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HEM SUPPORT GROUP NEWS - January 2005
~JANUARY'S HIGHLIGHTED HOMESCHOOL ACTIVIST - Peggy Daly-Masternak
~COMMUNITY SERVICE - David Albert from India
~ISSUES TO WATCH
~WEB UPDATES
~HEM RESOURCES AND MORE
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JANUARY'S HIGHLIGHTED HOMESCHOOL ACTIVIST:
This month it is my pleasure to interview Peggy Daly-Masternak. Peggy is a long-time homeschooler, education activist and contributor to Home Education Magazine. She co-coordinates the Ohio Home Education Coalition, the oldest and largest inclusive state-wide homeschooling group in Ohio.
In November, the Akron Beacon Journal (ABJ) printed an unprecedented 7-day series on homeschooling entitled "Whose Business Is It?" Never before has a daily newspaper devoted 50,000+ words and 75 photographs to the subject of home education in the United States. More importantly, never before has homeschooling been so broadly assailed and falsely characterized as a movement replete with abuse, kidnapping, racism, religious extremism, academic failure and uncaring parents. Maybe what the series is about has more to do with journalistic integrity than expansive problems within homeschooling or a valid educational choice.
The Ohio Home Education Coalition (OHEC) followed the development of events that seemed to lead to this series. I asked Peggy to share some of the history with the readers of this column.
Mary: What event(s) does OHEC believe instigated the development of this series?
Peggy: In early May of 2003, two ABJ reporters wrote a report with the attention-grabbing headline, "Legislator sees risk in Homeschooling." The sub-heading called homeschooling a "practice" which could allow "abusive parents" to avoid detection.
In this report, an alleged discussion on a hypothesis occurred in a legislative Finance Committee hearing between a legislator and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The ABJ claimed that the exchange included statements about homeschooling. To our knowledge, no homeschoolers were present at the hearing and the bill on the table was the state budget.
The article linked these purported Statehouse comments regarding homeschooling to an Akron area family that, at that time, was being investigated for extreme child abuse. The reported abuse was shocking and brutal. Absent a close examination of the notification documentation on this family, the reporters only wrote that the school district of residence was identifying this family as homeschoolers.
Over the course of two-and-one-half weeks that May, there were at least 26 ABJ articles on this family. The history of this family had been previously documented in over 100 complaints to the Children Services Board, some going back fourteen years. During that time, apparently all the children of compulsory school age had been enrolled in public schools. In five of the 26 ABJ stories, the claims were repeated that the children were now considered homeschooling.
As might be expected of any group mentioned in sensational reporting, based on these events, homeschoolers sent letters to both the ABJ and to the Finance Committee legislator. Many of those letters held that 1) parents who commit child abuse are criminals; 2) abuse happens in all types of families and abusive parents or others are the responsibility of the social services agencies; 3) the vast majority of homeschooling parents are caring and committed; 4) children often are the victims in a system which is under funded, overworked and highly politicized (including in the case that was being reported); 5) extensive and existing child welfare laws had not protected these children for many years, including while these children were enrolled in school; 6) all the laws in the world cannot protect countless children if abusers are hell-bent on committing abuse; and 7) "hard cases make bad law," by more often punishing good people who are doing good, than bad people who are doing bad.
These reports and responses from homeschoolers, especially the report with the sensational headline on a purported exchange in the legislature, appear to be the pivotal point that caught the attention of two ABJ reporters, Doug Oplinger and Dennis Willard, and put homeschooling in the forefront of a series that would take them over 18 months to produce.
Mary: Did OHEC send responses concerning the report on the cited legislator's discussion and the abuse case?
Peggy: Yes, OHEC sent letters to both the legislator and to the newspaper's editor. Although the letters were sent on official OHEC stationery and signed by both co-coordinators of OHEC, the ABJ printed an edited version of the letter, with unnecessary editing that many would consider a matter of style preference rather than substance or word excess (e.g. changing "however" to "but" or changing "homeschooling" to "home schooling"). The signature on the printed version indicated that the letter came from an individual, not the OHEC organization, signed by two authors. In retrospect, these seemingly minor details in "editing" were important early indicators of the newspaper's apparent approach to journalism, which OHEC believes involves manipulating a story and using highly questionable tactics to "get the story."
