homeschooling crimes

From Rebecca Green in the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette...

The two women believed they were adequately home-schooling their children...But according to the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office, Lila M. Ferguson, 38, and Molly M. Williams, 42, committed a crime – neglect of a dependent – by depriving the children of an education....the offense was largely characterized by a failure to provide records on the children’s educational progress...

And in spite of their court-appointed attorneys’ wishes, the two women pleaded guilty to a Class A misdemeanor version of the charge and were each sentenced Tuesday to a year on probation....Allen Superior Judge Fran Gull denied their motions to dismiss and with their guilty pleas and Gull’s sentencing order, the case is closed.

And as part of a condition of their probation, both Ferguson and Williams must have their children enrolled in traditional school and any absences must be excused and medically related absences reported to their probation officers.

The Journal-Gazette followed up with an editorial-- which engendered an op-ed reply from my friend, Debbie Harbeson...

The recent situation with the two mothers in New Haven...and a recent editorial...focused on increasing regulation of this private educational alternative. Unfortunately, this ignores the real concern, which is why did the public school system fail these children in the first place?

Proposing increased regulation on Indiana home-schoolers as a solution to the concern of irresponsible parents assumes that regulation is a factor in educating a child. We already know it’s not, because if it were, our highly regulated and tested public schools would be having no problems at all....

We say we value individuality, yet we refuse to acknowledge this in education....

It’s interesting that the editorial brought up the possibility of paying more in taxes to take care of adults who need public assistance because they were ineffectively home-schooled. Yet every year, schools send ineffectively educated children out into the world who cannot read, comprehend, think critically, write persuasively or manage finances. How many of them need our public aid, and why aren’t the regulations preventing this?...

We need to figure out how to deal with the over-regulation that is causing the public school system to fail rather than trying to put the same burden on home-schoolers who aren’t even spending our tax money.