The latest crime wave: Sending your child to a better school
In case you needed further proof of the American education system’s failings, especially in poor and minority communities, consider the latest crime to spread across the country: educational theft. That’s the charge that has landed several parents, such as Ohio’s Kelley Williams-Bolar, in jail this year.
Very interesting article! Thanks for sharing it. I’m shocked that this resulted in a felony conviction. A great read on the growing criminal justice system is “The New Jim Crow.”
I will be praying that there can be true change to both our education and our criminal justice systems. And may that change start with us, the church.
Report This Comment
01.03.12 at 4:35 pm
The fact that striving for a better education (and going to great lengths to get it) is now a crime (a felony at that!) is shocking. It’s also worrisome to know that children are being followed home, even if it is technically by a school official or someone hired to do that. How can you trust people to do that and know they won’t harm any children?
I understand why the author wrote about the parents being the difference between those two schools, but I don’t agree with it. I believe it also comes down to the teachers. As someone who wants to go into education, teachers also have to have that sense of “not getting bulldozed” and knowing to have faith in the community and their students, who have already been brought down by low expectations.
Report This Comment
01.03.12 at 10:38 pm
Articles and stories such as these are not uncommon these days. What is more troubling, to me at least, is how the majority of the Church has failed to represent or stand behind minorities for support or to be a tower of strength. I’d like to see the day where the majority realizes that stories such as these are a real consequence of the system that has been built to keep “some” successful while marginalizing the “others,” and that such system is the beast we have to continuously fight in order to be Christ’s hands and feet.
Report This Comment
01.04.12 at 10:45 am
Former President George W. Bush often talked about the soft bigotry of low expectations. These black families, including Mrs. Williams-Bolar, dared to break the mold — and the law — by daring to believe that their children deserved to attend better schools and be challenged by superior teachers, in a safer environment, with a greater success model and surrounded by better facilities and more stable families. How dare she! The amazing scenario kind or reminds me of the modern civil rights movement of the fifities and sixties. Dr. King and his “anarchists” and “radicals” dared to believe that they could eat in resturaunts, sit in any seat on the bus, drink out of any water fountain and yes, attend any school — regardless or race, creed, and in this situation, income and neighborhood. Fifty years ago, we jailed activists for defying an unjust law that marginalized them for wanting better, for demaning equality and justice, and the right to vote. Today, largely defined by an era when millions of poor and marginalized minority youth are dropping out and turning to crime, drugs giving up on life before reaching adulthood, we have the audacity to lock up parents for doing everything they can to give their children the best chance for sucess. Unfortunately, at least in this case, some things change and some things stay the same.
Report This Comment
01.04.12 at 10:56 pm
I’m glad to see some light being shed on the inequalities of the educational lottery system. As a student that personally wasn’t “lucky” enough to attend the better high school I sough after, I sympathize with the desperation of parents and children. In high school several of my friends used fake addresses as a desperate cry for a better chance. It continues to amaze me that something like an address can determine a big portion of your chance of educational mobility. I attended a high school so poor that we were not ever able to let our books leave the classroom. These conditions are unfair and moreover they produce unrealistic environments for kids to learn. As parents and children are fighting for their BASIC rights to a DECENT education system (which I now appreciate in my collegiate years), we must stop minimizing and try to understand the inequalities these children are experiencing as well as their lasting effects.
Report This Comment
01.05.12 at 12:37 am
In addition to the challenges of under-performing schools and low expectations for our students (just get decent grades and stay out of trouble), the education system must start equipping our high school students for college and the business world. Life skills such as goal setting, time management, effective communication (they can text but have a hard time speaking face-to-face), and creative thinking must be taught along with math, science, and history. Given the skills and the challenge of raising the bar, Millennials can change the world like no other generation in history!
Report This Comment
01.05.12 at 9:25 am
The foundational problem with criminalizing a parent’s pursuit of the best education for their children is not a focus on where these students can go to attend a performing school. The justice question that needs advocacy is why under performing schools continue to exist. The idea that it is a crime punishable by imprisonment for a caring, informed parent who acts with a sense of urgency to pursue a quality education for her child is a reflection of a non-caring community that is okay with some children being prepared for a fulfilling future and for others to be robbed of hope and the preparation to fulfill theirs. All parents who have careers in law enforcement, social services and home owners should form an unrelenting team to eliminate the prejudicial systems embedded in the public education system. Students should not be forced to leave their communities to receive a quality education. As justice advocates our focus should be in removing impediments within the local schools from poor facility maintenance, lack of quality academic and scientific resources and underperforming personnel and rebellious students. If we have money to spend on using our law enforcement it should be to bring these criminals who mask themselves hidden behind their employment and attendance holding low student and personnel expectation. Justice will require advocates to move beyond letter writing and studies. Activism provides an engagement in which all voices can raise the standards and hold the system accountable to provide equal and quality education. The students will only be this age for one year and this mother recognizes that time will not wait for the system to improve or repair itself. I applaud her love, concern and willingness to prepare herself to be a part of the solution (getting her teaching license). The rest of us will either join her cause or pay a bigger price later when these students are unprepared to participate in an information age that is moving faster than most of us can keep up with. Where is our sense of urgency? Can we become relentless in our determination to change a broken system? Are we willing to go up against the prejudicial systems that keep the inequalities in public education alive? Uhmmm
Report This Comment
01.05.12 at 10:29 am
Former President George W. Bush often talked about the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” As I read the sorrowful story of the arrest of mothers who used “any means necessary” by pretending to live in a certain district so that their children could attend a better school, as a student of history, I couldn’t help but reflect on how things were 60 years ago.
