RALEIGH — If homeschooling families want to draw attention to
their lifestyle and education methods when their children excel —
as in academic competitions — they’ve got to accept that they will
draw unwanted scrutiny when one of their own does something
horrible.
Such is the case with 18-year-old Pennsylvania murder suspect
David Ludwig, who abducted his 14-year-old secret girlfriend Kara
Borden Sunday after he allegedly gunned down her parents in their
home. Ludwig was arrested in Indiana Monday with Borden in tow,
after crashing his vehicle. Both were homeschooled and, according
to some media reports, “deeply Christian.”
The nature of homeschoolers when they draw negative media
attention is to get defensive, and sometimes appropriately so. They
administered a justifiable backlash against CBS News two years ago,
when the network tried to establish a “dark side to homeschooling”
by trying to tie an artificial trend of child abuse to the growing
educational alternative. Correspondent Vince Gonzales even
foolishly claimed during the two-night report on “CBS Evening News”
that “children nationwide have been put in danger — even killed —
while homeschooling.”
The major media hasn’t submitted an illogical disconnect like
that yet with Ludwig, and if journalists do suggest
there’s some kind of murder trend, then homeschoolers should
respond. But otherwise the media is justified when it calls
attention to the fact that both Ludwig and Borden were
homeschooled.
The excellent Media Research Center seemed to take exception to
that, however. On its “Newsbusters” weblog, analyst Brent Baker
noted
how ABC News’ Elizabeth Vargas teased for an upcoming segment on
the teens, “When we return, the homeschool student charged with
murdering his girlfriend’s parents. A small town, and a community
of homeschoolers, are shattered.”
Baker, in his comments on the report, suggested a bias against
homeschoolers. “Can you imagine Vargas ever citing ‘the English as
a Second Language student charged with murder’?” he wrote.
Baker is right that that would be unlikely, but I think he’s
wrong in believing the media shouldn’t play up Ludwig’s and
Borden’s educational background. The fact that they were
homeschooled makes the murder even more significant. Why? Because
the nature of the news is that when certain types of people act in
ways that are inconsistent with what the public traditionally
expects from them, it makes a story more newsworthy.
Frankly, ABC News did the right thing by recognizing the
significance that the two teens were homeschooled. This was out
of character from what most Americans have come to expect from
homeschooled children: that they are mostly intelligent, polite,
respectful, well-behaved, quiet, and mind their own business. They
are a threat to no one (except teachers’ unions).
Contrast that with the lie CBS (gee, what a surprise that it
would be them) tried to perpetrate two years ago about
homeschoolers. Gonzales, Rather and company identified four or five
cases in which parents who claimed to be homeschooling were abusing
their children, as though the phenomenon was unique to that
educational style. In each instance, however, it wouldn’t have
mattered how those children were being educated, because others
were aware of the abuse and failed to act adequately to prevent it.
That didn’t stop “intrepid” CBS from uncovering homeschooling’s
“dark side.”
I suppose this case could be added to that dire (albeit phony)
list CBS compiled and the media could label it as further proof of
aberrant and anti-social behavior, but it still wouldn’t ring true.
Homeschoolers, whether they believe it themselves or not, have
built too much credibility for that to get any traction.
