Homeschool Advocates Propose Strategy to Reform Child Welfare System

Home School Legal Defense Association offers strategy to reform the Child Welfare System.

In recent years it has become frighteningly common for homeschoolers to be wrongfully accused of abuse and neglect on hotlines to state child welfare departments. Individuals who do not like home schoolers can simply make an anonymous phone call and fabricate abuse stories about their neighbors. Social workers then have a legal obligation to investigate.

Some statistics show that up to 60 percent of children removed from their homes by social workers were taken away from their parents without probable cause of abuse. Over 70 percent of investigations are not substantiated.¹ Under this system, which ignores due process of law, many innocent families are subjected to harassment.

Each state has different policies regarding social workers. However, social workers usually want to enter the family's home and interrogate the children separately. To allow either exposes the family to great risk. Every week, Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) attorneys counsel member families and intervene to protect them from social worker "fishing expeditions."

Unfortunately, the child welfare system sometimes ends up abusing the very families it is supposed to help.
To address this problem, HSLDA is working to reform state child welfare laws. We support legislation which would protect families by forcing social workers to abide by the same laws regular law enforcement officials must obey.

The five areas most in need of reform are:

1. Anonymous Tips: Child welfare laws should be amended to require all reporters of child abuse to give their names, addresses and phone numbers. This will curtail false reporting and end harassment stemming from anonymous tips.
   
   
2. False Reporting: Child welfare laws should be amended to make false reporting at least a class C misdemeanor.
   
   
3. Probable Cause/Warrant: Social workers must be held accountable to the same Fourth Amendment standards as the police. A warrant must be obtained before a social worker can enter the home without consent of the parents.
   
   
4. Access to Records: Many times home schoolers who are investigated by social workers are denied access to the records of their investigation. Child welfare laws should be amended to allow victims of the system to inspect their records in order to seek recourse.
   
   
5. Prohibition of the Violation of Parent's Constitutional Rights: The recognition of parental rights is important to create an even playing field during child welfare investigations.
   

Source: http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000058.asp

When an Ex Moves, Do the Kids Go, Too?

A Vexing Call for Judges

NPR recently reported on a Massachusetts case that challenges a parent's ability to moveaway from the other parent after divorce when children have close bonds with Mom and Dad.

The case, Mason v. Coleman, is now before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, where experts say it could yield one of the nation's first high-court decisions on what has become a vexing problem for family court judges: when and whether to allow a divorced parent to move out of town with the kids, when the other parent objects.

Judges say it is now one of the hardest decisions they have to make. Just a decade ago, most divorces ended with one parent -- usually the mother -- getting sole custody. Courts would almost always allow the mother to move, as long as she could prove she wasn't motivated by spite. Judges generally believed that if the mother was the primary caretaker, keeping her happy would ultimately benefit the kids as well.

But with a growing number of parents today sharing custody, and with new research showing the importance of children staying connected to both parents, many courts are now raising the bar.

New Jersey Mom Gets Alimony After Kicking Her Son to Death?

HACKENSACK, NJ -- The Associated Press Reported on May 11th, 2006 that Linda Calbi admitted she kicked her 14-year-old son, causing injuries that led to his death. But a judge says she’s still entitled to alimony payments from her ex-husband.

According to an article on CBS Channel 3 in Philadelphia, Christopher Calbi had sought to end the payments, claiming his ex-wife violated her moral obligation to provide a safe home for their two children after the couple divorced.

Superior Court Judge Eugene Austin refused, suspending the $3,183 monthly payments while the mother spends 30 months in jail.

However, the judge said that when she gets out, she can apply to have them resumed.

Supreme Court Avoids Gay Parental Rights

Without comment, the U.S. Supreme Court has once again avoided the contentious issue of parental rights--this time for gay and lesbian couples.

On Monday, the justices refused to get involved in a long-standing dispute between a former couple over custody of one of their two children.

At issue: whether an independent adoption in which the birth mother does not give up her parental rights is legislatively and constitutionally permissible.

The justices also declined to intervene in a Washington state dispute between a lesbian couple concerning ties to a child the two helped raise together last week.

Report on Maternal Homicide Crisis: Myth-Making and Manbashing

By Glenn Sacks


"Pregnant women murdered at an alarming rate." "Killings of new, expectant mothers mount." "Many new or expectant mothers die violent deaths." "Violence trails expectant mothers." "Pregnant mothers often die of murder."

These headlines top a highly-publicized new series of articles by Donna St. George of the Washington Post. The series, which appeared in many major newspapers and media outlets this week, details an alleged epidemic of maternal homicide by male intimates.

The series powerfully depicts the tragedies of murdered expectant or new mothers. The mother-to-be killed the day her mother ordered the cake for her baby shower. The pregnant 14 year-old murdered by her 14 year-old ex-boyfriend. The bank manager killed because she wouldn’t convert to her husband’s religion before their twins were born. However, despite the emotion, alarm bells and blaring headlines, the series fails to build the case that maternal homicide is an epidemic, is on the rise, or is even a significant social problem.

