What's Homeschooling got to do with it?

The span style=”font-style:italic;”NYT’/spans had an article out yesterday entitled a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/us/12bodies.html?_r=1oref=slogin””Lack of Supervision Noted in Deaths of Home-Schooled”/a (Hat Tip: a href=”http://lunablog.net/2008/01/14/homeschooling-and-child-abuse-should-we-increase-requirements/”Lunablog.net/a). The article looks at the Washington D.C. case where four girls were killed allegedly by their mother, and concludes that homeschooling “kills” or at least is dangerous.br /br /Why? Because abusive parents can stay home and abuse their kids instead of keeping them under the watchful eye of the state. Sorry, I don’t buy this, kids fall through the cracks at school everyday (they a href=”http://library.adoption.com/laws-and-legal-issues/class-action-lawsuit-on-behalf-of-tennessees-most-vulnerable-children-seeks-reform-of-failing-child-welfare-system/article/5826/1.html”even get abused in DCS custody!/a) and the D.C. case had little to do with homeschooling and more to do with a href=”http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0111bodiesfound11-on.html”finding an excuse/a to keep the police out of the house:br /br /blockquoteThe oldest girl, Brittany Jacks, stopped attending classes in early March. A social worker from the Booker T. Washington Public Charter School went to the home April 30 and called police after she was denied entry, Fenty said.br /br /The social worker reported that after speaking to Jacks she appeared to have mental health issues and “that she was possibly holding Brittany hostage by refusing to allow her to attend school,” Fenty said. A police officer who responded also was denied entry, but Jacks told him she was home-schooling the children./blockquotebr /br /If someone is possibly being held hostage, do the police always give up so easily if they hear a good excuse? I sure hope not. br /br /I think that a href=”http://abriefhistory.org/?p=194″A Brief History blog/a has the right take on the span style=”font-style:italic;”Time’s/span article:br /br /blockquoteRead the story and see if there is any sign that these kids were home schooled. The animosity of the left wing to home schooling is just amazing. Here is the real beef the Times has:br /br /blockquoteOnce against the law in all but five states, home schooling is now legal throughout the country and highly regulated in just six states, New York among them. About 1.1 million of the 50 million school age children were home schooled in 2003, the National Center for Education Statistics says./blockquotebr /br /What do you think the murder rate among home schoolers is ? Just think, 1.1 million kids escaping the clutches of the teacher’s unions./blockquotebr /br /br /Perhaps the real story here is the animosity of the span style=”font-style:italic;”Times/span to homeschoolers and the need for more supervision of state agencies like DCS.br /br /span style=”font-weight:bold;”Update/span: a href=”http://ace.mu.nu/archives/252198.php”Ace:/a “The NYT has a lot of problems with the most basic sort of comparative statistics, doesn’t it? At least when it comes to the military and home-schoolers and other Undesirables.”