Dr. King and his band of “anarchists” and “radicals” constantly challenged and defied an unjust system by sitting in at all-white restaurants, be beaten for drinking from segregated water fountains, being turned away when trying to register to vote and having the unmitigated nerve to attempt to sit next to a white person on a bus. Ironically, at that time one of the keys to success of the non-violent civil rights movement was the willingness of the SCLC to pull young black children OUT of sub-standard schools to go and join the marches and be arrested, thus filling up the jails and forcing their parents to become involved in the movement. Today, sadly, we read of parents who are being arrested because they dare to believe that their children deserve the best chance at success by placing them in superior schools with top flight teachers, the newest technology, a strong parental support system and numerous success models. Today’s poor and marginalized families aren’t being victimized by Jim Crow laws of the fifties and sixties, but instead by institutional racism and endemic patterns that rewards the economically achievers while continuing to suppress those at the bottom of the food chain by telling them that it doesn’t matter how bright they are or willing to work to improve their life chances, they are doomed to attend inferior schools or risk seeing their parents carted off to jail like common criminals. All this is taking place while multi-national corporations receive huge governmental bailouts. It’s no wonder Dr. King talked about the need to “Redeem the Soul of America.”
Report This Comment
01.05.12 at 12:58 pm
America’s educational system has many systemic problems that foster inequalities throughout our society. Imagine what it would be like going to a school where violence is common, teachers don’t have enough supplies, students come to school hungry, etc. Urban schools, with their low rate of graduation, would receive a failing grade and be closed if parents had the power to do so. That parents would risk arrest for their children to have a chance at a quality education should make all Americans angry enough to do something about the state of our education. Meanwhile, we continue to fall behind other countries academically and wonder why. For our nation to continue to be great, we must invest in all of our people: Providing our children with an education that challenges them in a safe, nurturing and stimulating environment is a good starting point.
Report This Comment
01.05.12 at 9:42 pm
I think the thought that kept coming to my mind while reading this was, “I would do the same thing.” This particular law (and seemingly the entire education system in the US) is (obviously) unjust and requires reexamination and renovation, if not complete removal. The governor, I think, exercised wisdom in moving the exceedingly harsh verdict from felony to misdemeanor. While this is admirable, the governor cannot repeat the same for everyone who practices civil disobedience in his state. While one of the tenants of civil disobedience is being will to accept whatever punishment is require by the unjust law, it is also the responsibility of the courts of the land to deliver just verdicts. However, one cannot expect a just verdict from an unjust law, just like one cannot expect figs from thorn bushes. Better to rip them up and throw them into the fire.
Report This Comment
01.05.12 at 11:16 pm
Wow. I guess I had assumed hopping “boundaries” for schools resulted in some sort of slap on the wrist, and not a full-on hunt.
I’m curious to hear people’s thoughts on how to go about dialogue with districts and communities that are participating in keeping students “out”. I think there can be some dialogue in this vein, utilizing churches and other advocates.
There are so many layers of issues in this article.
Report This Comment
01.06.12 at 12:37 pm
Yes, wow…so, felony charges for caring about the quality education of one’s children?! So, are we rewarding parents who are passive and apathetic about the quality of their children’s education? I pray that there will be more movers and shakers, who are not afraid of rocking the boat for the right reasons, who educate others and bring about change in their communities.
Report This Comment
01.08.12 at 12:24 am
I think in the long-term, the thing to do is petition to have school board leaders, etc. who support zoning removed in many areas. In the short-term, I would say that parents should either risk getting caught or churches and non-profits should begin providing ‘free community schools’ in depressed areas.
Report This Comment
01.09.12 at 5:35 pm
I agree with the people saying that this is “The new Jim Crow” this has been going on for years now but I believe that it is recently becoming a bigger issue as it should, considering that kids are just placed in any school in their zone.It’s just another way from keeping underprivileged children from succeeding. These schools receive less funding compared to other schools, and they lose funding every year based on test score.I think that these schools deserve the most attention and a little more funding to improve their academics not have funds taken away. I believe that parents should have the right to place their children in any public school if they cannot affort to pay tuition for a private or charter school education.Especially, if the school that their children are assigned to is not performing at it’s highest potential and not producing a good outcome.
Report This Comment
01.11.12 at 2:00 am
Issues of justice always blow me to pieces. I don’t like to admit it, but to me I feel as if I don’t have enough time to invest in issues of injustice. I don’t like the question at the top of this artice “who is to blame” because it makes me feel guilty. It breaks my heart knowing that these types of injustice are happening and that people are being arrested because they are trying to help their kids thrive. It is hard to know how to respond because I care about justice but there seems to be so many issues of injustice all over the world. I don’t know which issue to respond. I don’t know what role I play. Where do I fit in? These are just some on my thoughts after reading this article.
Report This Comment
01.12.12 at 2:55 pm