According to the Post’s numbers, there are about 100 documented murders of pregnant women in the United States each year. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly four million women give birth each year. One out of 40,000 is not an epidemic. The Post speculates that the true number could be significantly higher but also notes that 30% of these killings are not related to childbearing, but instead involve drug dealing, robberies, errant gunfire, or other causes. And some pregnant women are killed by other women, as in the recent Missouri murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett by a woman who cut her live baby from her womb.

St. George and others point to a Journal of the American Medical Association article which states that in Maryland a “pregnant or recently pregnant woman is more likely to be a victim of homicide than to die of any other cause." This sounds alarming until one considers that there are an average of eight murders of pregnant women each year in Maryland--alongside 75,000 live births.

St. George also cites a study by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health which allegedly showed murder to be the biggest cause of death for pregnant women and new mothers. When this study was released the Boston Globe summarized its findings as follows:

“Murder is the leading cause of death for Massachusetts mothers in the 21-month period from when they become pregnant until their babies reach their first birthday, according to a state review that shows domestic violence today is more dangerous than medical complications from childbirth.”

However, when public health specialist Ned Holstein of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine examined the report, he found that murder was well down the list of alleged causes of maternal death. According to the study's own data, the leading causes of death of pregnant or recently-pregnant women over a 10-year period were Medical conditions (152), Motor vehicle accidents (21), Domestic violence homicides (20), other homicides (10), and Miscellaneous (29). The epidemic of domestic violence-related homicides sweeping Massachusetts consists of an average of two deaths per year.

“The risk of murder by an intimate is extremely small, not an epidemic,“ says Holstein, a physician who also heads Fathers and Families of Massachusetts. “Although every death is tragic, murder of pregnant women simply does not rank as a significant public health problem.”

St. George’s article series expresses commendable concern about battery of pregnant women but errs in claiming a link between domestic violence and pregnancy. According to longtime domestic violence researcher Richard J. Gelles, co-author of Behind Closed Doors, “to be pregnant alone doesn't put a woman at risk.”

“Women between the ages of 20 and 34 suffer the highest rate of domestic violence, and that is also the most likely age to be pregnant,” he says. “Age is driving the risk, not pregnancy.”

Unfortunately, alarmist claims of pregnant women being victimized by male partners are not new. For example, in 1993 Time magazine and many major newspapers reported that, according to the March of Dimes, domestic violence was the leading cause of birth defects. This claim was later found to be completely fictional, and was retracted by Time and others.

Similarly, the claim that “22 to 35 percent of women who visit medical emergency rooms are there for injuries related to domestic violence” has been echoed countless times by major media outlets and in politicians’ sound bytes. However, according to Emergency Room data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and the Justice Department, only about 1% of women's injuries are inflicted by male intimates.

St. George uses anecdote and emotion in place of facts and research in order to find a mythical crisis of maternal homicide. It is another example of how legitimate concern for battered women often devolves into an alarmist and anti-male view of domestic violence and gender relations.


--------------------------

Glenn Sacks is a men's and fathers' issues columnist and a nationally-syndicated radio talk show host. His columns have appeared in dozens of America's largest newspapers. He can be reached via his website at www.GlennSacks.com or via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.

Fathers Group Issues Report on Domestic Violence; Policies Exacerbate Child Abuse

“Misinformation” Campaign Cited in Domestic Violence Policies.

According to a new report by the by the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Government policies and campaigns to combat domestic violence and child abuse are based on faulty information.

The report, authored by ACFC President Stephen Baskerville, PhD., also claims that current government policies worsen child abuse.

The report, Family Violence in America: The Truth about Domestic Violence and Child Abuse, highlights the more contentious and conflicting scenarios, such as:

· Child custody disputes are probably the main engine driving both fabricated accusations of domestic violence and actual incidents.

· The main cause of child abuse is family dissolution, and family violence programs are likely contributing to the child abuse problem.

Domestic violence programs have become the subject of sharp criticism in recent months.

Studies from the Independent Women’s Forum and RADAR: Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting have challenged the accuracy of information behind current policies.

A Rutgers Law Review article by David Heleniak recently called domestic violence “an area of law mired in intellectual dishonesty and injustice” and a “due process fiasco,” identifying six major denials of due process in one statute.

The ACFC report goes further in suggesting that domestic violence allegations are driven primarily by child custody disputes and by suggesting that child abuse is made worse, rather than diminished, by current policies.

The Report comes as Congress is considering appropriations for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the principal Federal legislation that funds domestic violence programs nationwide. The Report is highly critical of VAWA.

Its findings also contrast somewhat with those of two recently published studies on family violence: “Child Maltreatment 2004,” issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, and Renee McDonald, et al., “Estimating the Number of Children Living in Partner-Violent Families,” Journal of Family Psychology, March 2006.

Public School Boards say Yes to Free Speech Concerning Sexual Preference--but No to Religious Messages?

According to the California-based Pacific Justice Institute, students and their parents packed a recent school board meeting at the Roseville Joint Unified School District in response to the suspensions received for peacefully expressing their first Amendment rights.

Numerous students of Slavic descent passed-out Christian literature and wore t-shirts that read, “Homosexuality is sin. Jesus can set you free.”

In addition to asking for their rights to speech and the free exercise of religion, these students and their parents asked the board to fulfill its obligations to protect students from threats, violence and other forms of harassment.

