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Posted on 10/16/2003 4:19:56 AM PDT by kattracks
CNSNews.com) - Homeschooling advocates are accusing CBS News of trying to damage their reputation with a two-part report focusing on the "dark side" of the "largely unregulated" homeschool movement. The reports aired Monday and Tuesday nights.
"Those who may be opposed to home education are digging around the bottom of the barrel, looking for marginal cases, families who have troubles that far exceed any educational question," said Hal Young, president of North Carolinians for Home Education.
Young was the only person in the Eye on America segments who defended the practice of homeschooling.
According to the CBS reports, the practice of educating children at home carries with it the risk that children will be abused or even "killed while homeschooling."
While previewing the Eye on America investigation during CBS's The Early Show Monday morning, Rather said the following: "Homeschooling has produced some brilliant young minds, but there is a dark side to the movement that can put some children's lives at risk."
An estimated 850,000 children are being homeschooled in the U.S., about 2 percent of the nation's total number of school-aged children, according to CBS.
On Monday, CBS News correspondent Vince Gonzales previewed the following day's segment by saying: "Tomorrow, how children nationwide have been put in danger, even killed while homeschooling."
The two-part report included several examples of parents who had "taught their children at home" but who had ended up abusing and killing the children. Texas mother Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in a bathtub, was listed as one of the examples. The series concluded by noting that no states require "criminal background checks" of the parents who homeschool their children.
But homeschooling advocates like Young are crying foul.
"It was plain from the tone of [CBS News'] interview with me that they had already made up their mind how the story was going to spin out, and they were simply fishing for sound bites in the questions that they were asking," Young told CNSNews.com.
In Monday's first part, correspondent Gonzales reported on the double murder, suicide involving two teenage children killed by their brother, who subsequently took his own life in Johnston County, N.C. The CBS News report noted that the three children had all been homeschooled and were outside the observation of the county and state educational systems.
But J. Michael Smith, president of the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association, said CBS News left out key aspects of the family tragedy.
The CBS report did include one reference to how the parents of the North Carolina children had tried to prevent social workers from visiting their youngsters, but Smith said, "missing from the CBS story was that [North Carolina State] Social Services had contacted the family 11 times, were well aware of the condition of the home and had been working with the family."
According to Smith, "any fair-minded" viewer of the broadcast would have been left with the impression "that homeschooling equals child abuse."
The first of the CBS reports, Smith said, was a "shameless attempt to smear an entire community of committed, dedicated parents."
"We are outraged that CBS would ignore the obvious facts and draw the erroneous conclusion that homeschoolers need to be strictly regulated," he added.
The second segment on homeschooling concluded with CBS News hinting that parents needed to be investigated for their children to be adequately protected.
"Unlike teachers, in 38 states and the District of Columbia, parents need virtually no qualifications to homeschool. Not one state requires criminal background checks to see if parents have abuse convictions," Gonzales said during the broadcast.
Young was surprised CBS would imply that parents needed to get "criminal background checks."
"That says that CBS feels all parents are suspect, and a criminal background check would probably be in order," Young said. "Not just home educators, but all parents of preschoolers, parents of children who are home for summer vacation," he added.
Young also questioned CBS's motives for criticizing the lack of state mandated criminal background checks for parents.
"Do they have an agenda that families should be presumed dysfunctional and in need of government intervention in the raising of their own children?" Young asked.
'Out of the public eye'
At the beginning of Tuesday's second segment, Rather conceded that the "overwhelming majority" of parents who homeschool "have only the best interests of their children at heart."
But then, Rather introduced Gonzales's report by telling his audience: "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."
Gonzales then profiled several cases nationwide in which homeschooled children had been allegedly killed by their parents.
"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," Gonzales said in the report broadcast Tuesday evening.
Gonzales also found the "private dark side" in the education of a National Spelling Bee participant.
"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," Gonzales explained on the air.
Ian M. Slatter, the director of media relations at the Home School Legal Defense Association, said the CBS News reports were completely off base.
"They profiled some very troubling cases, [that] while tragic, did not have anything to do with homeschooling. Homeschooling was not the cause of the tragedies," Slatter told CNSNews.com.
"We definitely believe for CBS to broadcast this story, [the network] displays a bias against homeschooling," Slatter added.
CBS News Publicist Andie Silvers released a network statement on the criticism from homeschooling advocates.
