Thank you for the interesting discussion yesterday on my post about homeschoolers and abuse. Since commenter Elliot over on the homeschooling discussion on Asymptotia asked if “rewriting” was “one of the tactics that home schoolers use to try to get their point across,” I feel compelled to rewrite part of the quote I shared to get my point across:
“Once they leave the house, we lose all contact with them and the family has no way of tracking them after that.”
In a free society, who should be monitoring whom? I am not completely against CPS, but should our society be set up with primary concern over how easily families can be surveilled or how readily our government can be surveilled?
A sampling of large New York City high schools showed that the schools failed to notify the state of a significant number of violent or disruptive episodes in the 2004-5 school year, the city comptroller announced yesterday. NYT
Significant being 1 in 5. Twenty percent. I am still trying to figure out why we need a federal law to force local school districts to report these kinds of episodes so that parents can know what is going on in the schools they send their children to. This I find very troubling:
But the audit also found that in 41 additional cases the state was never informed, including one rape and an instance outside the school in which two students were “about to be jumped” by gang members. Ibid.
A rape? If your child was raped and you failed to report it, what kind of legal ramifications would that have? But if the school district fails to report it, it is an understandable oversight.
Still, Mr. Klein, speaking to reporters yesterday, acknowledged that in the vast school system, it was impossible to guarantee that every disruption was appropriately documented. Ibid.
For note passing, talking out of turn and an occasional curse word, I would understand and even agree. But we are talking about some pretty violent activities which should have involved local law enforcement.
The state cannot even effectively protect and track the students it is responsible for during the school day. And we are supposed to trust it to monitor private families?
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
I am shocked!
A rape? Not reported? And yet homeschooling families and families in general need to be monitored? Something is seriously wrong with the whole scenario/reality?
I am at a loss for words at the thoughts behind some of ideas people put out there, some of realities human beings have to live with in the name of “what”…I cannot even think of a word. We send our children to these places called schools and people seriously want to consider monitoring and questioning our family units?
Wow!
Shawna, those were exactly my thoughts. And I couldn’t help but think of all the people who think this broken system should somehow take on more monitoring of what is happening at home.
When I first saw the headline and skimmed the article, I thought we were talking about stuff like note passing and minor disruptions that would be rather burdensome to have to report to the state. Then I saw rape and gang violence. Wow. I cannot imagine that nothing was reported.
I don’t have all my facts, but I have heard that school districts are even questioning whether or not parents have a right to know if their children receive contraceptives or abortions. Have you heard this?
Thanks for always informing me on these issues. I appreciate your research and your wisdom.
Horrific! Just horrific. Amy
Yes, I have heard that as well.
During my new teacher in service, I was informed that field trip forms were a formality and not required because the state did not need the permission of the family to take the child somewhere. The fact that the state could remove a child in an abusive situation was used to show that the state had the ultimate authority, not the parent.
That is frightening, actually. Amy
I really hope somebody sues that school district.