A woman lied about her address so that her kids could go to a different school. This happens all the time. I know, because my parents did it. They said I lived at rental property they owned so that I could go to the best public school in town. Is it legal? Not really. Is it criminal? I wouldn’t have really thought so. More of a, “You know you can’t do that, right?” sort of thing.
Apparently, it is a felony in Ohio. Well, only for this one mother, who was after all poor and black, but you know, it’s the law.
http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2011/01/25/mother-jailed-for-sending-kids-to-a-good-school/
Shocked and appalled is sort of an understatement here, but I am certainly those. Why would you send someone to jail for this? She was just trying to help her kids. The motives and need are so clear and so understandable, to call it a felony is absurd on the face of it.
Ashley's co-blogger is a third year student at Northwestern University who runs on coffee and snark. . At some point, she'd like to make people sit on couches and tell her about their feelings, but right now she writes in different places around the internet and makes silly faces when she doesn't know what to say. She's the president of her local Secular Student Alliance affiliate, and she is on the Secular Woman speakers bureau. Opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Secular Student Alliance
1 comment
TurboFool
January 26, 2011 at 8:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Clearly poor, black people in this country still need to know their place! I highly doubt even a poor white family, much less one of average income, would have been noticed by anyone. I have no words that properly describe how I feel about this. But yes, clearly people are being reminded that taking efforts to improve their children’s status in society will be met with harsh consequences.