Police said the girl reported that Duggar allegedly touched her inappropriately during a family vacation in Panama City Beach in 2020, when she was 9 years old.
I am increasingly of the opinion that the first warning sign of a society heading for collapse is when “home schooling” becomes normalised, instead of being prima facie evidence that the kids are being abused and should be immediately taken into care.
While true, a large proportion of homeschoolers have no business educating anyone, and a large proportion of qualified educators are employed and unable to homeschool.
I don’t doubt that there is a stay-at-home neurobiologist out there somewhere, but out of my patient base I rarely meet any homeschool parents that aren’t confidently incorrect about life.
I agree that it’s the exception more than the rule. But I am someone that homeschooling through high school due to health issues, and I’m now in my 40s doing just fine
prima facie evidence that the kids are being abused
I was in the talented and gifted program in 3rd/4th grades. I also ended up failing 4th grade.
The school board called my parents in for a meeting. They wanted my parents to sign custody of me over to the state until such time as the state released me, i.e. not even when I was 18, but whenever the state decided.
My parents said “Fuck no.”
Nearest private school was too far away to work, so I ended up being homeschooled.
It wasn’t great, I’ll give you that. But it worked well enough such that by the time we gave up on it, halfway through 10th grade, we tested me and I was in 2nd-3rd year college on all subjects except math, where I was at 11.5 grade level.
Then, when I was 30, I finally got my ADHD diagnosis.
Maybe I would have gotten that diagnosis sooner had my parents allowed me to be institutinalized, but I’m really fucking glad they didn’t.
Sure, a lot of people homeschooling their kids are religious nutjobs, but by NO FUCKING MEANS is it “prima facie evidence that the kids are being abused”.
See, I was home schooled and actually turned out really good- but my parents did that because we were a 45min drive from the nearest public school with no bus service and it being one of the worst schools on the entire west coast. And it didn’t really count as full home schooling as I learned from a curriculum directly provided and proctored by the county school district, just provided at home through a mix of paper and online courses.
It can work, but unfortunately you can’t trust people to do it right…
I’m an American immigrant in Germany and the idea that homeschooling is illegal here really used to chafe at me. I get it now though: not everyone who wants to homeschool their kids also wants to make sure no mandatory reporters see evidence of their horrific child abuse, but everyone who wants to make sure no mandatory reporters see evidence of their horrific child abuse also wants to homeschool their kids.
Other interventions for that are either not thorough enough (biannual social worker visits), or much greater an imposition on the parents and way too expensive (biweekly social worker visits). It’s simplest to just make school compulsory, and it values the privacy of the parents over their control of their children. In some small percentage of cases, kids lose out on learning exclusively from very knowledgeable people, but parents can still educate their children outside of school, and way more kids are saved from damaging environments because of compulsory schooling.
Honestly, if I thought most homeschooled kids were “learning … from very knowledgeable people” I might find it less disturbing, but the reality is most of them are learning from religious zealots, conspiracy theorists, or other fruitloops who think going to a proper school will make them catch the gay. It creates a self-perpetuating underclass, and the parents should be locked up for child abuse long before the diddling starts.
I am increasingly of the opinion that the first warning sign of a society heading for collapse is when “home schooling” becomes normalised, instead of being prima facie evidence that the kids are being abused and should be immediately taken into care.
FYI, not all homeschooling is religious or weird.
While true, a large proportion of homeschoolers have no business educating anyone, and a large proportion of qualified educators are employed and unable to homeschool.
I don’t doubt that there is a stay-at-home neurobiologist out there somewhere, but out of my patient base I rarely meet any homeschool parents that aren’t confidently incorrect about life.
I agree that it’s the exception more than the rule. But I am someone that homeschooling through high school due to health issues, and I’m now in my 40s doing just fine
Yes, this. Like most things in life: it depends.
I was in the talented and gifted program in 3rd/4th grades. I also ended up failing 4th grade.
The school board called my parents in for a meeting. They wanted my parents to sign custody of me over to the state until such time as the state released me, i.e. not even when I was 18, but whenever the state decided.
My parents said “Fuck no.”
Nearest private school was too far away to work, so I ended up being homeschooled.
It wasn’t great, I’ll give you that. But it worked well enough such that by the time we gave up on it, halfway through 10th grade, we tested me and I was in 2nd-3rd year college on all subjects except math, where I was at 11.5 grade level.
Then, when I was 30, I finally got my ADHD diagnosis.
Maybe I would have gotten that diagnosis sooner had my parents allowed me to be institutinalized, but I’m really fucking glad they didn’t.
Sure, a lot of people homeschooling their kids are religious nutjobs, but by NO FUCKING MEANS is it “prima facie evidence that the kids are being abused”.
See, I was home schooled and actually turned out really good- but my parents did that because we were a 45min drive from the nearest public school with no bus service and it being one of the worst schools on the entire west coast. And it didn’t really count as full home schooling as I learned from a curriculum directly provided and proctored by the county school district, just provided at home through a mix of paper and online courses.
It can work, but unfortunately you can’t trust people to do it right…
I’m an American immigrant in Germany and the idea that homeschooling is illegal here really used to chafe at me. I get it now though: not everyone who wants to homeschool their kids also wants to make sure no mandatory reporters see evidence of their horrific child abuse, but everyone who wants to make sure no mandatory reporters see evidence of their horrific child abuse also wants to homeschool their kids.
Other interventions for that are either not thorough enough (biannual social worker visits), or much greater an imposition on the parents and way too expensive (biweekly social worker visits). It’s simplest to just make school compulsory, and it values the privacy of the parents over their control of their children. In some small percentage of cases, kids lose out on learning exclusively from very knowledgeable people, but parents can still educate their children outside of school, and way more kids are saved from damaging environments because of compulsory schooling.
Honestly, if I thought most homeschooled kids were “learning … from very knowledgeable people” I might find it less disturbing, but the reality is most of them are learning from religious zealots, conspiracy theorists, or other fruitloops who think going to a proper school will make them catch the gay. It creates a self-perpetuating underclass, and the parents should be locked up for child abuse long before the diddling starts.
They’re not all molested. Just most of them.