I know we got some homeschoolers here... How much should the community step in?

[Backroads]

Disclaimer: I have no complaint against homeschooling. I generally admire it and would do it if my kids expressed any interest. I have no ill-will at all and concede that bad things happen to all kids no matter their schooling.

So, my husband works at a hospital and a few weeks back came home with vague details of an incident he worked with involving a deceased child and arrests and social services.

Turns out, upon later news release, a "homeschool" family had starved their kid to death. I say homeschool in quotations because I doubt any homeschooling was happening and the family simply signed the affidavit to reduce eyes on the kid. It's a nasty situation where it seemed a lot of people in social services dropped the ball.

It's become one of those cases I can't get out of my head. Again, I'm not blaming homeschool, but I'm also aware a lot of families homeschool to get away from government interference and be more selective of their own village. Which I admire and I dislike the idea of government as a babysitter.

While this clearly puts all responsibility on the families to be the best they can, it seems it allows for potentially awful consequences on innocents.

So, the question in the subject line: should the community (not necessarily the government) ever be allowed to step in and say "this isn't okay"?

[mikbone]

18 minutes ago, Backroads said:

So, the question in the subject line: should the community (not necessarily the government) ever be allowed to step in and say "this isn't okay"?

Depends on your definition of community and government.  

We already have things like neighbors and home teachers.  They don't require any funding or legal code.

If you are a Socialist then obviously parents cannot make decisions about their children without oversight.  Thus you get a nanny state.

Satan wanted a nanny state.  Michael and his angels fought to give us our free will.

Don't get excited about an outlier to justify government intervention.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

― Rahm Emanuel

 

[LDSGator]

11 minutes ago, mikbone said:

Depends on your definition of community and government.  

We already have things like neighbors and home teachers.  They don't require any funding or legal code.

If you are a Socialist then obviously parents cannot make decisions about their children without oversight.  Thus you get a nanny state.

Satan wanted a nanny state.  Michael and his angels fought to give us our free will.

Don't get excited about an outlier to justify government intervention.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

― Rahm Emanuel

 

Even small government conservatives wouldn’t be thrilled with allowing a homeschooled child to be abused. If they are cool with that or think the kid should be abused and starved that’s not conservative, that’s disgusting.  

Edited July 29, 2024 by LDSGator

[Backroads]

28 minutes ago, mikbone said:

 

We already have things like neighbors and home teachers.  They don't require any funding or legal code.

What would you have them do in cases of abuse without involvement of the government?

[Carborendum]

1 hour ago, Backroads said:

So, my husband works at a hospital and a few weeks back came home with vague details of an incident he worked with involving a deceased child and arrests and social services.

...

So, the question in the subject line: should the community (not necessarily the government) ever be allowed to step in and say "this isn't okay"?

There are no perfect solutions, only trade-offs.  No system is perfect.  But a combination of checks and balances is the best we can have.  In that vein, I rather like the Church's policy on gospel study: Home centered, Church supported.

For schooling, we still want home centered.  But what would replace the Church supported?  The state?  Heaven forbid.  I've known some foster care homes.  Some are really good.  But the rates of abuse in the foster system in general is 33% (vs 0.8% with a child's own families).  Consider the difference between 0.8% vs 33%.

Any other solution?  Some other community group?  Like what? 

We are all heart-broken when we hear of abuse, neglect, etc.  And I'd love to help any children in such circumstances.  Who wouldn't?  But before we go and try to CHANGE THE SYSTEM NOW, I'd always caution that we shouldn't take down a fence until we first learn why it was up in the first place.  And when it comes to family ties, we really need to think long and hard about how much we're willing to interfere with a family's interpersonal dynamics.

I think that the "Church supported" philosophy could still work for family/abuse/neglect situations.  But I have to admit, I don't know what specifics I would espouse.  And the Church has taken a stance of "if there is any doubt", err on the side of family integrity on these issues.

That said, there are certainly conditions that are SO BAD and beyond the pale that any reasonable person would demand that action must be taken.  And I've heard enough horror stories to know when the parents definitely should go to jail for what they've done.  And even the worst foster care home would be better than the home these kids were in.

A part of me thinks foster care is supposed to be a deterrent to nosy neighbors making false claims against homeschoolers.  The foster care system needs to be undesirable.  It needs to be something to be avoided.  Only in the WORST home conditions should we even consider putting children in the system.  If judges, prosecutors, and the general public also saw it this way, maybe it would be the answer.

