"We expect a more considered reaction, though, from journalists, who are supposed to make objectivity paramount and put facts ahead of feelings. It is a standard that the CBS reporter failed to uphold; he chose instead to exploit the emotions of the story, seizing on the first sign that inadequate government controls might be to blame for the abuse of home-schooled children. It is not a conclusion based on readily accessible facts -- facts that should at least have received some mention in CBS's report. Consider just a few, both anecdotal and national:

A few days before CBS's report, a Miami-Dade public school teacher and her volunteer aide were charged with five counts of child abuse and false imprisonment for binding and gagging 6-year-old students with tape to punish them for misbehavior.

The husband of a Bay County, Mich., public elementary school teacher was sentenced on Oct. 6, 2003, to six years in prison for molesting two first graders while in his wife's classroom.

According to the latest figures from the federal National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) for July 1, 1998 to September 30, 1999 -- just one school year -- there were 47 'school-associated violent deaths,' 38 of which were homicides.

In 2000, again according to NCES, students were the victims of 'about 700,000 nonfatal violent crimes (that is, serious violent crime plus simple assault) at school.'

Does any of this suggest that government intervention can protect children? "