The "Dark Side" of Homeschooling... I honestly don't know where to begin on this one. I just finished watching the CBS News report "A Dark Side To Home Schooling". At the website you can find the text of the program, the actual video and at the bottom of the page a feedback link to leave your thoughts. Please take a moment to go to the site yourself and leave feedback for the producers.

This program was simply non-relevant to homeschooling. It took an extremely sad case of children who happened to be "homeschooled" and tried to lay the blame of the problems on homeschooling. There is no relevant evidence or support given for such a claim even specifically for this case much less ANYTHING that could apply to homeschooling in general.

In the sole case cited there is no link to homeschooling. It is truly as if the journalist picked something in their life to blame their death (it could have been they all ate oatmeal or lived in north carolina) upon and then tried to apply this to homeschooling in general. In the case at hand, the news reports from the time (2 years ago) do not even make mention of the fact that the children were homeschooling.

It really seems that CBS is grasping at straws with this report. They also offer no solution, much less any causal evidence. I will await Part two before making final judgment. But it seems to me that any logical person can see the problems with this story and should not take it as a serious or legitimate criticism of homeschooling. This was a family that had problems and they are in no way a reflection upon the broader movement of homeschooling, nor should they be used as a justification for new laws or policy's about homeschooling.

Peace,
Tenn