenty of homeschooled people have formal qualifications as well.

I'm not disputing any of that. I was disputing

Quote:
There is nothing magical about education that it requires only professionals or professional supervision. Really. Teaching your kids is like cooking meals, fixing cars, and doing taxes. You can do it yourself.

Teaching relies on expertise in any particular area, so it really all depends on your own level of skill and knowledge doesn't it? There is nothing to say that homeschooled kids can't go on to be pilots, engineers or whatever they want, if they have been lucky enough to have a parent with good enough skills and knowledge teach them. But they don't get there through love alone. Highly skilled careers require professional quals. To go on to that level, the kids will need to sit some sort of exam. It'd be a damn shame at that point if Mum or Dad suddenly realised that, gee they are not able to get into the career they want because they don't have the required level of skills and education.

There may be *gasp* things that school teaches kids that you have no idea about, skills that you don't possess.

Quote:
No doubt it is. But education is a different issue from compulsory education. I support education wholeheartedly. In fact, most of my solutions for the world's problems start with education. If you read my other posts, I advocate increasing teacher's pay and social status to those of physicians. We are entrusting them with our children's MINDS. It has to be a economic and social priority.

I am just not sure making education *compulsory* is necessary or even beneficial. Not everything that is important needs to be regulated by law. Sometimes it is sufficient to make abuse a crime, and let everything else be legal (not prohibited).

If education wasn't compulsory, a lot of kids wouldn't go. And without any education, any whatsoever, you are up shit creek without a paddle, so to speak. So why should some parents who are too stupid to know better be allowed to inflict that on their kids?

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 1:52 PM

Quote:
Don't give me any bull about "communities", tho. We don't have communities anymore.

They're there, not everywhere, mind - especially not in the inner city, but there's some.

There's also a lot to be said for not trying to fix what ain't broke - the merits of leaving the hell alone, as it were.

Simply introduce a standard set of basic tests for each stage of education, with associated criteria and fancy bit of sheepskin.

Split the GED into say six pieces, each required as a pre-requisite to qualify for the next.

This gives both the presumption of innocence required by law, and the occasional check required by society - not to mention giving a child positive reinforcement of the merit and acceptance of their education no matter where or how they obtain it.

Maybe it's not ideal, but you wanted my input, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, particularly since the earlier you catch spots where a kid is struggling, the easier it is to help them work through it.

That bein said, I think this discussion is like to become stuck in the mud, wheels spinning, cause some folk seemingly cannot accept that other folk do not trust the State to pour water out of a boot if the directions were stamped on the heel - while others trust the state with a fervor bordering on religious ecstasy.

Those two ends of things ain't never gonna meet in the middle, so let's skip that whole argument, shall we ?

CTS has made a right good argument on how such regulation has a way of bloating and expanding to feed itself at our misery and expense - and some folks have made a pretty good case for the State as a backup to when parenting fails.

Let's just leave it at that and let folks make their own judgement calls, instead of lighting the fuse of a flame war for once, ok ?

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 2:07 PM

Hey, Sig. You still haven't answered my question. You know, the "WHY IS THAT" question. I asked it like 8 different ways, so it shouldn't be hard to scroll up and refresh your memory.

Or are you doing the Finn thing too? You know, give an answer I didn't ask for, or talk around it. Cause that's all I see so far.

Every example you have provided of routine monitoring is NOT legally required. Or you cite examples where there is evidence /suspicion of harm (which I do not dispute is necessary). Sure, sometimes monitoring piggy backs on the compulsory education opportunity--but the fact remains, none of the monitoring you described is, at the end of the day, LEGALLY REQUIRED.

You keep saying bullshit. Hey, I can be corrected. Just show me the statute where another aspect of child-rearing is LEGALLY REQUIRED to be routinely monitored. Chapter and section, please. And I'll stand corrected.

I'll just be right here sipping an Earl Grey, waiting for your answer. You know, to the question: WHY IS THAT?

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 4:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Or are you doing the Finn thing too? You know, give an answer I didn't ask for, or talk around it. Cause that's all I see so far.

