Well that's even worse.
Janjan | Homepage | 10.31.05 - 5:36 pm | #

This whole prussian blue thing is my vote for Most Hyped Non-Story of 2005.
Dale Price | Homepage | 11.01.05 - 10:50 am | #

Never let the truth get in the way of raising suspicions about homeschoolers.
John J. Simmins | Homepage | 11.01.05 - 11:15 am | #

It amazes me that their being homeschooled--or not--could possibly strike a rational person as at all relevant.
Sage | 11.02.05 - 6:55 pm | #

Sage,

It's relevant because these stories fix in the national consciousness the idea that homeschooling is dangerous, and encourages restrictive and unnecessary regulation. Neither these Hitlerjugende nor the Andrea Yates children were homeschooled; but I've heard both given as examples of the need to regulate homeschooling families.

The scurrilous Akron Beacon "abusive homeschooler" reports a while back is another example. Nearly all such examples are in fact foster or adoptive parents, who in theory *already* are "in the system," with the state checking up on them. But the state's failures end up, ironically, as arguments for Big Brother regulating the private lives of law-abiding families.
sharon d. | Homepage | 11.03.05 - 11:06 am | #