Kids are therefore roughly 5,538 times more likely to be abused than shot (let alone shot at school) . . . and parents/caregivers are the ones doing most of the abuse. Statistics would suggest then that it's likely a large number of children being home schooled are in fact being abused, so maybe a little oversight would be prudent.
I think you're looking for the probability that the child is abused AND they were homeschooled. The probability kids are abused by parents/caregivers is not the same thing. For all you know, homeschooling parents are LESS likely to be abusers. I have no data on this but neither do you. You're trying to suggest a joint probability without doing the math.
I wasn't able to find any comprehensive studies that show large population abuse rates by parents and prevalence of homeschooling. The data we have suggests that that parents/caregivers of children abuse at roughly the same rates whether they do education at home or send kids to a school. It's certainly possible that people who homeschool abuse at a lower (or higher) rate, but I don't have data to support using that hypothesis.
If you believe that I'm wrong, find better data. I'm suggesting the most reasonable likelihood given the information available. Not sure what math you believe is missing and needs to be done?
Also, "parents/caregivers" can mean, "Mom and her loser boyfriend," or "mom and the stepdad" or "foster parents."
Yes. These are all the people who would be involved in home schooling.
The people asking for more oversight over homeschool outside of this forum have suggested that many abuse parents actually pull their kids out of public school first and start homeschooling them because they've already had a visit from social workers and don't want to be caught again.
I don't have any real reason to believe that this is the case.
I think you're ignoring the fact that public school teachers are another source of abuse. I went to high school with a guy who later got busted for sleeping with one of his students.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR2007102100144.html
Is this another "false equivalence" - the only logical fallacy we're able to identify on this forum haha?
No, I'm not ignoring that abuse comes from other places too. It has been brought up and agreed upon dozens of times in this thread that child abuse can happen just about anywhere, anytime, by anyone.
- We've already established that the
majority of abuse comes from parents/caregivers. Homeschooling is typically done by parents/caregivers.
- Less access to other caregivers makes it more difficult for a child to report abuse. Homeschooling can be used to limit access to other caregivers.
These are the two reasons why it might make more sense to focus a little bit more on abuse and home schooling.
@GuitarStvIn this thread suggestions for increased State oversight of homeschooling families were mostly along the lines of requiring them to submit evidence they were following an approved curriculum or requiring that the kids get tested periodically to make sure they are keeping up. I fail to see how either of those types of requirements would, necessarily, root out cases of abuse. They might, but it seems kind of unlikely to me. Don't you think?
Yes, I agree. The state oversight you're referring to is a separate concern - If you're home schooling a child in most states you're free to teach anything at all. Some people believe that this is detrimental to kids and thus would prefer additional oversight.
Abuse related oversight would probably be better done otherwise, and I don't know the best way to do it. Occasional unscheduled drop-ins, yearly medical/psychological evaluation, scheduled discussions with the children by social workers?
Think about all of the thousands of cases of sexual abuse that have come out recently regarding the Catholic Church. How many stories have you heard of people who were repeatedly and regularly sexually abused by Catholic priests, some of them over the course of years and years, and nobody knew about it? I'd be willing to bet that most of those kids who were molested by priests all went to B&M schools where they were forced to interact with teachers, counselors, administrators, as well as other kids, every day for their while childhoods, and even with all those checks and balances, nobody knew those kids were getting raped by their local priest until decades later when they came out and told people about it when they joined class action lawsuits against the Catholic Church.
The priests involved were given private access to large numbers of children and had effectively no oversight. It's not dissimilar to a homeschooling scenario. There was also quite a cultural taboo regarding talking about sex/homosexuality with children at the time that worked in the abusers favour. It will never be possible to prevent all child abuse. Even if a kid is going to school, the parents can still be abusing every night. That said - more people around gives these children a slightly better chance to expose a problem . . . and that's a good thing.