Home schooling is wrong target in child abuse case.When New Jersey state officials discovered four foster children in poor physical condition--allegedly underweight Underweight An situation where a portfolio does not hold a sufficient amount of securities to satisfy the accepted benchmark of the portfolio's asset allocation strategy. Notes: and underdeveloped-the media immediately locosed attention on the fact that the children were home-schooled. The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times opined: "Americans everywhere wondered how their condition had gone unnoticed by people outside their family for so long. Part of the answer was that they had been home-schooled." Critics of home schooling will use any excuse to sabotage home-schooling rights, but in this as in other cases, they are way off target. An earlier Times article admits that "though the children were homeschooled, they were not hidden away." Indeed, the family attended church weekly, and the pastor saw the children regularly. And the New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services (DYFSI has sought the dismissal of nine employees, charging that although 38 visits in the past four years were made to the foster home by department social workers, no report of abuse was made. DYFS DYFS Division of Youth and Family Services DYFS Do You Feel Safe? DYFS Do You Feel Stupid? director Ed Cotton described the children as bright and reading well. Nevertheless, the Times cites these children as ex amples of why home schooling doesn't work, claiming "the stale most certainly has an obligation to ensure that every American child is learning basic skills." If indeed the children were being starved, state adoption and foster home screening policies may be more of a culprit in the children's condition than their mode of education. Critics of New Jersey's policies point to the fact that in some parts of New Jersey, as many as one in five children in foster care had been abused. Of course, it remains to be seen if Raymond and Vanessa Jack son, who adopted the four boys, are guilty of the four counts of aggravated assault A person is guilty of aggravated assault if he or she attempts to cause serious bodily injury to another or causes such injury purposely, knowingly, or recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life; or attempts to cause or purposely or and 14 counts of child endangerment with which they have beer) charged. Caring for the boys' emotional and physical needs could not have been easy: One was born a crack baby crack baby An infant born to a crack-addicted mother, who is often premature, ↓ birth weight, and has birth defects, respiratory, and neurologic defects; CBs are 4 times more likely to be premature, more commonly suffer SIDS, and given the mothers' high ; two were born with fetal alcohol syndrome fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), pattern of physical, developmental, and psychological abnormalities seen in babies born to mothers who consumed alcohol during pregnancy. ; two had eating disorders eating disorders, in psychology, disorders in eating patterns that comprise four categories: anorexia nervosa, bulimia, rumination disorder, and pica. Anorexia nervosa is characterized by self-starvation to avoid obesity. when they arrived at the Jacksons' home: and one had been starved by his biological family. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion