Posted on 12/06/2015 2:59:38 PM PST by windcliff
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A Detroit brother and sister vanished more than two years before they were found dead in a freezer in their home, and an 11-year-old Florida girl disappeared more than a year before she, too, turned up in a family freezer. And a 7-year-old Kansas boy hadn't been seen for more than a month before authorities found the gruesome remains of a child in a pigsty inside his family's barn.
All of them were home-schooled, but despite their disappearances going unnoticed for so long, opposition from the government-wary home-schooling community means it's unlikely these states will start keeping closer tabs on home-schooled children.
"It's largely a conservative thing, but even progressive home-schoolers tend to resist oversight," said Rachel Coleman, co-founder of the nonprofit Coalition for Responsible Home Education. "Part of it is because there is an assumption that parents always know what's best for their children."
The most recent case, at a home near Kansas City, Kansas, is still being investigated and authorities said it could be weeks before they positively identify the child whose remains officers found in the barn.
Such cases are horrific but they don't typically lead to new restrictions on home-schooling, which many parents see as their deeply personal right, said Rob Kunzman, director of the International Center for Home Education Research at Indiana University.
Although the number of home-schooled students jumped nationwide to about 1.7 million between 2003 and 2012, they still represent just over 3 percent of all students, Coleman said.
"As many as two-thirds are home-schooling in part for religious reasons," Coleman said. "Part of that for conservative Christians is that God has given that child to the parents, not the state. The state doesn't own my child, God has entrusted my child to me."
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
How do the deaths of home-schooled children compare to the deaths of children attending public school?
What are the respective rates, per 10,000 students, for example?
Hm...my guess is that many more children in public schools die. What an idiotic premise for a newspaper article.
Interesting examples they used in the opening paragraph. All ‘children’ of Obama and the freezer deaths were so Mommy could still collect their welfare checks.
WTF.
Bullshit with a vendetta.
Allowing for reportorial malice, I think the take-away point is that, without a circle of contacts, home schooled kids can disappear with fewer folks noticing. On an aggregate level the home schooled kids might well be safer but it probably is true that fewer people will notice their absence.
The answer is simple: we MUST ban freezers and pigsties. It’s for the children.
Then get back to me about homeschooling.
I hardly think public schools are safer. This is just a liberal agenda hit piece.
It is not about home schooling. It’s the freezer’s fault. Ban freezers.
Those don’t count.
The Red Star Tribune again living up to its name.
And which of these deaths would have been prevented if there were home-school checkup laws?
Mass freezer deaths?
The Detroit case had nothing to do with home schooling.
The woman had been reported multiple times for possible abuse by the public school the kids were attending. It wasn’t till months after the kids disappeared from the school that questions were asked and the woman started claiming the kids were being home schooled.
The kids were dead before the woman ever claimed to be home schooling them. CPS failed to investigate allegations of abuse when the kids were still alive.
The Red Star Tribune again living up to its name.
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Well, it’s an AP story & the AP is living up to the name “Absolutely Pseudo-news”.
“Across the U.S.” = “in three different states, which happened to be far from one another.
Exactly the right question.
3 deaths in how many years? Compared to how many children killed, bullied or sexually abused in public schools?
Everyone who graduates (or drops out) from a public school WILL die!
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