That’s the thing about asking questions, you can’t always expect me to give you the answer you want to hear. Sometimes the answer I give you is the one that ruins your whole argument, prompting you to storm out of discussion.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 7:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
There are actually lots of checks that go on with regard to child abuse and neglect

True. But NONE of those checks are legally required here in the States (the political context of this argument).

Quote:
perhaps testing children at several levels would be a useful way to prevent parents deciding that its their right to not educate a child at all.

If you want to legislate testing to make sure children are educated, would you also want to legislate testing to make sure they are psychologically healthy too? Or allow educational testing to be voluntary, just like taking your kid to the doctor is voluntary. I am looking for consistency here.

Quote:
I meant capacity. The capacity to teach your children to areasonable level.

Fine, capacity. How do you define capacity? What are your criteria? If I say I have the capacity to teach, how would you determine if I do or not?

Quote:
Teaching involves a whole range of skills and an incredibly broad range of knowledge, particularly if you plan to be 'it' with regards to your child's entire education....Teaching relies on expertise in any particular area, so it really all depends on your own level of skill and knowledge doesn't it? ... There may be *gasp* things that school teaches kids that you have no idea about,
skills that you don't possess.

Ah. Now we are getting somewhere in this discussion.

You know, I am a homeschooler. My 7 year old daughter is learning about geology (middle-high school level). Now I have never taking a single geology class in my life. Whatever little bits of geology I might have learned as a child has been long forgotten. So how do I do it? How do I teach her something I don't know? What do you think? Any ideas?

When I first started to research homeschooling, I came across a study of several hundred homeschoolers. They correlated standardized test performance with a slew of variables. One of their findings is that there was NO correlation between student performance on standardized tests and the educational level of the parents. In other words, students with PhD homeschooling parents scored as well as students with high school drop out parents. That floored me. If this finding is indeed generalizable, why would it be that the teacher's educational level did not matter? I started asking myself the following questions. Let me ask them of you.

Of all the teachers you have ever known, which ones were the very best that helped you learn the most? Why were they your favorite? What about them helped you learn more than other teachers?

Here is another question. Imagine the smartest child in the world. Imagine a child, who by age 9, knows more about every subject than all his teachers combined. Now imagine he can't change schools and he can't get outside tutors. What should his teachers do? How can they teach him when they no longer know more than he does? Or is he doomed to twiddle his thumbs until such time he can leave those teachers?

It began to occur to me that perhaps the main determinant of success in education may not be the knowledge of the teacher, but how well a teacher can guide a student to the libraries of knowledge that is out there. We are so used to being lectured to by one teacher at a time that we think the knowledge of our teachers are "it."

The teaching model in school is that someone with more knowledge tells the child he needs to learn it, shares that knowledge with the child, has the child memorize it, and tests the child to see how well the memorization is. It is a teacher-centered model, with the teacher actively teaching and the child passively receiving.

Now we agree there is more than one way to skin a cat, right? Here is a child-centered model. I call it the learning model. The child actively chooses what he wants to learn, the teacher passively facilitates the learning by providing materials and opportunities, and the CHILD does ALL THE LEARNING. He then chooses what he wants to remember, and so forth.

In the child-centered learning model, the child does all the work--he educates himself. Yeah, imagine that! The only skill the teacher has to have is a deep attentiveness to the child's passions, the ability to rustle up teaching resources (books, DVDs, games, interactive presentations, clubs, tutors, etc.), the time to dedicate to learning WITH the child, and the insight to encourage the child when he is tired or lost. These are skills the average caring parent has in abundance. A high school drop out parent can still provide all of these things for the child to educate himself.

Most subjects that are beyond a teacher's knowledge can still be facilitated by the teacher. In addition to the skills above, the teacher simply needs to know where to find knowledge and have the ability to get it. If I don't know anything about geology, I simply have to know how to search the internet, and have access to the internet and various internet resources. We found a great science curriculum that has a decent amount of geology coverage, and do a lot of googling. I buy supplies and reference books for her to start her own rock collection. We go out to the mountains and talk about the rocks we see. We are planning a trip to Ecuador to visit an active volcano and collect volcanic rock. All that from a teacher who doesn't know anything about geology. If we currently lived in the States, I'd be doing even more, like joining rock clubs and visiting science museums.

