Posted on 11/19/2004 10:06:18 PM PST by SecurityMom
Marcus Wesson had 16 children.
He stayed home to tinker with a bus and boat, and to educate the children.
His wife and older daughters went to work. When they were with him in public, the women were quiet.
On March 12, nine members of his family, ages 1 to 24, were shot in the face in their Fresno, Calif., home. Wesson, 57, has been charged with multiple counts of murder.
Local school officials found no record of contact with the family.
Home schooling isn't recognized as an option in California law, so responsibility for oversight is ``very muddy,'' said Armen Bacon, spokeswoman for Fresno County schools. ``They can slip through the cracks quite easily.''
Perhaps if the children had been in school rather than home-schooled, one of them would have whispered to a teacher hints of incest at home. Maybe one would have revealed that Wesson was stockpiling coffins.
Just as the killing of 13 students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in April 1999 aroused fear that public schools were unsafe, questions are raised about home-schooling families after tragedies such as the Wesson case.
The U.S. Department of Justice knows how many crimes occur at school, on the way to school and at home. Statistics show that, despite the events at Columbine, public school buildings remain among the safest places for a child.
But the department keeps no records on children schooled at home.
Consequently, crime experts can't answer the question: Are home-schooled children more or less at risk of violence than other school-age children?
Many school officials and social workers believe that a growing number of parents are operating under the guise of home schooling although they have no interest in educating their children, may have psychological problems, or, worse, are a threat to their children...
(Excerpt) Read more at ohio.com ...
Giving up what? And who says the Left would be the group checking -
The article claimed that home schooling might be used as a cover by some parents - for a reason other than teaching the children - suggesting abuse - I simply was suggesting there should be a way to make sure that isn't happening -
"The article claimed"
Enough said.
Yea, that guy looks just like all the homeschoolers I know ...
Whatever -
Cheers -
LOL
Most accidents occur in the home, as this article clearly illustrates....
teachers could have saved them...
Forget Jesus Christ, 'teachers' are the new saviors according to the left and the media. Gag me with a pitchfork.
Johnny can't read, can't make change, can't do elementary math, but the teachers care more about him than anyone else.
Outcome Based Education, Goals 2000, School to Work, No Child Left Behind, is working, it is doing exactly what it was designed to do, just like the Soviet Education System it was designed after did, Create a dumbed down worker bee society.
I dont care either way about homeschooling but this is an obivous hit piece. WEAK
The Wesson case is an old story, which shows how this author had to hunt high and low to find supporting evidence for the article's preconceived conclusions.
I wonder what evidence there is that this family home schooled. Not being enrolled in a school does not make a child a home schooler.
The author of this article is looking under rocks for fringe characters in order to make his case that homeschooling is bad.
I was thinking some group that - when a parent first starts the process - could check on the home situation.
OOOhhh, so you want the government to check into all our homes before we educate our children. So, before we teach them to walk, talk, potty train them, feed themselves, recognize red, blue, circles, squares, their name, how to count to ten, then 20, then to recognize letters, write their name and ther rest of the alphabet, then read, then learn to add numbers, then learn to measure circles, then learn to read chemistry books and do experiments, and learn to write essays on the impact of the Civil War on the tobacco industry, then take a calculus exam......FIRST the government has to okay all this?
So, IOW, you want government approval to HAVE kids, right? Every home should be inspected, every person have an exam, before they are allowed to conceive? Or at least carry to term?
Interesting concept. I'll pass, thanks.
So very true!
Here is another section of it. It tells about the powerful HSLDA and Patrick Henry College. It make mentions that some politicians are afraid of the HSLDA (which is good in my opinion)and the fact that Patrick Henry students are very active in government and how they helped to defeat Tom Dashle.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/local/10221547.htm
By this same token, since kids and teachers are regularly shot in public schools, public schools should all be shut down as being too dangerous.
Here we go again!!!!!!! This is absolute BS.
Here we go again!!!!!!! This is absolute BS.
Were they actually home schooling? I'm clueless on this point but isn't some sort of minimal contact with the local school system a requirement to legitimately do home schooling?
I read this when it first came out last spring. Of course, it is a bureaucrat's view of the situation, overgeneralyzing and theorizing from one example to millions. The truth is that my children have not had to put up with bullying by fellow students, as I did. They were not harassed by some teachers, as I was. (One example: We were in a Tennessee school for 2 months when I was in 3rd grade and my Air Force father was retraining from fighter jets to troop transports. I had a horrible cough, as I had Bronchial Asthma. My Mother did not keep me home; I was like that about 1/4 of my childhood. The teacher sat us on the floor in a drafty hallway, with orders not to talk. After an extensive coughing spasm, my younger sister whispered, asking if I was OK. Gasping for air, I nodded. Whack! The teacher whallopped me with a wooden paddle. A second example: I had always had A's in English. An "advanced" teacher gave me a C in advanced placement English, after berating and humiliating me repeatedly during the semester. She said that I never should have had higher than a C in my life. My crime? I interpreted the poem "The Journey of the Magi" in such a way that the Existentialist teacher knew that I took the Bible literally. After changing classes for the second semester, I actually did get advanced credit by test- and half of her class failed.) I have also found it rewarding that I do not have to worry about my children and such news experiences as the Columbine massacre, or local instances of rape in the restroom. I truly hope that those in schools are safe, and most are. It doesn't mean that most at home are not.
I'll ditto everything you said. I pulled my kids from public school this year and am homeschooling for the first time. This year, their old public school (and all of the schools in the district) held "terrorist drills". At the high school, they had a drill including a fake shooting with injuries. For the elementary schools, they sent a "strange odor" through the ventilation system -- and their response in each classroom was to do a "lockdown". I am SO glad I'm homeschooling!! At least we don't have to do "terrorist drills" in our homeschool!! Yeah, tell me my kids are no safer at home than they would be in a school where they have to rehearse what to do if terrorists attack and take over the school.
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