Viktor Lavor, a junior, told the board that Slavic Christian students, while leafleting, were threatened by hostile peers that they would get “beat up” after school.

Another pupil described how they went into the cafeteria wearing their shirts.
“While sitting in the cafeteria at breakfast, we had things like bottles, pieces of food and other objects thrown at us,” said Lyana Tagintsev. “I felt unprotected,” she said.

Taginstev told the board that “the school is suppose to protect us like any other students, but I didn’t see them try to do anything.”

Later that day, Lavor and Taginstev, along with 10 other students were summoned to the office by school officials. “We were given two options: either to take off the shirts and go back to class or keep the shirts on and face two days suspension. After praying, our group chose to keep the shirts on and stand up for what we knew was the truth. If we would take off our shirts we would be cowards,” Lavor said.

Nadia Militan, who did not wear the shirt that day saw the other students in the school office who were suspended.

Originally from the Ukraine, she told the board that “this kind of speech suppression makes me wonder if American schools follow the US Constitution.”

“Later I asked one of my friends if they had any more shirts. They did and I put it on in front of the office administration. They suspended me as well,” Militan told an attentive board.

In nearby San Juan Unified School District, parents and students plan to address that school board about similar hostility and suppression of speech targeting Slavic Christians. Students leafleted and wore the same t-shirts as their friends in Roseville.

“My review of the evidence so far indicates that the threats and actual violence against the students at San Juan is as bad if not worse than what is happening at Roseville,” said Kevin Snider who is an attorney representing the students from both districts.

“These students are pleading with the school boards to respect the rights of speech and to provide safe schools,” stated Brad Dacus, PJI president. “We are hopeful that the elected officials for these two districts will send a clear message on the rights of students to peacefully express themselves without fear of violence.”

As PJI and other parental rights groups noted recently, a number of public school districts in California and elsewhere also participated in a national day of silence to express the importance of understanding homosexuality.

Source: http://www.pacificjustice.org

Kids on Antipsychotic Drugs up 73%

Report raises concerns that mind-altering pills are being overprescribed

NEW YORK - The number of children taking antipsychotic medicines soared 73 percent in the four years ending in 2005, far outpacing the increase in adults, according to a Medco Health Solutions Inc. report released Tuesday.

Use of the new class of drugs known as atypical antipsychotics by people 19 and younger skyrocketed 80 percent in the same time period, according to the pharmacy benefit manager.

Source: MSNBC

More Pregnant Women Report Discrimination in the Workplace

The number of women claiming they've been discriminated against on the job because they're pregnant is soaring even as the birth rate declines.

Pregnancy discrimination complaints filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) jumped 39% from fiscal year 1992 to 2003, according to a recent analysis of government data by the Washington-based National Partnership for Women & Families.

During that same time, the nation's birthrate dropped 9%.

The surge in pregnancy complaints makes it one of the fastest-growing types of employment discrimination charges filed with the EEOC — outpacing the rise in sexual harassment and sex discrimination claims.


Also see: Pregnancy Discrimination at Work: A Qualitative Study

Link: http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-02-16-pregnancy-bias-usat_x.htm

Study: Sex is Essential... But Kids Are Not?

THE GERMAN PUBLIC was recently shocked to learn that 30% of "their" women are childless — the highest proportion of any country in the world. And this is not a result of infertility; it's intentional childlessness. Demographers are intrigued. German nationalists, aghast. Religious fundamentalists, distressed at the indication that large numbers of women are using birth control.

Source: LA Times

Litigation Explodes Over Paternity Fraud

According to a recent article, Paternity fraud is rampant in the United States, triggering legislation and legal challenges in more than a dozen states, according to family law attorneys and fathers' rights activists.

At issue: Men claim women are getting away with trickery -- DNA evidence may show a man is not the father, but the courts are still forcing him to pay child support anyway.

"This is the new underdog," said Michigan family law attorney Michele Kelly, who represents mostly men tangled in paternity disputes. "I was a staunch feminist. I marched with Gloria Steinem. But the new victims in America are working men. All they are is a mule train."

Most recently, Kelly secured a victory for a Michigan man who had paid an estimated $80,000 in child support over 15 years to his ex-wife, despite DNA evidence that proved he wasn't the father of their first son.

On March 23rd, after a bitter court battle, the case settled with the ex-wife agreeing to have all child support canceled. Richardson v. Luria, No. 91-7019-DM (Bay Co., Mich., Cir. Ct.).
The woman's lawyer, Robert Dunn, a solo practitioner based in Bay City, Mich., was unavailable for comment. Meanwhile, Kelly, of Kelly & Kelly in Northville, Mich., said this case is just the tip of the iceberg.

"One case is just more outrageous than the next," she said. According to a recent study in New Hampshire, as many as 30 percent of those paying child support are not the biological fathers of the children being supported. California is also expected to release results from a similar study later this year.

"Paternity fraud is a growing concern for men and children everywhere," the New Hampshire report concluded. "It can spawn considerable grief for the men who may or may not be emotionally attached to a child they later discover was fathered by another; and possibly unsettling for children who may discover the false nature of their paternity."

