Home Schooling Is A Way To Educate Children, Not Murder Them And Get Away With It
At least the pandering lawmaker in Michigan, Stephanie Chang, who's trying to inject the government into home-schooling in the wake of the murder of two children isn't naming it "Stoni and Stephen's Law."
Michelle Blair, the horror show of a "mother" of these two kids, 13 and 9, had them removed them from Detroit public schools two years ago. She claimed they were being home-schooled. They were home -- dead in a freezer for two years before their bodies were discovered.
Those of us with more sense than a houseplant understand that this is a horrible but rare occurrence.
Izzy Lyman writes for WatchDog.org:
A bill that would create a registry of Michigan home-schoolers has been dubbed, by a Detroit News' house editorial, as "extremely intrusive."State Rep. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit, introduced legislation, earlier this month, that would mandate that home-schoolers provide their names and ages, as well as the address of their parent or guardian, to the superintendent of the school district in which they live. The home-schooled student would also have to be seen, at least twice a year, by a doctor, licensed social worker, physician's assistant, school counselor, teacher, audiologist, or by a friend of the court official.
The Great Lakes state is known for its laissez-faire home education laws. At present, the annual registering of a home school to the Michigan Department of Education is voluntary, and home-schooling parents are not required to initiate any contact with the state. According to one guess estimate, about three percent of Michigan's school-age population learns at home.
As Lyman writes, it's "an alternative education community that is known for academic excellence and positive civic endeavors."
And Chang is engaging in the sort of pandering to voters that seems like she's doing something worthwhile. "FOR THE CHILDREN!!"
And regarding the use of the anger over these kids' deaths to try to get a law passed, as Radley Balko writes about laws named after crime victims:
Anger is a bad reason to make public policy. New laws, especially laws with serious criminal sanctions, demand careful consideration: Will the law actually address the problem it is intended to address? Is it enforceable? What are some possible unintended consequences of this law? Could it be abused by police and prosecutors?Laws named after the victims of brutal crimes make it difficult to ask these questions, especially for politicians, who aren't exactly known for taking bold stands against an angry public. When you put Caylee Anthony's name on a bill, you imply that anyone who opposes the bill -- even for good reasons -- is indifferent to the death of its namesake, or at least isn't as concerned about it as you think they ought to be. That's not a formula for an honest discussion of the bill's merits.
Couldn't the mother have just as easily claimed they were living with relatives elsewhere? Or couldn't she have claimed they were now attending boarding school out of state?
Is the law going to require everyone, including those who do move, to register? If so, what then happens if you don't register with Michigan that your kids now attend a school out of state?
It sounds too much like more power being given to government busy-bodies than actual protecting of children.
Also, having children being registered with a school that they do not attend can cause problems with that school's bureaucrats - I know because it happen with our family. We attend the private Catholic school, but, here in NJ, the local public school has to buy the books if the parents ask (after all my parents paid school taxes). Well, every year this caused some hostility from the local public school principal who resented using some of his budget to buy books for students who did not attend his school.
Whose to say that something similar won't happen when all these home-schooled children start getting registered and creating more paper-work for resentful bureaucrats in their local district.
Can we be sure that the public school busy-bodies won't somehow or other use this "new found list" of homeschoolers to harass or intimidate the homeschooler to attend their public school?
Am I being paranoid? Maybe, but, I just don't trust government bureaucrats to be trustworthy or not act in their own self interest. The children be damned - even when it is done "for their own good."
charles at May 2, 2015 4:33 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2015/05/home-schooling.html#comment-5995876">comment from charlesCouldn't the mother have just as easily claimed they were living with relatives elsewhere?
Exactly, Charles.
Amy Alkon
at May 2, 2015 7:25 AM
I think it's more cynical. The Democrats have long wanted to either abolish home schooling or put it under strict government control. This is just an excuse to do what they've always wanted to do.
Mike at May 2, 2015 8:40 AM
I don't think that having a child see an adult outside the home twice a year is outrageous. They could see a doctor once a year and a dentist once a year. It sounds reasonable to me.
My mom went off with us for almost two years. We we went to 8 schools during that time. I think that I might have come close to starving if my school hadn't stepped in and given me food. Mom was obsessed with "healthy eating" and she punished me by withholding food. In 4th grade, I was under 50 lbs. I shudder to think of what might had happened if I were homeschooled.
Jen at May 2, 2015 9:26 AM
This law wouldn't have helped you Jen and it open the door to harass thousands of other people.
Ben at May 2, 2015 9:59 AM
I agree with Mike. While homeschooling my daughters we sometimes had to deal with people working in the education system, CPS and others who were overtly hostile to homeschooling. How well my daughters were educated was not even an issue they wanted to discuss. It didn't matter to them. They hated homeschooling.
Ken R at May 2, 2015 10:26 AM
Dollars to donuts that homeschooling will soon be either illegal, or so extensively regulated as to be indistinguishable from the government product.
No little minds should be deprived of the benefit of what our betters in government wish us to know and believe, amirite?
Jay R at May 5, 2015 12:05 PM
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