bad times for homeschooling PR

These are bad times for homeschooling PR; two high profile child abuse cases are making rounds in the news and blogosphere, both involving parents who homeschool.

One is a case of physical and sexual abuse of a 14 y.o. girl in Arizona.
Quoting from the article :

"Abused girl's home prison: a bleak life

As she sat alone, trapped in a small, dark room, the 14-year-old girl tried to remember her multiplication tables.
She hadn't been to school for nearly three years.
Her father and his live-in girlfriend kept her locked in the room, a pink blanket covering the lone window.
Twice a day she was sent to the bathroom to eat a small meal and relieve herself."
There is also this cartoon that kind of goes with it.

Then, there is this horrible story :

Fla. Couple Accused of Torturing Kids

BEVERLY HILLS, Fla. - Only after John and Linda Dollar's 16-year-old son was hospitalized with a head wound did investigators find what they say were signs of abuse at the home: a cattle prod, pliers and what appeared to be toenails.

The Dollars — regarded by state social workers a decade ago as model parents — now stand accused of monstrous acts against five of their eight children, including the 16-year-old, who weighed just 60 pounds when he was hospitalized.

And no amount of discussion and letters to the newspapers will change the fact that through this coverage, 'homeschooling' and 'child abuse' were put together and subtly linked in the minds of average readers. This serves to further stygmatize all homeschoolers and promote anti-homeschooling legislation, as evidenced here :

Abuse case prompts rethink of homeschool laws

After the arrest of a man accused of abusing a daughter who had not been in school in five years, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said she plans to examine the state's laws on homeschooling. "

These incidents of abuse make me very angry and upset. I hope that these offenders will be punished with the full extent of the law. I can find no mercy in my heart for them.

What bothers me is the following:

1) If you take a look at the first link above, you'll see that in the case of the abused girl in arizona, there was a police investigation against her father at some point, with Child Protection Services also being involved. Why didn;t they pick up on the abuse? Why wasn't she removed from the house?

2) Similarly, in the case of the Dollars children, they were evaluated at a school at least once, and no one noticed anything. See the quote and .link below:

"The five Citrus County children suspected of being tortured by their adoptive parents were evaluated at a private Hillsborough County school at least once in 2004, a Citrus sheriff's spokeswoman said Wednesday.
As authorities try to determine why no one would have noticed the abuse, the school is the first indication that outside authorities had contact with the children.

3) Not to mention the fact that three of the Dollars children were adopted (see the third link at the beginning). Adoption requires stringent multipart evaluation of parents and household. Why didn't they see any indications of abuse, or its possibility, then and there?

Looks like the failure of the system, yet again.

It is obvious to me that homeschooling doesn't cause abuse. Just as having a stick in your hand doesn't cause you to go and wack someone with it. I can't find the article now, but HSLDA estimated the probability of abuse in homeschooling families to be many times lower than the national average. In that article they cited a few high profile cases from years ago, and pointed out, too, that many times child protection services were there and did their job, but didn't notice anything until it was too late.

Here is a quote from another online source that gives a fair prospective on actual safety of our schildren within the system. From this sample list, I omitted a few entries, but itremains quite impressive nonetheless:

"As documented in Why We Homeschool, children in public schools are regularly brutalized and victimized both by classmates and by educators. [...] Am I? The most recent issue of "Why We Homeschool" (Jan 20, 2001) reported the following items for the preceding seven days. (Keep in mind that these were only the items I happened to stumble across, without looking very hard, in a handful of newspapers. This isn't comprehensive, and it obviously doesn't include any of the incidents that didn't appear in the papers I happened to look at that week, let alone the ones that didn't get media coverage at all.)

Error-filled science textbooks being used by 85 percent of public-school students in America.
US Surgeon General report warns parents to more closely monitor their children's friendships, because peers strongly influence children to commit acts of violence.
Michigan schools join nationwide trend toward school programs that enable -- some would say, encourage -- parents to "ditch" their children for as much as 12 hours a day.
California boy charged with felony for bringing unloaded pellet gun to school.
Tennessee boy arrested for bringing unloaded pellet gun to school for after-school target practice.
Girl suspended for defending herself from assault
Four suspended in Michigan school stabbing
Gun threats in schools in Seattle and Illinois
Police say they'll not hesitate to use deadly force against children who make threats
School shooting in Sweden.
Parent and elementary teacher in fistfight
Alaska teacher molests student
Teacher acquited as 'goofy' for blowing kisses on female students' stomachs
Boy suspended for writing a dramatic presentation on school violence. Educators organize to decry sympathetic media reports.
Principal impregnates 14-year-old student; may lose certification for a few years.

That's not a "year in review." That's ONE SINGLE WEEK! And it's not atypical!"

I rest my case.