CBS News on the Deadly Risks of Homeschooling

By Cory L. Shreckengost

Posted ~ October 23, 2003

Forget drugs, alcohol, and unsecured firearms. According to a recent story by CBS News, parents now have one more terror to add to the growing list of threats to their children: themselves.  In a two-part series that delved into the “dark side” of parents who homeschool, a CBS News exposé described “how children nationwide have been put in danger, even killed, while home schooling.”  Apparently, more than one million homeschooled students across the country -- including 30,000 in Pennsylvania alone -- are in grave danger.

In what might be considered a remarkably biased -- or at the very least outrageously misleading -- report, CBS News presented a few tragic instances in which the victims of abuse, neglect, and even murder have been homeschooled. It used these unfortunate events to paint a gothic picture of homeschooling. In the process, CBS did a gross disservice to a time-honored form of education.

With parts one and two of the exposé titled, respectively, “A Dark Side to Home Schooling” and “Home Schooling Nightmares,” it seems that CBS News was clearly out to tarnish the reputation of this alternative method of education.

So, how widespread is the abuse?

Among the one million-plus children being homeschooled in the United States, CBS News' investigation claimed to have identified "dozens of cases of parents convicted or accused of murder or child abuse who were teaching their children at home."  By its own admission, CBS News acknowledged that “the overwhelming majority” of homeschooled children are instructed “by parents who have only the best interests of their children at heart.”  The millions of caring, responsible parents who homeschool can thank CBS News for that important clarification.

The subject of abuse is, as expected, not limited to students of homeschooling. That would seem needless to say. The reality, of course, is that parental misconduct pervades society, regardless of methods of K-12 education.  Not even CBS News could deny that some children who attend public and private schools have been either abused or killed by their parents.

The alarmist approach in the CBS report leads viewers to believe that incidents of maltreatment are dramatically higher among students who learn at home. In lieu of actual statistics, CBS News served up a few ad hominem occurrences that might allow some people to conclude that homeschooling is a menacing form of education.

Predictably, one of the cases emphasized was Andrea Yates.  This disturbed mother of five earned national infamy after a March 2002 conviction for drowning her children in a bathtub.  She happened to homeschool her children.  Even so, CBS News presented no logical connection between her actions -- borne of a deep psychosis -- and the fact that she taught her children at home.  Did the act of homeschooling drive her to insanity and cause her to commit such an atrocity?  Did homeschooling afford her the time to do her evil deed? That would seem doubtful. If Yates' kids were public schooled, could she not have drowned them before they caught the bus, during their morning bath, while they were home on break, or during a weekend? Where's the link to homeschooling?

Sensing the exaggerated direction of the story well before it hit the airwaves, one interviewee questioned by CBS News was wont to point out, “the cases that you've mentioned are very, very rare - extremely rare."  The respondent said that he saw no link between homeschooling and abuse “based on one very tragic case.”

In a mediocre gesture to feign neutrality, the CBS News website that featured the story also included a sidebar which lists a few of the purported benefits of homeschooling. This was a feeble attempt to balance a horribly skewed news report. The main report was piped into millions of American households via the power of national television; the website sidebar was not.

Obviously, child abuse, neglect, and murder are serious subjects not to be taken lightly. To employ such very real social tragedies as a weapon against homeschooling -- without any substantial evidence -- is a kind of journalistic malpractice that CBS’s audience should not tolerate.  Perhaps someone should shed some light on the “dark side” of journalism at CBS News.

Cory Shreckengost is an author and a policy analyst at the Shenango Institute for Public Policy.  For our most recent policy briefs please visit www.shenangoinstitute.org