Michelle Malkin's Home Schooling Is Not A Crime: Book Analysis

Rachel Coleman, and executive director of a program for home education, and Kathryn Brightbill, the Coalition for Responsible Home Education’s legislative policy analyst, voice their opinion about the correlation of hoke schooling and child abuse in the article “The Turpin child abuse story fits a widespread and disturbing homeschooling pattern.” These ladies show evidence of their bias by making it clear that these regulations have to change. In the second article, titled “Home Schooling Is Not a Crime” by Michelle Malkin, a political commentator on CRTV, the bias that homeschooling has nothing to do with the extreme abuse seen by the Turpin’s family. The story about the Turpin children and abuse seen on their children rocked the world of
Due to this no one was able to recognize their conditions and provide the children with help.
By revealing to the audience that the program Coleman and Brightbill work for have a database that keeps a record of homeschool abuse cases, their bias on the argument of regulating homeschooling rules are portrayed. This shows that the authors truly care about what is happening and wish to find some way to stop this phenomenon. This bias appears to help the argument because it not only shows their emotions, but also contributes to their ethos. By commenting on this database, it makes the reader realize that the authors deal with these types of cases and shows that homeschool abuse cases reach higher levels than just a few cases here and there. Bias is also displayed in the mentioning of the regulations. The authors
Brightbill and Coleman focus their article on facts and tend to leave their opinions out of the argument. Malkin, on the other hand, seems to let her opinion guide her through her argument and pointedly calls many opposers out. I agree that not all homeschooling parents are anywhere near the extreme that the Turpins were because I have family that homeschool their children and they show no signs of abuse. Malkin is surely right about the fact that just because some families abuse the homeschooling freedom does not mean that every homeschooler out there has to be weighed down with rules and regulations. Too many rules can lead to a shrink in the number of homeschooled children. Although I agree with Malkin on this, I also disagree with letting just anyone teach their children without being checked. This is where I think her argument fails. It seems like overall, homeschooling is fairly successful but based off the database that Coleman and Brightbill have, the amount of cases of abuse is high enough to be important. The argument from Coleman and Brightbill is successful because they leave negative opinions out of their article and the article feels significantly less hostile than Malkin’s. Their argument is based more on facts and they use multiple examples to support their facts