Now some subjects require training to learn specific skills. I am the quintessential klutz, and all the googling in the world cannot teach my daughter gymnastics or dance. So I took her to gymnastics and dance classes--just like parents with kids in school. Homeschoolers routinely take their kids to karate lessons, piano lessons, soccer practices, art workshops etc. Yeah, we outsource just like schools do.

See, all of the knowledge in our children's education don't have to come from our own heads. There is so much knowledge out there. All it takes is a desire and excitement to learn and a commitment to find that knowledge. Homeschooling parents set the example for kids for a lifelong tradition of self-education and self-empowerment.

I am fairly well educated. When I got to graduate school, I went to class and expected to be taught what to memorize, as I have done all my life. Instead, the teachers threw books at us and told us to go home and read them. The time for being taught was over. At the graduate level, it was time to teach ourselves. When I started teaching myself, education became demystified. That is why I said there is nothing magical about education. Teach yourself something sometime. You'll see there's nothing to it but hard work.

Homeschooling allows me to instill that sense of self-empowerment from the get-go. I heard once that a fairly elite university liked getting homeschooled students because they tend to arrive with the maturity of graduate students. That is because they learned from the start that THEY have to power to teach themselves.

Quote:
If education wasn't compulsory, a lot of kids wouldn't go.

There is the problem right there: the assumption that education is so bitter that kids have to be forced to swallow it. When you individualize education as homeschoolers do, learning is fun. Kids LOVE to learn naturally. If you do it right, you don't have to force it.

If our kids are learning, why do I object to some sort of assessment? Well, one, the principle of the thing. It's Orwellian. You said the cooking scenario I described was Orwellian, and all I did was describe our current educational system and substitute cooking for schooling. But more practically, I think minimum standards defeats the purpose of homeschooling.

People often homeschool because school was not working for some reason. They want to tailor curriculum to fit their kids rather than the other way around. They want to take the pressure off the child to allow him to love to learn again. Having to conform to some arbitrary standard of what he should know puts that pressure right back on. Allow me to illustrate.

I knew two homeschooling families who each had an 8-9 year old girl who couldn't read. One family hired a learning disabilities specialist who gave one-on-one remedial reading lessons. The other family appeared to do nothing about the problem. I was at first puzzled by the inaction, but the lady had 5 kids, and all her other kids were well educated and read well, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. She must know what she was doing. She put absolutely NO pressure on the girl to read at all. However, she always had books and signs lying around and always stopped what she was doing to help her daughter read if she asked for help. Gradually, the girl asked for more and more help, and one day, she was walking around reading Harry Potter. Her mom knew she needed to let her girl discover her desire to overcome her reading difficulties on her own without feeling pressured. I admire her intuition and insight. I would have probably freaked out and made things worse.

Now if both these girls were tested, they would have shown significant deficits in reading. Some might jump to conclude it was a result of educational neglect. They might have required both of them to attend school, which would have been disastrous. If we are going to use the benchmark of "child's best interests," then it would best for the girls to not be investigated as possible victims of neglect as a result of their failure on some tests. There is such a thing as harming a child by too much suspicion and vigilance.

I am not unwilling to compromise. Some states have fairly reasonable assessment mechanisms. The state these girls were in allowed the option to have a portfolio evaluated by a licensed teacher, who would then write a summary of the year's educational progress and certify that in her opinion, the family was providing adequate education. Having to keep every scrap of paper the kid draws on is a pain, but it gave families a lot of leeway in individualizing educational objectives to what is best for the child. There was no minimum standard in testable knowledge, only effort. If there HAS to be an assessment, this is reasonable.

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It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom.
-- Albert Einstein

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 9:03 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Thanks for explaining how you homeschool and why you find it beneficial. I am not against homeschooling, and also, you may be surprised to learn, support child focused learning. You sound like you do a fine job and good on you.

My concerns around homeschooling is simply that there is some kind of check on whether kids are learning. That's not to say that if they fall behind in their reading, the state whips them back into school. But in some way, it can be determined that they are being educated to a reasonable standard. As to how and why that might happen, you know, I really don't know. I'm not planning to do it, and am not involved in education, so I'll leave that to interested parties.