CWA Issues Critical Remarks Concerning Slow Moving Parental Notification Legislation

Senate Fails to Enact Child Custody Protection Act Eight Years and Counting
5/17/2006
By Jan LaRue, Chief Counsel


Custody of a child ought to matter as much as custody of a car.

In 1995, Rosa Hartford took a 13-year-old girl she barely knew, who her adult son had raped when the girl was 12, from Pennsylvania into New York.

There, Hartford posed as the girl’s stepmother and facilitated the girl’s abortion without her mother’s knowledge or consent and absent any legal justification. She then abandoned the girl 30 miles from her home with serious medical complications from an incomplete abortion, where she would have died but for her mother’s frantic and successful efforts to find her and obtain medical care.

Anyone, including a total stranger, who takes your minor daughter for an abortion across a state line without your consent, in order to avoid a state parental notice or consent law, faces no liability under federal law. The Child Custody Protection Act (CCPA) would support state parental notice and consent laws such as Pennsylvania’s, which Rosa Hartford crossed a state line to avoid.

Although 70 percent of Americans favor parental notice or consent before a minor can obtain an abortion, Congress has failed to enact a federal law that prohibits a person to take a minor across state lines in circumvention of state laws. Despite the testimony of Joyce Farley, the mother of Hartford’s victim, and others before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1998, Congress has failed to act. Although the U.S. House of Representatives has passed the CCPA four times, the U.S. Senate, and the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC) in particular, have done nothing.

The Senate needs to explain its refusal to pass the CCPA in light of the following federal laws:

The Freedom of Access to Clinics Act, which makes it a federal offense to interfere with someone seeking access to an abortion clinic, specifically exempts a parent or legal guardian from legal liability for activities specifically related to their minor child. The only reasonable explanation for this exception for parents is that Congress respects a parent’s right to be involved in a minor daughter’s decision about abortion.

Any parent whose parental rights have been terminated by a final court order, who kidnaps his or her child and transports the child in interstate or foreign commerce, faces life in prison. This law reinforces state parental-custody orders even against a parent who’s lost legal custody.
Anyone who lives in one state and willfully fails for a year or longer to pay a support obligation for a child who resides in another state can be fined $5,000. This law reinforces state child-support orders against an out-of-state obligee.

The Mann Act prohibits transporting any individual in interstate or foreign commerce for purposes of prostitution or any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense. Violators face up to 10 years in prison. The Supreme Court held that if anyone “employs interstate transportation as a facility of their wrongs, it may be forbidden to them.”
A person who travels in interstate or foreign commerce with the intent to engage in conduct that violates the portion of a protection order that prohibits or provides protection against contact or communication with, or physical proximity to, another person, and subsequently engages in such conduct, faces five years in federal prison. This law reinforces state restraining orders against those who would otherwise escape punishment for violating the order by traveling out-of-the state and engaging in the prohibited conduct.

Anyone who knowingly transports a stolen car in interstate or foreign commerce faces 10 years in federal prison. This law reinforces state auto-theft laws.

Anyone who knowingly transports stolen property worth $5,000 or more in interstate or foreign commerce faces up to 10 years in federal prison. This law reinforces state property-theft laws.

In 1998, the House of Representatives passed the CCPA as H.R. 3682. It was referred to the SJC where it died. The Senate version S. 1645, made it to the Senate floor but died due to a failure to invoke cloture and cut off debate. In 1999, the House passed the Act as H.R. 1218. It was placed on the Senate legislative calendar where it died.

The Senate version, S. 661, also died in the SJC in 1999. In 2002, the House passed the Act as H.R. 476. It was referred to the SJC where it died. In 2003, the Act, as House bill H.R. 1755 and Senate bill S. 851, failed to make it out of either the House or Senate Judiciary Committee. In 2005, the Act, as S. 403, never made it to a committee, and S. 8 and S. 396 both died in the SJC.

The House passed the CCPA under a new title, “The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act,” as H.R. 748. It was placed on the Senate legislative calendar where it remains in limbo.


Do we see a pattern here?

Contrary to the abortion lobby’s claims, state legislatures that have enacted parental involvement laws have done so because they rightly recognize that loving families are a pregnant girl’s best resource and protection. Any industry desperate enough to argue that a pregnant minor girl is safer having an unfettered right to a dangerous medical procedure than she is in seeking the guidance of parents who love her ought to be ignored by the U.S. Senate.

Dr. Bruce Lucero, a self-described pro-choice physician, agrees. A New York Times article that quoted Lucero was placed in the record of the 1998 SJC hearing on the CCPA. According to Lucero:

In these kinds of cases, the best help adults close to the teen-age girls, be they relatives or others, can give is not to go along with the teenager’s desire for concealment by bringing her across state lines, but rather to encourage her to talk to her parents. … Parents are usually the ones who can best help their teen-ager consider her options. And whatever the girl’s decision, parents can provide the necessary emotional support and financial assistance.

Even in a conservative state like Alabama, I found that parents were almost always supportive. If a teen-ager seeks an abortion out of state, however, things become infinitely more complicated. Instead of telling her parents, she may delay her abortion and try to scrape together enough money – usually $150 to $300 – herself. As a result, she often waits too long and then has to turn to her parents for help to pay for a more expensive and riskier second-trimester abortion.