Mary: Did the reporters take this opportunity to discuss homeschooling with OHEC's coordinators?
Peggy: No. The ABJ did not approach OHEC until one year later (see below), even with subsequent opportunities initiated by OHEC. At this time, they also made no contact with the largest and oldest support group network in their circulation area.
Mary: What happened next regarding the interest in homeschooling by the reporters?
Peggy: By the middle of May 2003, one reporter, Doug Oplinger, made contact via websites and/or online discussion groups with several homeschoolers who lived in the ABJ circulation area. He wanted to sit down with a group of homeschoolers to discuss their education choices. But the invitation came not with a typical set of questions for individual families only regarding their homeschooling choice. Instead, the participants would also be discussing interaction with school superintendents, thoughts on high profile cases of child abuse, immunizations, and assessment (a subject which is often subject to controversy even among school personnel).
Since this interest could hardly be coincidental to a high profile "homeschooling" case that included reports of child abuse, many homeschoolers were now skeptical. A reporter seeking interviews was now adding non-related issues, which he seemed to feel were relevant to the subject of homeschooling, issues of great controversy, and issues which were matters of family privacy. Four Akron area homeschoolers did agree to an interview. According to several participants' reports, the general sense afterward seemed to be that the reporter was less interested in homeschooling and more interested in linking homeschooling to child abuse.
Mary: Was another report soon made by the ABJ after this group interview?
Peggy: No report on these interviews was printed and the reporters did not make any known further contact with Ohio homeschoolers during the summer of 2003.
Mary: Was that the end of their attempts to contact homeschoolers?
Peggy: Hardly. In September 2003, Oplinger again communicated with several contacts found on homeschooling websites. This time, the proposal was outrageous. The ABJ was planning to hold "focus groups" in October. Many homeschoolers believe that the set-up for these focus groups challenged accepted practices in genuine journalism, such as: 1) groups were being facilitated by a paid market researcher; 2) groups were divided into the ABJ's predetermined stereotypical sub-groups within homeschooling; 3) groups were videotaped with a live feed to the reporters in an adjacent room; 4) the reporters got the videotapes to take back to the office and repeatedly distill as they prepared the subsequent series; 5) participants were anonymous, which had the end result of eliminating participant challenges to the ABJ since no one person could claim they were misquoted or misrepresented with any level of credibility; 6) anonymity also prevented any assurance by sincere participants that someone would not be "planted" into the group to act in the role of "provocateur."
When contacted, homeschoolers began asking significant questions of the reporters regarding these parameters, and then indicating a general lack of interest in participating, Oplinger wrote email replies with statements such as: on previous efforts using focus groups "we won the Pulitzer Prize" and "I am concerned?that the best opportunity for home schoolers to share their thoughts is in jeopardy." Also: "Based on experience, we know that focus groups help us hear the voice of the people, often in ways that cannot be done in one-on-one interviews."
There was little interest on the part of homeschoolers around Ohio to have our "voices" heard in this manner. But Oplinger was not deterred. By trolling internet websites or using deductive reasoning, he began showing up at homeschooling field trips and monitoring homeschooling online discussion lists at state and national levels.
In Ohio, we also knew by the end of September that the story's scope would be national as it was announced on a national homeschooling discussion list that the ABJ had been traveling around the country, including interviewing key employees in divisive national homeschooling organizations.
Mary: What did OHEC do regarding the intense interest in homeschooling by the ABJ?
Peggy: Given this interest and the tactics being employed, we felt it was important for homeschoolers to be on record without participating in phony "opportunities" to be controlled by a reporter. We also wanted to let Ohio legislators know that we were proactively informing the reporters on the many available resources for conducting legitimate journalism with homeschoolers around the country.
In October, OHEC prepared an eight-page document entitled "Selected Current Citations to Inform Research on the Subject of Homeschooling. This research document was sent directly to the ABJ and a copy was sent to each Ohio General Assembly member. We provided an extensive resource list and names of long-time homeschooling activists, authors and publishers, all well known to homeschoolers, several involved for over 25 years. None of those activists or publishers was contacted in the preparation of this series. Only one author of the many cited was quoted in the reports, more than likely due to her residency in Columbus, Ohio, than due to our recommendation.