Edited July 29, 2024 by Carborendum

[mikbone]

1 hour ago, Backroads said:

What would you have them do in cases of abuse without involvement of the government?

In cases of abuse, hospitals and ecclesiastical authorities are required to contact CPS (a government entity).

But we don’t want the government to check in on us periodically just to verify that everything is OK…

Good neighbors and ministering brothers and sisters should be able to recognize if anything nefarious is happening.

[NeuroTypical]

3 hours ago, Backroads said:

So, the question in the subject line: should the community (not necessarily the government) ever be allowed to step in and say "this isn't okay"?

I don't understand the question.   This nation is sort of big on freedom of speech, people can pretty much say whatever they want, whenever they want to say it.  I guess, what do you mean by "step in"?

Government and laws and police are the only ways we the people get together to use force against ourselves.   If any group of people use force against anyone outside of the law, it's not "the community", it's "vigilante justice" or "a mob".

If anyone sees a kid being abused, they should report it.  Evidence and photos or video helps, if it can be safely gathered from public view.

Kids that might look malnourished?  Call it in.

Edited July 30, 2024 by NeuroTypical

[The Folk Prophet]

I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure starving your kids to death is already illegal. 

[Just_A_Guy]

With regard to home schooling done badly:  I think that in cases where welfare claimants turn out to have been home-schooled in a way that left them substantially unemployable, it may be appropriate to seek recourse/reimbursement from the assets of the parents who obviously fouled up on the homeschooling.

In the shorter term, speaking from my own experience in the child welfare system:  yes, there are fewer eyes in the community on home schooled kids; that lets problems fly under the radar for longer with sometimes-tragic results.  But frankly, I think that’s just the cost of doing business in a free society.  I *want* to have the right to pull my kids out of the public education system if/when it reaches a certain level of inculcating destructive ideals in its pupils; and I don’t want to have to justify myself to some government do-gooder who thinks it’s evidence of a civil rights violation if a kid is still a virgin when (s)he graduates from high school. 

[Backroads]

4 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

I don't understand the question.   This nation is sort of big on freedom of speech, people can pretty much say whatever they want, whenever they want to say it.  I guess, what do you mean by "step in"?

Government and laws and police are the only ways we the people get together to use force against ourselves.   If any group of people use force against anyone outside of the law, it's not "the community", it's "vigilante justice" or "a mob".

If anyone sees a kid being abused, they should report it.  Evidence and photos or video helps, if it can be safely gathered from public view.

Kids that might look malnourished?  Call it in.

I think my question is if we want an alternative to law enforcement or CPS or if those are things we just have to accept.

[Carborendum]

8 hours ago, Backroads said:

I think my question is if we want an alternative to law enforcement or CPS or if those are things we just have to accept.

To repeat NT's question, I don't know what you mean by "alternative."  We have a responsibility to report.  Law enforcement enforces.  We all play a role.

There is a principle called "exigent circumstances" where we immediately see abuse taking place RIGHT NOW where inaction will cause great and immediate harm.  Not just the potential.  Not just long term effects that are continuing.  But you see a parent beating a kid black and blue.  Then and only then do we involve ourselves.

For long term things like starvation, you report.  Let law enforcement handle it.

At the same time, we must always be cautious.  What you consider abuse may not be.  Simple spankings have been a historically accepted form of punishment by parent to child.  And I'll testify that I would probably not be a law abiding citizen without it.  Many here know how much my temper can flare up.  But as a kid, I could have been literally criminal had it not been for my father iron hand. 

Yet, too many people nowadays consider this abuse.  "I would never hit my child!"  No, not hit.  Spank.  You can see where this conversation would go.  I'd hate to see a parent sent to jail because of simple spanking.  And I believe that attitude is the cause of many children being raised without shame.  No discipline.

As far as starvation, it has to be pretty extreme before we can visibly see "starvation."  All my children are pretty skinny because both my wife and I were very skinny in our youth.  But one of my sons simply didn't like eating much.  He was skinnier than I was at his age.  That was pretty bad.  And even though we kept encouraging him to eat, he simply didn't want to.  I was concerned for him.  And if some busy body looked at him, they might think we were starving him.

So, how certain are you about a child actually being victim to starvation?  It is a careful balancing act.

FTR, my son has entered adolescence.  Now he eats normally.  But most adolescent boys eat two or three times as much as he does.  I sure did.

Edited July 30, 2024 by Carborendum

[mikbone]

9 hours ago, Backroads said:

I think my question is if we want an alternative to law enforcement or CPS or if those are things we just have to accept.

What are you proposing?