"These reports examined a group of people who are using homeschooling as an excuse to hide the physical abuse they inflict on their children, a disturbing reality in this country," the CBS statement read. "CBS News clearly reported that the majority of parents who homeschool their kids are doing a fine job of teaching and raising their children.'"
'Smearing homeschoolers'
Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the Media Research Center, the parent organization of CNSNews.com, said CBS News was attempting to discredit the whole homeschool movement.
"CBS is doing two things wrong here. First, it's smearing homeschoolers by association with child-killers like Andrea Yates and perpetuating a stereotype that homeschoolers are dangerous parents," Graham said.
"Second, it's producing a heavy-handed advertisement for more regulation, insisting that only more government bureaucrats can prevent child homicides and suggesting that public schools are a much safer option," Graham added.
Despite CBS's negative portrayal of homeschooling, the practice has defenders in high places.
Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), told CNSNews.com last April that homeschooling was a viable solution to poor public schools.
"I think homeschooling is one of the greatly to be admired phenomena of our times. Families who have undertaken it have produced some kids who know a remarkable amount and perform remarkably well," Cheney said.
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Any suggestion on how to do that? I didn't watch the program, so I don't know who paid for it. I wouldn't mind doing that, but I don't know who to write to.
Busted our butts for months just to bring that child up to the level of her classmates in basic reading, writing and mathematic skills outside the rote memorization of the multiplication tables, spelling and state capitols (you know, the big homeschool sales pitch).
There are hundreds of different curricula from which to choose. You should have busted your but when it came to choosing one. The fact that you busted your but bringing "that child up to the level of her classmates in basic reading, writing and mathematic skills" shows that you can educate you child at home when given the proper resources.
My young children are two to three grade levels ahead in reading, writing and math. Your homeschooling flop seems to be an exception to the rule.
We were lucky that we went to a church where none of the other kids were being homeschooled, because we'd have never noticed the problem.
You don't specify what the "problem" is.
If YOUR daughter doesn't learn something that YOU didn't teach, then whose problem is it?
Part of the "whole homeschooling routine", IMO, is personal attention to teaching what you want her to learn.
I admit that I don't know what a "cottage" school is. My version of homeschool has the parents teaching the child(ren. Right now, my wife is doing most of the teaching, but I work at home and will do more as our son gets older. I'm already teaching algebra to a friend's 15-year-old.
I consider my son's education to be my (and my wife's) responsibility, and I won't turn it over to a public school, and I won't turn it over to a "cottage" school that does things that I disapprove of ("schlepping" being one of them).
Nice try, but at that time, I was as pro-life as anybody on this board. After a few years here, I found myself argued into flopping that position.
There are hundreds of different curricula from which to choose. You should have busted your but when it came to choosing one.
Last I noticed, the curricula that we were on would be considered one of the flagships of home schooling, and we followed it far better than our homeschooling peers - in fact, our child was way ahead compared to them. In fact, I frequently supplemented the material. Add to that the notion that I spent about as much for the cottage school as I would for a private school. The flop wasn't for lack of ability, motivation or resources - it was the lack of a proper standard for comparison, the lack of upward motivating competition and peer pressure, and the lack of honestly set standards in the homeschool curriculum sales movement.
My young children are two to three grade levels ahead in reading, writing and math.
As are mine, at this point, according to every honest test.
We stopped socializing with them.
Where exactly is it unregulated?
In the state of Washington we have various requirements to follow including filing an educational plan, mandatory testing, parental certification, etc.
Don't most states attempt to regulate all education in some way?
By the way, the home school "graduates" that I know are doing great. They are attending college at a higher percentage than the public school kids. My son, who never attended any school before college, is currently a college junior with a GPA of 3.8. One of his home schooled friends started law school this fall. Another is a college senior in an engineering program. Don't judge all home schoolers by the few that you know.
Perhaps some FReeper out there caught the show and could tell you. I don't watch it myself (it's a blood pressure thing) so I don't know if they have the same sponsors all the time or not.
University of Missouri Law School
University of Missouri - Rolla
"I think we're going to have to accept Federation control for a time."
(Could that maybe be your tag line?)
So are mine, and they've been homeschooled all along. We know many other families (some paying 12K per child for one of the best private schools around) and our kids are much farther ahead in reading and math.
Needless to say, I'm thrilled with homeschooling. But as in anything, I think the results depend upon the individuals involved.
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