Also included in the research citations were reports from other well-known media affiliates and organizations beyond the homeschooling community. Many of these reports addressed the questions that the ABJ writers were researching. When the November 2004 series was printed, we found no correlation in the ABJ series and these citations.
Mary: Was OHEC ever contacted by the ABJ on this extensive research document?
Peggy: In May 2004, Oplinger contacted me, seeking an interview for this series, a series on which he had been now working for one year. I asked if he had followed up on any of the extensive information provided in the "Selected Citations" document. As was later demonstrated, they had not used any of this research. Yet, Oplinger's response to my question, even after a year, was "We are long past the usefulness of that material." I declined to participate in an interview that was merely being sought for the ABJ to state they "provided balance" to their story.
Mary: Did you have any other communication with the ABJ in this time period?
Peggy: Yes. Once the Summit County Child Fatality Review Board released an official, required report on the family cited in the early ABJ report, in January 2004, I submitted an op-ed to the Akron Beacon Journal on the subject of the tragedy of child abuse and its lack of correlation to homeschooling.
Mary: Was the op-ed printed?
Peggy: Sure it was, but only after adding 42 words and substantially changing at least two paragraphs. And adding two of their selected photographs, one of a clichéd view of homeschooling (family around the dining room table) and The specific couple cited in their original reports who had now been convicted of child abuse.
In preparation, I had phoned the editor, asked if they would consider a guest op-ed, and their word limitations. I submitted an op-ed that exceeded the limit by two words. Unannounced, they added more words? And changed original intent? And added photographs designed to make editorial comment within a citizen's op-ed? This is defensible journalism technique? I thought these type of practices were reserved for the grocery store tabloids?
In follow-up conversations with representatives of media watch dog groups on their views of the ABJ's methods being acceptable journalism, the feedback was universal: They were shocked. Not one agreed that these methods are viewed as legitimate, especially on the subject of focus groups and extensively adding words to guest opinions.
Mary: And now that the series has been printed, do you feel that homeschoolers have had a fair chance to respond to this extensive series?
Peggy: Hardly. The series ran from November 14 through November 20. The series definitely had a national focus in much of its coverage. Certainly, the information that was printed was relevant to all Ohio homeschoolers.
Ohio homeschoolers who reside beyond the ABJ circulation area and others from around the nation have written to the ABJ with responses to the series. As of this date (January 4), they have printed a single response from one individual residing outside their circulation area, from a person who lives 70 miles from Akron. The other 34 letters that have been printed come from directly within their market. (Based upon review of their on-line compilations of letters to the editor and analysis of their circulation area.)
NThe letters that the ABJ has chosen to print has substantially challenged the methods employed by this newspaper in the name of "journalism."
Mary: Did you write to the ABJ after the series was printed?
Peggy: Yes. I challenged their methods and cited several of the examples I have made for you here. Not surprisingly, to date, the letter has not been printed.
Mary: Thank you for your commitment to home education and for taking the time to shed light on this "series". Your letter to the Akron Beacon Journal editor in response to the "series" can be read as a PDF file at: http://www.homeschoolfreedom.org/abj21.pdf
ISSUES TO WATCH
In early January 2005, another Knight Ridder paper in Indiana ran parts of the original ABJ "series" on homeschooling. Peggy's interview illustrates the importance of setting the record straight as to what happened here in OH, what prompted this story and the methodology that was used. I'd like to hear if the series ran in your local paper, when it ran and I would appreciate knowing of any letters submitted as a response. Also, did your group print a response to the series in a newsletter or on a web page? If so, I'd appreciate hearing about that also. Please share any of them with me at: Support Groups Email with "ABJ" in the subject line.
Other issues that are being watched this month are comments by state legislators in South Dakota stating that they would like to monitor homeschool testing, Tennessee officials calling for more control of homeschoolers and the proposed *South Carolina Tax Credit that would include homeschoolers. To learn more about these issues, read the January 5, 2005 News and Commentary at: http://www.homeedmag.com/whts_nw.html
* I've listed a link to an informative article by the Kaseman's on Tax Credits below under HEM resources.
