{"id":638,"date":"2013-03-29T13:19:02","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T13:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=638"},"modified":"2014-02-10T19:37:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T19:37:43","slug":"two-brief-articles-on-homeschooling-and-child-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=638","title":{"rendered":"Two Brief Articles on Homeschooling and Child Abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Records:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Daniel Pollack, “Homeschooling and Child Protection” in Policy and Practice<\/em> 70, no. 1 (February 2012): 29, 35. [abridged version available here<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Meggan Goodpasture, V. Denise Everett, Martha Gagliano, Aditee P. Narayan, and Sara Sinal, “Invisible Children” in North Carolina Medical Journal<\/em> 74, no. 1 (February 2013): 90-94 [Avaliable here<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pollack is a social work professor<\/a> at Yeshiva University.\u00a0 <\/em>Goodpasture et al<\/em>. are all medical professionals affiliated with North Carolina schools of medicine (Wake Forest, UNC Chapel Hill, and Duke).\u00a0 As such all of these authors come to this issue as professionals concerned for the welfare of other people’s children.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pollack’s article is very brief.\u00a0 He cites the results of studies that have shown that the the most frequent source of referrals of abused children to Child Protective Services (CPS) are professionals, especially teachers.\u00a0 Homeschooled children by definition do not have such outside surveillance.\u00a0 He has no hard data that homeschooling increases the risk of abuse, but he does cite the horrific story<\/a> of Washington, D.C. resident Banita Jacks, who “homeschooled” her four daughters, all found dead in her home in early 2008.<\/p>\n

To better avert such tragedies, Pollack advocates reversing the historic trend in many states away from mandated home visits by professionals.\u00a0 Pollack would like to see CPS officials given enhanced authority to intervene in family matters, “in particular, to be given the right to speak directly and privately to the child.” (p. 29)<\/p>\n

Goodpasture, et al.<\/em>‘s article is more thorough and possesses a different tone.\u00a0 The authors, like Pollack does, note that for all the heated debate over homeschooling and child abuse, “there is a surprising paucity of evidence on this topic in the medical literature.” (p. 94)\u00a0 Absent hard data, they too turn to anecdote.\u00a0 They briefly summarize four horrible cases of abuse that have happened in North Carolina since 2008, all among families claiming the cover of homeschooling.<\/p>\n

In their effort to come up with solutions to this problem Gooodpasture and colleagues attempted to build bridges with North Carolina homeschoolers.\u00a0 They partnered with “representatives of North Carolinians for Home Education,” an advocacy organization, and with the North Carolina Division of Non Public Education (DNPE), the government agency tasked with regulating homeschooling.<\/p>\n

Goodpasture et al<\/em>. go out of their way to make it clear that they support homeschooling, celebrating the fine job most homeschooling parents do producing “excellent students and citizens.”\u00a0 They are not here to debate the merits of homeschooling but only to figure out how health care providers can help “prevent abusive caretakers from manipulating the current homeschooling regulations to hide abused children.” (p.94)<\/p>\n

After discussions with various parties and consultation of what little literature is available, Goodpasture and colleagues have come up with several proposals.\u00a0 First, the DNPE is woefully understaffed and underfunded.\u00a0 In 2010 there were 45,000 homeschools educating about 80,000 children in North Carolina.\u00a0 The DNPE had six staff members to keep track of all of them.\u00a0 Though North Carolina law does allow for DNPE to visit homes, in fact “no one on the staff had physically been to the home of a homeschooled child to conduct a home visit as part of the monitoring process since the year 2000.” (p. 91)\u00a0 The woefully underfunded DNPE can’t even keep up with basic registration, much less provide any sort of oversight.\u00a0 As such, Goodpasture et al<\/em>. recommend dramatically increasing funding for this branch of state government.<\/p>\n

Second, Goodpasture and colleagues recommend that bridges continue to be built between child welfare professionals and homeschooling organizations.\u00a0 Specifically, they’d like homeschooling organizations to partner with professionals to help train North Carolina homeschoolers to recognize the signs of abuse or neglect and to report suspected cases to the North Carolina Division of Social Services (DSS).<\/p>\n

In terms of state policy they would like to see changes in how North Carolina regulates homeschooling.\u00a0 They recommend requiring all school-age children to be registered by name and birth date (currently only the homeschool itself must be registered, not the children in it), and again that DNPE be given the funding necessary to conduct more thorough reviews, including home visits.<\/p>\n

Finally, they want medical professionals to be trained in how to recognize signs of abuse or neglect and instructed in their responsibilities to report suspected incidences to DSS.<\/p>\n

Appraisal:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Longtime observers of the U.S. homeschooling scene will not be surprised by the content of these two articles, though the tone, especially of the second piece, is notably softer than has sometimes been the case in the past.\u00a0 Professionals responsible for child services have long been wary of the potential for unregulated homeschooling to serve as a cloak for child abuse.\u00a0 On the other side, since the 1980s homeschooling advocacy organizations have been very effective at lobbying in the name of parental rights against the very sorts of regulations these authors propose.\u00a0 The situation is not unlike that of the regulation of firearms in the United States, where you have a very powerful lobbying organization with millions of motivated members lobbying for maximal freedom and largely succeeding in obtaining it, only being challenged when moments of horrific violence (such as the recent shootings in Newtown, CT) shock the nation enough to challenge this deregulatory status quo.\u00a0 <\/em>In the case of guns, however, advocates of increased regulation must contend with the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

In the case of parental rights the constitutional principles are murkier.\u00a0 Advocates often claim First and Fourteenth Amendment rights that would make the reforms suggested in these two articles unconstitutional.\u00a0 Courts have usually disagreed with these claims, however.\u00a0 The increased regulations sought by these professionals are most likely constitutional, but absent widespread public support, they typically do not win support in state legislatures.\u00a0 It is likely that only an increase of high-profile and gruesome examples of abuse by ostensible homeschoolers would rouse an apathetic public to call for increased regulation of the practice and to allocate the funding necessary to achieve it.<\/p>\n

Milton Gaither, Messiah College, author of Homeschool: An American History<\/a>\"\"<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer<\/strong>:\u00a0 The views expressed in reviews are not the official views of ICHER or of its members.\u00a0 For more information about ICHER\u2019s Reviews, please see the \u00ab\u00a0About these Reviews \u00bb Section.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Records: Daniel Pollack, “Homeschooling and Child Protection” in Policy and Practice 70, no. 1 (February 2012): 29, 35. [abridged version available here] Meggan Goodpasture, V. Denise Everett, Martha Gagliano, Aditee P. Narayan, and Sara Sinal, “Invisible Children” in North Carolina … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[422,12],"tags":[557,566,565,564,570,552,567,571,568,572,563,556,554,23,560,559,558,562,555,561,569,553],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-policyregulation","tag-aditee-p-narayan","tag-banita-jacks","tag-child-protective-services","tag-cps","tag-d-c","tag-daniel-pollack","tag-divins-of-non-public-education","tag-division-of-social-services","tag-dnpe","tag-dss","tag-duke-university","tag-martha-gagliano","tag-meggan-goodpasture","tag-north-carolina","tag-north-carolina-medical-journal","tag-policy-and-practice","tag-sara-sinal","tag-unc-chapel-hill","tag-v-denise-everett","tag-wake-forest","tag-washington","tag-yeshiva-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1102,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}