Also, patients who receive abortions at out-of-state clinics frequently do not return for follow-up care, which can lead to dangerous complications. And a teenager who has an abortion across state lines without her parents’ knowledge is even less likely to tell them she is having complications. Hearing on S. 1645, the Child Custody Protection Act, before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 105th Cong., 2d Sess. (May 20, 1998).

Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws that require notification or consent of a parent before a minor daughter may obtain an abortion, if the law provides for a judicial bypass rather than parental notice or consent, e.g., Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth.

Every version of the CCPA exempts a parent, legal guardian, custodian of a minor and the minor from prosecution, as well as any abortion that is necessary to save the life of the minor. There is a defense if the defendant reasonably believes that the parental notification/consent/judicial process has occurred.

On May 15, 2006, the Senate passed by unanimous consent S. 479, which designated May 1, 2006, as “National Child Care Worthy Wage Day,” and calls on the people of the United States to observe the day by “honoring early childhood care and education staff and programs in their communities.” The Senate passed this moot and trivial resolution instead of the CCPA.

The Senate needs to hear from those who think a parent’s custody of a minor daughter deserves at least as much federal protection as custody of the family car.

Illinois School District takes aim at teens' Web posts

Schools say 'MySpace' is their space too?

Another parental rights issue has popped-up in Illinois. According to a news feature by Andrew Wang in today's Chicago Tribune, a the Libertyville/Vernon Hills school district could become one of the first in the state to adopt rules holding students accountable for what they post on blogs or social-networking Web sites like MySpace.com.

The school board of Community High School District 128 is expected to vote Monday on a change to student conduct codes that would make evidence of "illegal or inappropriate behavior" posted on the sites grounds for disciplinary action.

Hmmm. Illegal is one thing.

Beyond that, shouldn't it be up to the parents to determine what is considered "inappropriate" for something that occurs off school property? Seems like another example of a group of bureaucrats taking an isolated incident and blowing it way out of proportion.

Last I checked, District 128 had no ownership stake in MySpace.com



Source: Chicagotribune.com

Homeschooling Parents Told State Assessment Tests a Must

Earlier this school year, homeschoolers within the Hale Kula Elementary School "attendance zone" received a troublesome letter. The letter began, "[d]uring the months of March and April 2006, your child will be taking the Hawaii State Assessment."

After explaining details of the State assessments, the letter stated that parents could request to have their children exempted from the assessment.

According to the school principal, in order for a request for exemption to be granted a letter would have to be submitted to the school where it would be forwarded to the State Test Development for review and approval.

The Home School Legal Defense Association intervened with a letter to Hale Kula Elementary School and pointed out that while Hawaii law requires homeschool parents to have their children tested in grades 3, 5, 8, and 10, they are not required to take the Hawaii State Assessments.

In reality, a parent can chose normed referenced achievement tests comparable to the state assessment. While parents can request to have their children take the Hawaii State Assessments in a testing year, it is optional.

Hawaii State Assessments are content-based tests that are geared to curriculum taught in the public school. A homeschool child who is taught at home will likely not be familiar with the content on these assessments.

HSLDA reported that Hale Kula Elementary School has since dropped all of their demands.

Judge Strikes Down Georgia Ban on Gay Marriage

ATLANTA - A judge has struck down Georgia's ban on same-sex marriages, saying a measure overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2004 violated a provision of the state constitution that limits ballot questions to a single subject.

The ruling by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell had been eagerly awaited by gay-rights supporters who filed the court challenge in November 2004, soon after the constitutional ban was approved.

Russell said "procedural safeguards such as the single-subject rule rarely enjoy public support."
"But ultimately it is those safeguards that preserve our liberties, because they ensure that the actions of government are constrained by the rule of law," the judge wrote.

Robbing Birth Parents to Pay for Foster Care

By Richard Wexler

It should be among the bigger scandals in child welfare--though perfectly legal. But so far only one newspaper, The Hartford Courant, has reported on it.

Here’s how it works:

An impoverished single mother, desperate to keep her low-wage job leaves her children home alone because she can’t find day care she can afford. She can’t get day care because federal aid that might provide such day care has been transferred elsewhere. The children are taken away on a “lack of supervision” charge. They are placed in foster care. The foster parents and the bureaucracy supporting them, and the child abuse investigator are paid in part using the money diverted from low-income day care.

It happens because of a side effect of welfare “reform” – the misuse of surplus funds in the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).

When Congress passed welfare “reform,” supporters promised that states could use TANF surplus funds to help welfare recipients become self-sufficient, by providing job training and childcare. But it turns out states are free to use TANF money for many other things as well. And in many states, TANF has become a slush fund for the foster care system, with hundreds of millions of dollars diverted to fund foster homes and even child abuse investigations.

In Connecticut alone, $129 million in TANF money has been diverted from basic, concrete help to keep families together into the foster care system that tears them apart. The Courant story, which ran on March 25, is available in the paper’s paid archive. It’s well worth the $3.95.

False Domestic Violence Accusations Can Lead To Parental Alienation Syndrome

April 19, 2006
by David Heleniak

Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is a pattern of thoughts and behavior that can develop in a child of separated parents where the custodial parent causes the child, through manipulation and access blocking, to unjustifiably fear and/or hate the other parent.