[NeuroTypical]

10 hours ago, Backroads said:

I think my question is if we want an alternative to law enforcement or CPS or if those are things we just have to accept.

Fair enough.  CPS has a noble purpose, but in practice it can be woefully unhelpful, or even harmful.

The sad reality is that God, and most of our laws, seem to agree that the parents' get to parent, and have total control of their kids, unless they do something which causes them to lose their parent card.  So that kid in your neighborhood might be on your radar as a situation you'd like to influence, but it's outside of your control.

So the positive things people can do to exert influence: Suff like befrending the family, trying to get to know them and finding ways to love them.  Child abuse hides in secrecy and shadows, its currency is fear and shame, for both perpetrator and victim.  Such things wither and die in the light of love.  Best way to make good parents is to baptize them.  Might not be an option.

If folks have a burning desire to help in general, they can volunteer and become child advocates.  There is a never-ending flow of children moving through various legal proceedings, without any say in them.  A child advocate who actually gives a crap about the child, can have a positive influence.  Some folks care so much they become foster parents, even adopting.

You are asking for an "alternative", but you didn't ask for a "good" one.   When we have no power, there are all sorts of nasty tricks and vile things we can do to each other to try to manipulate some sort of desired outcome.  They usually don't work, and sometimes you end up losing your soul trying to do something.  So yeah, don't kidnap anyone, don't set any fires, no community meetings that turn into mobs.  I'd also stay away from any attempts at public shaming.  Some folks might like tactics like that, but I wouldn't try to get the local news to do a story, or hang anonymous signs, or make a fake account on next door to do some reputation smearing.  Such things can be incredibly attractive options, but the end result is rarely positive. 

[HaggisShuu]

21 hours ago, mikbone said:

In cases of abuse, hospitals and ecclesiastical authorities are required to contact CPS (a government entity).

But we don’t want the government to check in on us periodically just to verify that everything is OK…

Good neighbors and ministering brothers and sisters should be able to recognize if anything nefarious is happening.

I won't lie but this sounds exactly like the solution. I'm a brit and so probably have a very different view to that of Americans, but the attitudes espoused here that the government should leave us alone all the time, at all costs - seems impractical. This family clearly had no safe guards in place and so an innocent child has died. Government is not a bad thing. See D&C 134:

Quote

1 We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for the good and safety of society.

2 We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.

3 We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce the laws of the same; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld by the voice of the people if a republic, or the will of the sovereign

I personally believe that public schools should employ a "home schooling liaison officer" (or some similar term) to do a monthly drop in for home schooling families in their area. While I believe home schooling is superior, parents are often not trained to educate. A trained educator coming into homes to provide resources, share techniques and most importantly looking for signs of abuse (free of charge) would be of great benefit to child and parent alike. This preserves the spirit of home schooling while enhancing the education of the child and protecting the well being. 

Edited July 30, 2024 by HaggisShuu

[HaggisShuu]

12 minutes ago, HaggisShuu said:

I won't lie but this sounds exactly like the solution. I'm a brit and so probably have a very different view to that of Americans, but the attitudes espoused here that the government should leave us alone all the time, at all costs - seems impractical. This family clearly had no safe guards in place and so an innocent child has died. Government is not a bad thing. See D&C 134:

I personally believe that public schools should employ a "home schooling liaison officer" (or some similar term) to do a monthly drop in for home schooling families in their area. While I believe home schooling is superior, parents are often not trained to educate. A trained educator coming into homes to provide resources, share techniques and most importantly looking for signs of abuse (free of charge) would be of great benefit to child and parent alike. This preserves the spirit of home schooling while enhancing the education of the child and protecting the well being. 

Just saying this because I would love to home school to keep poisonous ideologies and ungodly people out of the lives of my child when they are born, but I'm working full time and studying a degree at the same time, and my wife is dyslexic and terrible with numbers. So it would never work without government help. 
 

I know parents are the first and primary educators of their children (as it should be), I simply meant that in the academic sense, most aren't subject matter experts in literature, mathematics and whatever else you wish to teach them, whereas all teachers (in the UK at least) have a degree in what they are teaching.  

[estradling75]

Us humans are really bad at math and probabilities as a general rule.  For example  People go swimming in the ocean.  The oceans have sharks.  Sharks can and have attacked people swimming in the ocean.  This is bad.  This is horrific.  This is a very low probability event.  Then the movie Jaws came along and people became afraid of being attacked so they did not go swimming in the ocean after seeing the movie.  The odds of them getting attacked had not changed, yet people's behavior did dramatically.

