You're hypothesizing that parents who home school could be a distinct subgroup from other parents with regards to abuse practices - then arguing that conclusions drawn from what we know about parents in general therefore do not hold true.
Actually, what I said was,
Homeschoolers might be abused at lower rates thus havelower risk. They might be abused at higher rates suggesting oversight is necessary. You, as a scientist, should know that the way you model probability is to take data and categorize it.
So, you're hypothesizing that parents who home school could be a distinct subgroup from other parents with regards to abuse practices?
I then argued that regulations are not necessarily followed and gave some reasons why teachers in many locations might not comply with mandatory child reporting regulations.
If there's a problem with paid professionals following policy in some locations, then that is indeed an issue that should be addressed. I'm not entirely sure that I see the connection to parental abuse as related to homeschooling though.
To add further weight to this argument, there are 200,000 gang members in Los Angeles county out of 734,641 students in LAUSD. Assuming at least half of the gang members are school-aged children and most join gangs as a surrogate family due to neglect/abuse, LAUSD should be reporting 1/7 of their students to child protective services. Do you think this is the case?
I don't know. I'd certainly hope so. If not, then I'd argue that this particular school district has a serious problem and needs additional attention via various channels . . . special services, funding, better training, etc. Again, in what way does this relate to parental abuse from homeschooling?
If so, do you think it's having a positive effect?
Yes, absolutely.
I've never claimed that school reporting is a panacea for all abuse. Since most abuse comes from the home, schools are naturally limited in what they can do to protect children. There is also a lot of complication involving social workers in a situation. That said, having some recourse is better than having no recourse.
Admittedly, we have the exact opposite political philosophy. Most people on here believe in a Hobbesian Leviathan state. I do not.
Using a political philosophy to alter how evidence is viewed/treated in order to get a particular desired result is not commonly bragged about. Do you identify as libertarian by any chance?
Either way, we have no data on the incidence of homeschooling abuse.
There is a poison. It works to 95% efficacy on a population of rats. You have a rat problem. After killing a rat, you examine it and find out that it has 78,000 individual hairs on it's body.
Maybe the rats with 78,000 hairs will be stronger after giving them poison, maybe they'll be worse. We don't know.
I guess the best course of action is to simply learn to live with the rats since:
- we have no study showing the efficacy of the poison on rats with 78,000 hairs
- we have no way of knowing if every rat in your house has 78,000 hairs
Your 'data' is that parents are most likely to abuse which is like saying the sun causes skin cancer. Sure, but OF THOSE, poor parents are most likely to abuse.
Yes, there is data to suggest that lower income results in higher abuse:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/133/3/454.
This is not relevant to the discussion though, unless it can be demonstrated that income is significantly different for homeschooling parents. So, let's check the stats:
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/Homeschool/chara.asp"...the Parent-NHES:1999 indicates that the household income of homeschoolers, reported in ranges from less than $25,000 to over $75,000, is the same as the household income of nonhomeschoolers. The same percentage of homeschooled and nonhomeschooled students lived in households with annual incomes of $50,000 or less (64 percent)"
It appears that median income for homeschooling is slightly higher, but doesn't sound like there's a really significant difference for the majority of children.
My point is that there are a lot of ways to parse the data to get more information about the TYPES of parents who abuse and you and sol are incurious as to whether homeschooling parents fit this profile suggesting you are arguing from doctrine, not data.
No, not incurious at all. On at least three occasions now, I've requested information regarding the difference in abuse cases between parents who home educate and those who send children to school that you have been unable to provide.
Still unanswered questions:
- Do you agree that daily interaction with a mandatory reporter (like a public school teacher) is a protection?
- Evidence has already been provided that parents/caregivers are more likely to abuse children than any other group that the child will come into contact with. This information is not being contested, correct?
- Parents/caregivers are also the group of people who perform home schooling. This information is not being contested, correct?