I also haven't experienced the kind of mainstream schooling that you are talking about - being imparted knowledge by a teacher like slotting a disc into a computer, neither for myself nor for my son. There is a high degree of child focused learning that takes place in mainstream schools, and there are other forms of schooling where it is even more so. A lot of it depends on the school. There are choices for parents. In this country, you can also partially homeschool and opt in for specialist subjects at your local school. Sounds fine to me, I'm all for choice.

I also agree that you don't have to be a phd to home teach, and don't agree with parents being required to have teaching quals.

I get a little tired of the evangelical zeal with which homeschooling is held up to be a solution to all educational problems. I don't see it as an option for many parents, and frankly, I wouldn't really want it to be. I'd rather fix the problems that exist in mainstream education and pour more funding into that than worrying too much about something that is a marginal issue.

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Thursday, March 13, 2008 11:06 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I believe all doctors should learn through home-schooling. Or since it's for adults, maybe a self-study class and then learn by doing. You wouldn't mind if I've never taken out a human gall-bladder before, would you ? I did quite well on cats after only a few tries. And the directions in the book were almost complete. NEXT !

And engineers too - you certainly don't want anyone who's been drilled in stress analysis to design your airplane. You need to find the person who gets maximum fulfillment from it. BTW, I have the design for a plane I want to sell you. I did it all myself and it was a lot of fun doing it, I swear.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Friday, March 14, 2008 2:38 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Hey, Sig. You still haven't answered my question. You know, the "WHY IS THAT" question.

I didn't answer that question because IT ISN'T. As you yourself have validated by your own diatribes about the evils of modern medicine and the evils of modern science and the evils of modern foods. See? EDUCATION ISN'T THE EXCEPTION! And since I've capitalized it I hope you'll notice my response this time!

You're not being inspected by the Dept of Education as a homeschooler, as you are not inspected by the Dept of Health as a home cooker, nor the inspected by the Joint Commission for Hospital Accreditation whenever you hand out an aspririn (or in your case a homeopathy-ball), or by the police when you teach your child morals and ethics. But fuck up in a visible way and you WILL be. Education is NOT an exception.

So, what's your point?

Oh, that's right.... NONE.

Did you get it this time? Or are you still riding your hobby-horse?

Or are you REALLY bitching about having your children looked at by other members of society who might actually have the authority to intervene? You see, I find that's the ENTIRE point of your posts whether its about medicine, education, diet, religion, or anything else. I mean, god forbid that someone, ANYONE take a peak into CTS-world. At this moment, you're got a thing going about education which you propose is such a unique situation that you've forgotten all of you other bitches. Tomorrow, it'll be ANOTHER "unique" situation. Did you get my point this time? I've even capitalized helpful words.

Given your rather paranoid mindset, I think it's prolly the latter.

http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec07/ch105/ch105a.html

After this, I'm sure we can gracefully segue from the evils of education to the evils of modern medicine.

Case closed.

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Let's party like it's 1929.

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Friday, March 14, 2008 3:08 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Good grief Signym. Remember when you used to contribute to the conversation?

I'm old. My memory's hazy. So... Eh? Did I really? I can't remember!

Quote:
You like government getting into everybody's business, we don't

Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

Quote:
So how about I win automatically?

Seriously Sarge, haven't you seen families go off the rails? Seriously, dangerously, breathtakingly off the rails? In my book NOBODY gets a free pass. You want an automatic "pass" from me? Given the child-abuse I've witnessed and read about, the answer is: ain't gonna happen.

That isn't because I think "the State" is right. I can think of states that have ALSO gone seriously, breathtakingly off the rails. States where I would want to isolate my child forever if possible: Pretty much all of Africa, the Middle East, and south-central LA for example. I mean, when their cultures aren't being complete dicks about girls it's just plain UNSAFE.

Point is, it ISN'T possible. Sooner or later, child has to deal with the bigger world, whether it's crazy or not. Best time to introduce the concept of "everyone else is crazy" is when they're old enough to dissemble in a consistent fashion.

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Friday, March 14, 2008 3:22 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

The infamous dbl.