Homeschooling is like swimming in the ocean.  Yeah something bad might happen, and when it does it is horrific, but the odds are low.  Any response we take needs to consider that.

The problem with homeschooling is fundamentally just a rebranding of the standard human problem.  How do you keep bad people from doing bad things?  That is a question we have been trying to answer forever.

Edited July 30, 2024 by estradling75

[NeuroTypical]

53 minutes ago, HaggisShuu said:

I personally believe that public schools should employ a "home schooling liaison officer" (or some similar term) to do a monthly drop in for home schooling families in their area. While I believe home schooling is superior, parents are often not trained to educate.

In the U.S., the homeschooling laws vary by state.   Some states have quite restrictive laws that are similar to what you're suggesting here.  Some states require that approved curriculum be taught.  I live in Colorado, which requires certain subjects be taught, daily records kept, and an evaluation from a qualified person once every 2 years. 

https://www.transcriptmaker.com/2021/03/03/the-best-and-worst-states-for-homeschooling-in-2021/

 

Quote

While I believe home schooling is superior, parents are often not trained to educate. A trained educator coming into homes to provide resources, share techniques and most importantly looking for signs of abuse (free of charge) would be of great benefit to child and parent alike.

Not sure if you've seen any of the long-term studies.  Even though most US homeschooled kids are taught by parents who are not trained educators, they continue (on average) to produce superior results than their professionally-educated peers who attended public/private/religious schools.  

So no, on average, there is no 'great benefit' to be had by imposing trained educators on homeschooling parents who are already doing it better than the pros.  Perhaps anecdotes here and there of discovered abuse might happen, but the data simply doesn't support your opinion.

Quote

This preserves the spirit of home schooling while enhancing the education of the child and protecting the well being. 

For millions of us, the "spirit of homeschooling" is one of freedom and keeping our homes free from the burdening overreach of government regulation and godless curricula.  

Quote

I would love to home school to keep poisonous ideologies and ungodly people out of the lives of my child when they are born, but I'm working full time and studying a degree at the same time, and my wife is dyslexic and terrible with numbers. So it would never work without government help.
...
in the academic sense, most aren't subject matter experts in literature, mathematics and whatever else you wish to teach them, whereas all teachers (in the UK at least) have a degree in what they are teaching.

Yeah, it doesn't have to be government help.  Our kids experienced numerous homeschool co-ops, run by mostly-mommies.   More than a couple of the mommies were actually current or former educators, who would not let their kids within ten miles of the public school environment they worked in.   Other degreed mommies had special needs kids that would just be better served 1:1, far superior to anything offered by the public schools.  My daughters learned biology from a molecular biologist with a PhD, taking 15 years off of working to raise her kids.  Music from musicians.  Math from people who understood how to teach math.  History from curricula.  You don't need a degree in a subject, to be everything a child needs on that subject.   One of the top three rewarding things I've done as a parent, was teach one of my kiddos to read and instill a love of reading.  The last lesson was to read the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".    Now every time she and mom go thrifting, she comes back with 3-5 books for her library.

Also, not sure what it's like in the UK, but here in the states, if you look at all the required classes for a degree in education, you'd see that perhaps less than half actually involve knowing topics that you'll teach.  The classload for educators contains an awful lot of group management, and dealing with problematic outliers, and how to do paperwork and keep records, etc.  At the end of the day, part of the purpose of formal education, is to have a place to send your kids so you the parents can have their jobs and free time and hobbies and social life and whatnot.  It's a larger part of the purpose than many wish to admit.  

 

Edited July 30, 2024 by NeuroTypical

[HaggisShuu]

7 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

In the U.S., the homeschooling laws vary by state.   Some states have quite restrictive laws that are similar to what you're suggesting here.  Some states require that approved curriculum be taught.  I live in Colorado, which requires certain subjects be taught, daily records kept, and an evaluation from a qualified person once every 2 years. 

https://www.transcriptmaker.com/2021/03/03/the-best-and-worst-states-for-homeschooling-in-2021/

 

Not sure if you've seen any of the long-term studies.  Even though most US homeschooled kids are taught by parents who are not trained educators, they continue (on average) to produce superior results than their professionally-educated peers who attended public/private/religious schools.  

So no, on average, there is no 'great benefit' to be had by imposing trained educators on homeschooling parents who are already doing it better than the pros.  Perhaps anecdotes here and there of discovered abuse might happen, but the data simply doesn't support your opinion.