PAS is more than brainwashing, in that the child comes to actively participate in the degradation of the target parent, coming up with original (often ludicrous) reasons to fear/hate him or her.
Domestic violence (DV) restraining orders are a perfect weapon for an alienating parent.

Typically, in addition to removing an accused abuser from the marital home, a DV restraining order also "temporarily" bars the accused abuser from seeing his or her children, and "temporarily" gives the accusing parent exclusive physical custody. And temporary, in the Family Court, has a funny way of becoming permanent.

Obtaining a restraining order based on a false allegation of domestic violence gets the target parent out of the house and out of the picture. A father who can't see his kids, for example, is unable to rebut the lie "Daddy doesn't love you anymore. That's why he left you." Nor can he rebut the alternate lie, "Daddy is dangerous. The wise judge said so. That's why he can't see you."

The Next Conservatism #40: Why Sex is Better than Gender

By Stephen Baskerville
May 11, 2006

A problematic question for the next conservatism is the politics of "gender" (formerly known as sex). It is also urgent.

A critical change in the Left over the last few decades has been the shift from the economic to the social and increasingly the sexual. What was once a semi-socialistic attack on property and enterprise has become a social and sexual attack on the family, marriage and masculinity.

The consequences are incalculable. No ideology in human history has been potentially so invasive of the private sphere of life as Feminism. Communists had little respect for privacy. Feminists have made it their main target.

Report: Moms on WIC Breast-Feed Less

WASHINGTON --Breast-feeding is less common among mothers who get federal help from the Women, Infants and Children program, known as WIC, congressional investigators said Wednesday.

The Government Accountability Office didn't criticize WIC, which distributes free formula but also heavily promotes breast-feeding. Even outside the WIC program, breast-feeding in the United States fell short of federal goals, the report said. Instead, investigators said limits are needed on advertising by infant formula companies. Companies have used the WIC name and logo to market formula despite federal restrictions on their use, according to the report.

Growing concerns raised over State policies which impact parental rights

LOUISVILLE - While the state Office of Inspector General investigates whether children are appropriately being removed from their families, more women are speaking out about losing their parental rights.

A recent conference in Louisville Kentucky highlighted the difficulties parents face when losing their children to foster care and adoption.

Several reform advocates, mostly women, spoke-out at The Truth Commission, a conference sponsored by Women in Transition, an organization of welfare recipients and low-income women that advocates for better social welfare policies and more opportunities for families.

Parents and child advocates met as the state Office of Inspector General investigates whether domestic-violence victims and other parents are losing parental rights in order to increase state foster-care adoptions and federal financial bonuses.

The federal government is pressuring states to get children into adoptive homes quickly instead of leaving them in foster care.

Laws require that if a child was in foster care 15 of the previous 22 months, officials should start terminating the parents' rights.

Gov. Ernie Fletcher and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services are looking at the issue after it was revealed that the state removed the children of about 50 women served by the regional Bluegrass Domestic Violence Program in the past year.

States Help Schools Hide Minority Scores

States are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting the No Child Left Behind law's requirement that students of all races must show annual academic progress.

With the federal government's permission, schools aren't counting the test scores of nearly 2 million students when they report progress by racial groups, an Associated Press computer analysis found.

Source: ABC News

Rocket Fuel Found in Breast Milk of Women in 18 States

A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18 states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country.

The chemical, perchlorate, can impede adult metabolism and cause retardation in fetuses, among other things. It leaches into groundwater from various military facilities.

Previous studies have found perchlorate in drinking water, on lettuce, and in cows milk. The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem than thought, scientists said.

Source: LiveScience .com

Welfare reform meets the law of unintended consequences

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, known as Welfare Reform, has been cheered as a stunning achievement of the Republican Congress and its Contract With America.

The law helped to move millions of welfare recipients out of dependency and into productive jobs, but its unintended consequences brought many thousands of "never welfare" families into the welfare bureaucracy.

Financial incentives are often built into tax credits, reductions or bonuses to influence human behavior in home ownership, energy, water, transportation, and waste management. But sometimes the law contains incentives that were not planned, expected or desirable.

The Great Society welfare system was recognized by the 1990s as a social disaster that created fatherless children, illegitimacy and women's dependency on government. Channeling taxpayer handouts to mothers provided a powerful financial incentive for fathers to depart; they were not needed anymore.

Unfortunately, policy changes in the 1988 and 1996 welfare laws created similar financial incentives for state governments to exclude middle-class fathers from the home. The law incentivized the states to manufacture "noncustodial" (i.e., absent) fathers and to order money transfers (usually through wage garnishment) to mothers, thereby putting a large segment of the middle class under the welfare bureaucrats.

The major goal of the 1996 Welfare Reform was to reduce the budget deficit by, among other things, recovering welfare costs from absentee fathers. Without justification or public debate, the rules to accomplish this were then applied to middle-class "never welfare" families. Formerly, to receive welfare benefits, recipients had to demonstrate eligibility by "need" (i.e., a test measured by income level), but the new policy omitted income eligibility requirements. Without a means test, a high-income mother with custody can use the power of the state to collect from a low-income father.