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Friday, March 14, 2008 3:27 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Frem: I find your post the most helpful. I don't think that is enough contact with the outside world. Kids need a valid choice. A colored, three-dimensional, immediate, fully-realized bolt-hole in order to have a sense of freedom. I don't think testing once in a while offers that freedom, altho it DOES answer the question about homeschooling satisfactorily.

Quite honestly, I have no idea how to offer that option. Right now, unless parents fuck up so badly that doctors, nurses, teachers, police and social workers are FORCED to responds most kids DON'T have a choice. (Not that I want to take away the several sets of eyes looking at the kid, but its' not enough.) Kids have to wait until they're old enough to enter society as adults, and those that can't wait wind up on the streets. And we know how THAT ends up.

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Friday, March 14, 2008 3:56 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
You're not being inspected by the Dept of Education as a homeschooler,

But you want me to be. WHY IS THAT?

1. Education is the only aspect of child-rearing where the law legally compels routine action and monitoring. There is no compulsory feed-your-child law, or compulsory well-child visit law, or compulsory clothing law. There is however a compulsory schooling law. WHY IS THAT?

2. Most states, though not all, have statutes requiring that homeschooled children be monitored through testing and/or record keeping periodically by the Dept of Education. What is legally required varies from state to state. Look at the color distribution on this page to get an idea.
http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp

My question here though, is not so much that *I* am being inspected, but why everyone here WANTS all homeschoolers to be inspected. If you guys had your way, every state would require inspection by the Dept of Education. However YOU don't advocate the same type of inspection in other areas. So my question, of course, is WHY IS THAT?

Look, there are 3 possible ways to answer this.

1. All you have to do here is tell me that you don't advocate compulsory inspection by the DOEducation, and we're fine.

2. Or you can tell me you advocate compulsory compliance and inspection in ALL areas. Either #1 or #2 will have intellectual consistency to me.

3. Or you can explain that you are not consistent for a good reason. I'd like to know what that reason is.

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Friday, March 14, 2008 4:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
My concerns around homeschooling is simply that there is some kind of check on whether kids are learning. ... As to how and why that might happen, you know, I really don't know.

Fair enough.

Quote:
A lot of it depends on the school. There are choices for parents.

Did you say you were in Australia? Maybe the educational system there is better than here. All I can speak on is the educational system in the States. Here, teachers aren't experts in science, math, history, or whatever subject they are teaching. That is not what they studied in college. To get a bachelor's in education, you take mostly classes in practice and theory of education--they spend most of their time learning procedures and processes of how to teach, not what to teach. That is the substance of their credential.

I believe any educational reform has got to change this type of credentialing. It tends to attract people who are too incompetent to major in anything else. They even have special classes for education majors, like "Math for education majors" or "Science for education majors"--cause the real classes are too hard. If it were up to me, teachers would be the elite of our educational system (not the dregs), and compensated accordingly in both salary and social status.

Quote:
I get a little tired of the evangelical zeal with which homeschooling is held up to be a solution to all educational problems.

No, homeschooling is definitely not for every parent or every child. Many homeschooling families offer both choices to their children. I know I do. My kids know they can ask to go to school any time they want. A number of homeschooled children homeschool for younger grades, and go to school for high school--mostly so they have more options for dating. Hah, gotta love puberty. : )

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For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth -- to know the worst and to provide for it.
--Patrick Henry - March 23, 1775

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Friday, March 14, 2008 4:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I mean, god forbid that someone, ANYONE take a peak into CTS-world.

What? I'm giving YOU a peek, aren't I? Voluntarily I might add. I've established that I don't lock my kids in a closet, that they have plentiful and regular interactions with society and in public, and that I seek medical attention when necessary. Overall, they are happy, healthy, well-fed and well-clothed. One of my sons has a chronic health problem, but he is making continuous progress, and that is all that can be expected. So what are you talking about?

Or are you still under the impression that I am in Peru because I am "hiding" from the authorities, and that eats at you? What is your problem with me anyway? I don't see you accusing Frem and Sarge so much as you do me. And they are anti-govt oversight as well. What about me pisses you off so much? I am really curious.

BTW, which personality disorder do you think I have? And why? And why do you like attacking me personally?