Community Service
From David Albert:
Dear homeschooling friends,
By now, many of you have read about the tsunami that has just hit the coastal areas of the Bay of Bengal. I am particularly sad to report that areas of the coast of southeast India are in ruins.
This is the area in which my adopted Indian parents have been doing land reform/development work for the past 40 years, and also where American homeschoolers have contributed much-needed funds to help build houses for people who were previously living in little more than mud and grass huts that would be destroyed during every monsoon, and to support 220 orphans. A wall of water 30-40 feet high hit and moved more than 10 miles inland (where the orphanages are), destroying everything in its wake.. The mangroves, which had been the only natural protection against such destruction, had all been cut down by multinational/World Bank-backed projects in industrial shrimp farming. Of course, this would have made no difference on the beach where the wave first hits, but as it travels inland and the wave loses height and velocity, the mangroves hold the soil to the land, prevent debris from receding, and protect the water table. As of this writing, 7,00000 people are reported dead in this district, and upwards of a million homeless.
As it turns out, my daughter (former homeschooler and now Smith College first-year Aliyah) and I are planning to leave for the area on Tuesday evening. I spoke with my sister who heads the pediatric wing of a public hospital south of Madras, and they have told us in no uncertain terms to COME! No idea what we will be doing. So we are packing.
In the meantime, we have set up a relief fund. All proceeds from the sale of my book "The Color of Freedom" (which is an oral biography of my parents, and the story of their work) were already going to their efforts, and can be purchased through my website at www.skylarksings.com Tax-deductible donations - cash, checks, or credit cards - can be sent to me at the address on the site (if for more than $500, checks should be made out to The Gandhian Foundation; if not, simply to Skylark Sings, as the funds will get there faster.) The quickest way is simply to call my wife at 360 352-0506 and we'll do what is necessary, we will wire the combined contributions directly, and there will be no overhead to cover.
We have just set up a Blog for our trip, though we don't know how often we will be able to post to it: http://shantinik.blogspot.com
Thank you for your help and prayers.
David www.skylarksings.com
WEB UPDATES AND RESOURCES
American Homeschool Association Web Blog http://aha.typepad.com/american_homeschool_assoc/
American Homeschool Association News Blog http://aha.typepad.com/aha_news_blog/
Tourbus was submitted by a longtime homeschooler. It has a number of links that would be helpful to homeschoolers, plus, lots of good general info stuff. Enjoy it at: http://www.TOURBUS.com/
The Military Homeschooler -- 11 Dec 04 o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o Read the articles, with linked references, at: http://www.militaryhomeschoolers.com/
California Homeschool Prom
~~HOMESCHOOLERS ANNOUNCE THEIR SECOND ANNUAL STATEWIDE PROM
On Friday, April 22, 2005, at 7:00 PM homeschoolers between the ages of 14 and 19 and their guests are invited to the California Homeschool Prom to be held at the Decathlon Club located at 3250 Central Expressway in Santa Clara. Ticket Price range from $70-$90 including dinner. Tickets much be purchased in advance by March 31, 2005. Details at www.geocities.com/cahomeschoolprom Contact: cahomeschoolprom@yahoo.com Delaine Noyer, Prom Coordinator
HEM RESOURCES and MORE
Home Education Magazine - May-June 1998 - Columns Taking Charge - Larry and Susan Kaseman *Are Tax Credits for Educational Expenses a Good Idea for Homeschoolers? http://www.homeedmag.com/HEM/HEM153.98/153.98_clmn_tkch.html © 1998 Larry and Susan Kaseman and Home Education Magazine
HEM's News and Commentary
http://www.homeedmag.com/whts_nw.html
HEM's Online Newsletter
http://www.homeedmag.com/wlcm_hemnewsltr.html
Be sure to bookmark Home Education Magazine's Support Group page, which can be accessed at: http://www.homeedmag.com/wlcm_groups.html
If you need your listing updated or your group would like to be added, email me at Support Groups Email and it will be added in a timely manner.
I look forward to writing to you next month!
Mary Nix
HEM's Support Group Liaison
Support Groups Email
http://www.homeedmag.com/wlcm_groups.html
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