The federal government annually provides $4.2 billion in block grants to states to serve as collection agencies. States are reimbursed for 66 percent of their costs of child support enforcement activities, 80 percent of their costs for technology, and 66 percent of their costs of DNA testing for paternity.

The more cases the states can create and the more operational expenses they incur, the more federal funding states receive to expand their welfare bureaucracy. No performance standards are required to get this money and, in addition, the feds provide a bonus fund ($458 million in Fiscal 2006) for which the states compete.

In the welfare class, most absentee fathers are unemployed or working for wages so low that little or no money can be squeezed out of them. State bureaucrats discovered they could cash in on the pot of federal money by exploiting middle-class divorce and creating a whole new class of absent fathers who have good jobs and are willingly making payments to their ex-wives.

When a married couple with children is divorced, the family court typically renames the husband and wife as noncustodial and custodial parents. The more time with the children that is awarded to the custodial parent, the more money the noncustodial parent is ordered to pay and then can be reported by the state as collections that merit federal bonuses.

Federal funding thus provides powerful monetary incentives for states to maximize the number of single-parent households with high transfer payments, and to minimize equal child custody which would lessen transfer payments. Depriving or reducing children's access to one parent is thus a source of revenue for states.

These incentives drive family court discretion and skew the opinions of the vast army of lawyers, psychologists, custody evaluators, and parenting counselors who are used to rationalize the process. They hide their predetermined custody rulings under the subjective slogan "the best interest of the child." Put another way, forcibly depriving children of access to one parent, usually the father because he usually has a higher income than the mother, is a big source of revenue to states.

Source: Townhall .com

______________________________________________________

Phyllis Schlafly is the President and Founder of the Eagle Forum

Putin Seeks Financial Incentives to Boost Russia's Birthrate

Experts say population could tumble below 100 million by 2050, endangering nation

Moscow -- President Vladimir Putin directed parliament on Wednesday to adopt a 10-year program to stop the sharp decline in Russia's population, principally by offering financial incentives and subsidies to encourage women to have children.

Putin's instructions, issued to a compliant parliament that follows his orders almost without fail, formed the center of his annual address and signaled a new Kremlin determination to confront a problem that demographers have warned endangers the future of the Russian state.

Adoption Subsidies Law Struck Down in Missouri

Just when you thought it was safe to adopt abused or neglected children, a Federal judge in Missouri has struck down a law that would restrict monthly aid payments for some families who adopt foster children, saying that the legislation would cost more than it would save.

The law, passed in 2005, was the subject of a class-action lawsuit filed in August in U.S. District Court in Kansas City that accused Gov. Matt Blunt and Gary Sherman, director of the Missouri Department of Social Services, of failing to protect the interests of abused and neglected children.

Source: Findlaw.com

Big Brother Will See You Now

New York City government has begun "legally requiring laboratories that do medical testing to report to the Health Department the results of blood-sugar tests for city residents with diabetes -- along with the names, ages, and contact information on those patients.

City officials are not only analyzing these data to assess patterns and changes in diabetes prevalence in the city, but are planning 'interventions.' ... If you wish to keep your medical data confidential, you cannot.

Coercive public-health techniques originally seen as needed to combat communicable and infectious disease will now be deployed in hopes of correcting less-than-healthy individual behavior.

Where's HIPAA, the manically overbroad federal patient-privacy law, now that it might actually do some good? (Elizabeth Whelan, "Big Brother Will See You Now", National Review Online, Apr. 25).

Source: Overlawyered.com

Diddy Made Me Do it

ALBANY, N.Y. -- The Associated Press reported yesterday that P. Diddy has to cough-up a big chunk of change to support his 12 year old son.

How much change?
Take a guess.

Was it:
A) $200.00 per month
B) $2,000 per month
C) $20,000 per month

On Tuesday, New York state's highest court refused to hear Diddy's appeal of the lower court order for him to pay a nearly $20,000 per month in "child support."

What's wrong with this picture?
Last I checked, it costs much less than $20k per month to raise a kid.

In fact, even by conservative estimates, it comes nowhere close to the second option of $2,000 per month. On top of that, Diddy and Mom were never married, so the prospect for de facto alimony should be nowhere in the mix.

The order issued last year by the state's Appellate Division came after Diddy's appeal of a Court ruling that he pay $35,000 a month. Apparently, his ex- had sued for higher monthly payments and nearly $400k in back support, but the Court found that was obviously a bit excessive. Go figure. Of course, she'll more than double that amount within a year or so.

What, praytel, will she do with all of that money? Support their son?? Shudder to think that the State would use him as a pawn for political or economic gain.

I can't imagine how much they'll make on him each year in Federal Child Support Reimbursement Incentive Grant Funds. (66 cents x 20k/month). No conflict of interest there.

Granted, Diddy has the dough. But does that make it fair or even just?

Most people with half a brain will disagree that any parent should pay that much money in "support" regardless of how much Dad brings home.

The broader question that should get more of our policymakers to think about this issue is: if it can't be right to tax Diddy at 20% of his take-home pay, (and can't be declared as a tax write-off) how can it be right to do the same for someone in a much lower income bracket?