Quote:
At this moment, you're got a thing going about education which you propose is such a unique situation that you've forgotten all of you other bitches.

I have no idea what unique situation you are talking about. You gotta admit, this sentence is a bit incoherent. Do you mind restating?

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Friday, March 14, 2008 5:26 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Sarge - I think the reason you and I get into it is because you're thinking about YOUR family and YOUR son. Your situation works well for the both of you, and you quite understandably don't want inteference. But I'm thinking about children in general, and that includes cases where parents have abused children so horrifically that someone SHOULD have stepped in.

I recall a story about a boy who was kept out of school, routinely punished by beng beaten and stuffed in a cubbyhole with pillows. The entire extended family knew about it: aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins all accepted that was the way things should be. One time he was stuffed into a cubbyhole, and after begging for two days to be let out because he couldn't breathe, he died.

I recall another story about a bully who not only terrorized his sons and younger daughter, he terrorized his dad, the teachers, sheriffs, and neighbors with his fists and his guns. The entire small village was scared to death to intervene. It took his oldest son with one of his own guns to end the reign or terror. (That's why I find the image of a parents at the door with a shotgun so unappealing.)

And yet another story about a retarded 16-year old, also kept out of school, who was used like Cinderella during the day and like a whore at night.

I'm not hearing any solutions about this.

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Let's party like it's 1929.

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Friday, March 14, 2008 5:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Point is, it ISN'T possible. Sooner or later, child has to deal with the bigger world, whether it's crazy or not. Best time to introduce the concept of "everyone else is crazy" is when they're old enough to dissemble in a consistent fashion.

I'm assuming that's sarcasm, but you're still banging away on the same strawman. Homeschooling isn't about isolation. Honestly, I'm not just saying this to be contrary, but it's the skewed, institutional environment of public schools that's the real isolation. Fortunately, the real world is nothing like that.

Homeschooled kids are more likely to have a realistic picture of how the world operates because they live in it. As opposed to being sequestered away in the weird-assed "Lord of the Flies" subculture propagated by the public school model. The homeschooled kids I've known, had a broader range of experiences with real-world interaction than I ever did in public school.

You've never really addressed this issue, so I'm not sure if you take it seriously or not, but it's a real phenomenon. Public schools take hundreds of kids, insecure adolescents at the most vulnerable point in their lives, and throw them together with minimal supervision. Even if you can imagine an overall positive outcome from such an experiment, it's nothing like the real world.

In the real world you deal with people of all different ages, all different experience levels. They all have different goals and different interests, different fears and different values.

By contrast, public schools go out of their way to partition kids in homogeneous groups. It's an unavoidable requirement of managing so many with so few. In such an environment, everyone is essentially competing for the same thing. All of the insecurities of adolescents are amplified and exaggerated.

I've never really got how we can get kids in public schools to take us seriously when we try to convince them that they should resist peer-pressure. Especially when we force them into an environment where peer-pressure is everything. How can it not be? In that environment a child spends 8-10 hours a day, almost exclusively with their peers. Nearly all of their interaction will be with this group of kids. Status in relation to this group becomes the single most important measuring stick in the child's world. Being ostracized or ridiculed in such a setting is a crushing blow, one that they'll have to deal with daily, perhaps for years. Is it any wonder kids go to insane extremes to avoid such a fate?

Then we have then nerve to tell kids that they should resist this fact, that to give in to it is a sign of weakness. Talk about a catch-22.

Homeschooled kids learn social skills and take their cues on behavior from many different types of people in many different settings. They get to see people interacting as mature adults rather than insecure teenagers. They learn that someone else's opinion of you is just that, an opinion. It won't rule your life and there's no need to let it override your own preferences or judgments.

Homeschooling experiences will be as varied as families are, and I suspect that is at the heart of your discomfort with the concept. But homeschooling isn't by nature about isolation. You seem to be making most of your judgments of homeschooling in relation to the stereotype of homeschoolers as religious zealots looking to raise brainwashed misfits. Those folks have become the poster-families for homeschooling detractors, but even in the families that are homeschooling for religious reasons, most of them aren't the anti-social freaks you're so worried about.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Friday, March 14, 2008 5:56 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
... I'm thinking about children in general, and that includes cases where parents have abused children so horrifically that someone SHOULD have stepped in.

