Homeschooling Report Misses Mark

RALEIGH — Five murder cases, cited by “CBS Evening News” Oct. 13 and Oct. 14 to prove that homeschooling parents use the educational alternative to hide child abuse, showed instead that other factors were responsible for the family tragedies. In most cases, child-welfare officials or local law enforcement were already aware of problems before the situations turned deadly. But the network reported that there was a “dark side of homeschooling,” in which parents exploited allegedly lax homeschooling laws to hide the abuse, and even murder, of their children.