For millions of us, the "spirit of homeschooling" is one of freedom and keeping our homes free from the burdening overreach of government regulation and godless curricula.  

Yeah, it doesn't have to be government help.  Our kids experienced numerous homeschool co-ops, run by mostly-mommies.   More than a couple of the mommies were actually current or former educators, who would not let their kids within ten miles of the public school environment they worked in.   Other degreed mommies had special needs kids that would just be better served 1:1, far superior to anything offered by the public schools.  My daughters learned biology from a molecular biologist with a PhD, taking 15 years off of working to raise her kids.  Music from musicians.  Math from people who understood how to teach math.  History from curricula.  You don't need a degree in a subject, to be everything a child needs on that subject.   One of the top three rewarding things I've done as a parent, was teach one of my kiddos to read and instill a love of reading.  The last lesson was to read the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".    Now every time she and mom go thrifting, she comes back with 3-5 books for her library.

Also, not sure what it's like in the UK, but here in the states, if you look at all the required classes for a degree in education, you'd see that perhaps less than half actually involve knowing topics that you'll teach.  The classload for educators contains an awful lot of group management, and dealing with problematic outliers, and how to do paperwork and keep records, etc.  At the end of the day, part of the purpose of formal education, is to have a place to send your kids so you the parents can have their jobs and free time and hobbies and social life and whatnot.  It's a larger part of the purpose than many wish to admit.  

 

Some interesting points I will consider, thank you. 

[HaggisShuu]

9 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

In the U.S., the homeschooling laws vary by state.   Some states have quite restrictive laws that are similar to what you're suggesting here.  Some states require that approved curriculum be taught.  I live in Colorado, which requires certain subjects be taught, daily records kept, and an evaluation from a qualified person once every 2 years. 

https://www.transcriptmaker.com/2021/03/03/the-best-and-worst-states-for-homeschooling-in-2021/

 

Not sure if you've seen any of the long-term studies.  Even though most US homeschooled kids are taught by parents who are not trained educators, they continue (on average) to produce superior results than their professionally-educated peers who attended public/private/religious schools.  

So no, on average, there is no 'great benefit' to be had by imposing trained educators on homeschooling parents who are already doing it better than the pros.  Perhaps anecdotes here and there of discovered abuse might happen, but the data simply doesn't support your opinion.

For millions of us, the "spirit of homeschooling" is one of freedom and keeping our homes free from the burdening overreach of government regulation and godless curricula.  

Yeah, it doesn't have to be government help.  Our kids experienced numerous homeschool co-ops, run by mostly-mommies.   More than a couple of the mommies were actually current or former educators, who would not let their kids within ten miles of the public school environment they worked in.   Other degreed mommies had special needs kids that would just be better served 1:1, far superior to anything offered by the public schools.  My daughters learned biology from a molecular biologist with a PhD, taking 15 years off of working to raise her kids.  Music from musicians.  Math from people who understood how to teach math.  History from curricula.  You don't need a degree in a subject, to be everything a child needs on that subject.   One of the top three rewarding things I've done as a parent, was teach one of my kiddos to read and instill a love of reading.  The last lesson was to read the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".    Now every time she and mom go thrifting, she comes back with 3-5 books for her library.

Also, not sure what it's like in the UK, but here in the states, if you look at all the required classes for a degree in education, you'd see that perhaps less than half actually involve knowing topics that you'll teach.  The classload for educators contains an awful lot of group management, and dealing with problematic outliers, and how to do paperwork and keep records, etc.  At the end of the day, part of the purpose of formal education, is to have a place to send your kids so you the parents can have their jobs and free time and hobbies and social life and whatnot.  It's a larger part of the purpose than many wish to admit.  

 

On a side note this is why I enjoy forums such as this. Have you changed my opinion completely? No, but you've presented new ideas to me which can now better inform my ideas on the subject going forward. Polite discourse is a fantastic thing. Too bad there isn't enough of it in the world. 

[Backroads]

10 hours ago, mikbone said:

What are you proposing?

I don't know if I can think of anything novel to propose. I have seen enough of an intersection in homeschool where families would never let their kids be seen or don't believe in cops or government intervention at all.

[LDSGator]

14 minutes ago, Backroads said:

I don't know if I can think of anything novel to propose. I have seen enough of an intersection in homeschool where families would never let their kids be seen or don't believe in cops or government intervention at all.

Others have said, there’s no perfect answer. 
 

One reason I like the LDS church is it tries to right these wrongs. If my home teachers knew I was slapping around my kids or starving them to death, 99% would immediately call the cops.