Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 10 WorldNetDaily column by Barbara Simpson engages in the expected overheated rhetoric in the Phillip Long homeschooling case -- "Living in this country today is like being stranded in the middle of a hail storm" -- but Simpson also whitewashes the facts behind the Long case. She writes:
This case came about because of a child welfare investigation in Los Angeles County. Mary and Philip Long were homeschooling their eight children. Mrs. Long is the teacher, but she's not credentialed. The children were also enrolled in the Sunland Christian School as part of an independent study program.
Apparently, one of the children complained to someone about "mistreatment." As part of the investigation, a juvenile court judge found the children were being "poorly educated" (because of homeschooling) but made no changes.
However, lawyers appointed for the children after child advocates got involved pursued the issue. The appeals court then ordered the children to state schools, not permitting them to continue with Sunland school because it (Sunland) "was willing to participate in the deprivation of the children's right to a legal education."
Simpson doesn't mention that courts have found that were was, in fact, mistreatment going on by the father against his children and that the house where the family lived was in "an endangering filthy, unsanitary and unsafe condition, and the minors were chronically filthy, and unsupervised late at night."
Further, the judge did not conclude that the children were being "poorly educated" because they were being homeschooled; the judge made no general statement about the overall quality of homeschooled. Rather, the judge stated that, in this case, the education the children received at home as "lousy," "meager," and "bad," and that the supervision by the Christian school with which the family was affiliated was minimal at best. One child testified that she "was not taught geography or history. Asked if she can add, subtract, multiply and divide, [she] stated she cannot."
Does Simpson really consider such meager so-called homeschooling superior to the public schools she attacks? Or such an abusive family to be the ideal place for children to be raised? Let's hope not.