And they wonder why we have a problem in some communities with collecting child support and keeping fathers actively involved in their children's lives.

The Myth of Deadbeat Dads

TV host Bill O’Reilly recently declared that “There is an epidemic of child abandonment in America, mainly by fathers.” Sen. Evan Bayh has attacked “irresponsible” fathers in several speeches. Campaigning for president, Al Gore promised harsher measures against “deadbeat dads,” including sending more to jail. The Clinton administration implemented numerous child-support “crackdowns,” including the ominously named Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act; the Directory of New Hires, which contains the name of every newly hired individual in the country so that any deadbeat among them can be tracked down; and the Federal Case Registry, a massive system of government surveillance that aims to monitor 16–19 million citizens.1

In an ironic role reversal, Republicans have responded to the Democrats’ law-and-order campaign with social programs. President Bush recently announced a $320 million program to “promote responsible fatherhood,” and Congress is considering a bill to “reconnect fathers with their families.” Yet the underlying message is similar. The administration promises to increase collections with a “five-year plan.” “We want to send the strongest possible message that parents cannot walk away from their children.”2 In fact, no evidence exists that large numbers of fathers voluntarily abandon their children. No government or academic study has ever demonstrated such an epidemic, and those studies that have addressed the question directly have concluded otherwise.

In the largest federally funded study ever conducted on the subject, psychologist Sanford Braver demonstrated that very few married fathers abandon their children. Overwhelmingly it is mothers, not fathers, who are walking away from marriages and thus separating children from their fathers. Other studies have reached similar or moredramatic conclusions.3

Braver also found that when they are employed, virtually all divorced fathers pay the child support they owe and that the number of arrearages “estimated” by the government is derived not from any actual statistics but from surveys. The Census Bureau simply asked mothers whether they were receiving payments. No data exists to corroborate the mothers’ claims.

As Braver found, “there is no actively maintained national database of child support payments.”4Braver’s research undermines most justifications for the multi-billion-dollar criminal enforcement machinery, as well as the proliferation of government programs to “promote responsible fatherhood.”5

If Braver is to be believed — and no official or scholar has challenged his research — the government is engaged in a massive witch hunt against innocent citizens.

http://www.geocities.com/capitolHill/5910/Baskerville/Deadbeats1.pdf

The Trouble with Boys

They're kinetic, maddening and failing at school. Now educators are trying new ways to help them succeed.

Jan. 30, 2006 -- Spend a few minutes on the phone with Danny Frankhuizen and you come away thinking, "What a nice boy." He's thoughtful, articulate, bright. He has a good relationship with his mom, goes to church every Sunday, loves the rock band Phish and spends hours each day practicing his guitar. But once he's inside his large public Salt Lake City high school, everything seems to go wrong. He's 16, but he can't stay organized. He finishes his homework and then can't find it in his backpack. He loses focus in class, and his teachers, with 40 kids to wrangle, aren't much help.

"If I miss a concept, they tell me, 'Figure it out yourself'," says Danny.

Last year Danny's grades dropped from B's to D's and F's. The sophomore, who once dreamed of Stanford, is pulling his grades up but worries that "I won't even get accepted at community college."

His mother, Susie Malcom, a math teacher who is divorced, says it's been wrenching to watch Danny stumble. "I tell myself he's going to make something good out of himself," she says. "But it's hard to see doors close and opportunities fall away."

What's wrong with Danny?

By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind. In elementary school, boys are two times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with learning disabilities and twice as likely to be placed in special-education classes. High-school boys are losing ground to girls on standardized writing tests.

The number of boys who said they didn't like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001, according to a University of Michigan study. Nowhere is the shift more evident than on college campuses. Thirty years ago men represented 58 percent of the undergraduate student body. Now they're a minority at 44 percent. This widening achievement gap, says Margaret Spellings, U.S. secretary of Education, "has profound implications for the economy, society, families and democracy."

Is there a Government Connection to Autism?

Rise in autism cases may not be real

CHICAGO - A rise in autism cases is not evidence of a feared epidemic but reflects that schools are diagnosing autism more frequently, a study said Monday.

Children classified by school special education programs as mentally retarded or learning disabled have declined in tandem with the rise in autism cases between 1994 and 2003, the author of the study said, suggesting a switch of diagnoses.

Government health authorities have been trying to allay widely publicized concerns that vaccines containing the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which is no longer used, were behind an autism epidemic.

Crawford Applied to Reverse Parental Rights Termination

The Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed an order terminating parental rights because the trial court admitted hearsay that did not qualify under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004). This is a novel application of the Crawford decision outside the realm of criminal law. The case is A.G.G. v. Com., Cabinet for Health & Family Services, 2005 WL 1703599 (Ky.App. 7/22/05).

The full decision may be viewed here.

Sensenbrenner, Grassley Introduce Legislation Establishing an Inspector General for the Judicial Branch

WASHINGTON, April 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.) and Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), a Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today introduced legislation establishing an independent Inspector General for the Judicial Branch. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), Chairman of House Judiciary's Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property is an original co-sponsor of the House legislation, H.R. 5219 "The Judicial Transparency and Ethics Enhancement Act of 2006."