december is still months away but 12-year-old william daniel hawkins is already rehearsing christmas songs with new york city . >> william' mother has been home schooling her child for years, in new york, a state that monitors home schoolers, every year the hawkins have to register william, the family sort of fell into home schooling after she became ill and was forced to quit her job. >> i told my husband, this is first grade. how bad can this be, we'll give it a go, i'll probably go back to work, and we're all set. i fell in love with home schooling. i ask him do you want to go to school he says no i want to home school. >> the number taught at home more than doubled between 1999 and 2012. that makes it harder to detect cases of child abuse. rachel coleman is the executive director of the center for responsible education, her organization collected data and with that data they asked a question. >> what would be the proportional rate of fatalities, if the proportion was the same, and we found that the number of home school fatalities is higher. >> one case in new jersey made headline