Sure, I get that. And I hope I've been clear that I don't think we should stand by and watch that happen. We should, as family, as friends, as neighbors, as community, and finally as government, act to protect kids, or anyone for that matter, caught up in such a nightmare. But I don't think that goal is served by insisting that parents have permission from the government to educate their kids the way they see fit. And I don't think that institutional settings are better on the whole as educational environments, even when the cases of abuse are taken into account. It's not like there's no abuse in government sponsored environments. A quick scan of foster-parent programs and government run shelters puts the lie to that assumption.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Friday, March 14, 2008 6:02 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I think SignyM is responding to CTS's notions that 'the man' is intruding in the sanctity of the right to home-school - however the parent sees fit.

***************************************************************
"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."

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Friday, March 14, 2008 6:25 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

(CBS) It is estimated that 850,000 children in this country are home-schooled -- the overwhelming majority by parents who have only the best interests of their children at heart.

But homeschooling is largely unregulated. A CBS News investigation reports how some children have suffered abuse -- and much worse -- while no one was watching.

Neil and Christy Edgar will be sentenced next month in Kansas for abusing and murdering their 9-year-old son. He suffocated after his head was wrapped in duct tape as a punishment for taking food without permission.

It's a shocking case, but as CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, not an isolated one. A CBS News investigation found dozens of cases of parents convicted or accused of murder or child abuse who were teaching their children at home, out of the public eye.

"A lot of reports for suspected abuse or neglect are made by the schools when they observe children coming in that may be bruised or not well fed," says Marcia Herman-Giddens, of the North Carolina Child Advocacy Institute.

In Iowa, a father is serving life, and a mother goes on trial later this month, for killing their 10-year-old adopted son and burying him at their house. Because they were home schooling, no one noticed he was missing for more than a year.

There are two notorious Texas cases.

Andrea Yates gained national attention when she drowned her five children in a bathtub. Deanna Laney, told investigators she beat her three sons with rocks, killing two of them. Both mothers taught their children at home.

"The genuine home schoolers are doing a great job with their children, but there is a subgroup of people that are keeping them in isolation, keeping them from public view because the children often do have visible injuries," says Herman-Giddens.

Even a very public home school success story can hide a private dark side. Marjorie Lavery says her father beat her before the National Spelling Bee then threatened to kill her after she came in second. He pleaded guilty to child endangerment after she testified about years of cruelty.

Hal Young and other home school advocates vigorously defend the right to teach their children at home without government intrusion.

"The cases that you've mentioned are very, very rare - extremely rare," says Young. "There's not a pattern there, there's not a trend," says Young. "It's not something you can point your finger at and say there's this vast undercurrent, because there's not."

But it's hard to know how widespread abuse might be because the government doesn't keep track. It doesn't even know how many children are taught at home in this country.

In eight states, parents don't have to tell anyone they're home schooling. Unlike teachers, in 38 states and the District of Columbia, parents need virtually no qualifications to home school. Not one state requires criminal background checks to see if parents have abuse convictions.

The Edgars now face life in prison. The dilemma raised by their case and others: how to protect parents' rights to raise their children and still protect children from parents who abuse them.

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/14/eveningnews/main578007.shtml

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Friday, March 14, 2008 6:28 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Abuse case prompts rethink of homeschool laws
Governor speaks out on 14-year-old girl confined to room

After the arrest of a man accused of abusing a daughter who had not been in school in five years, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said she plans to examine the state's laws on homeschooling.
The Tucson man, who's name has been withheld to protect the daughter's identity, was arrested Tuesday and accused of sexually abusing his 14-year-old daughter while holding her captive in his home for more than a year.

www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42822

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Friday, March 14, 2008 7:03 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Huh. I'm surprised nobody argued the flip side: That kids who attend public school are abused at home, and that some kids who attend public school are abused by teachers (Schools are a natural attractant to pedophiles.)

So, I'm not trying to say that homeschooling is wrong and that homeschoolers are hiding abuse. But a system of checks and balances provides for greater options.

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Let's party like it's 1929.

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Friday, March 14, 2008 7:14 AM