The American Spectator : Better Choices

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Better Choices

By RiShawn Biddle on 2.2.11 @ 6:08AM

Punishing desperate parents who want better schools for their children.

If there is a reason why more radical forms of school choice are critical to the reform of America's education crisis, it can be seen in the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar, a student teacher in Akron, Ohio, convicted of using her father's address in order to help her kids avoid the city's dropout factories and attend better-performing schools in the Copley-Fairlawn district.

Williams-Bolar's case garnered national attention from civil rights leaders and school reformers alike. While Copley-Fairlawn took the time to make her an example, she was just one of 48 families who have committed such residency frauds in the district; in most cases, the kids end up being removed from the schools while the parents may be forced to pay back tuition (which is funny given that the parents already foot part of the tab through their own state tax dollars). While the statistical evidence is spotty at best, the reality is that low-income families elsewhere throughout the country are doing the same thing.

All this in turn shows the reality that parents -- especially poor white, black, and Latino families in the nation's urban centers -- struggle mightily to get high quality education for their children within the confines of traditional public schools. And traditional districts, in turn, are doing what they can not to make this a reality.

In December, parents of students attending McKinley Elementary School in Compton, California, have used the state's Parent Trigger law -- which allows a majority of parents to petition for the overhaul of a school -- to convert the school into a charter school and remove it from control of the Compton Unified School District. Since then, the district has attempted to toss out the petition and its allies have leveled allegations of deceptive tactics against the parents and Parent Revolution, the organization helping the families in their effort.

Meanwhile in most districts, the range of intra-district choice options available to families of all economic backgrounds is limited at best. Most traditional school districts continue to restrict students to schools within particular geographic areas. The few instances when districts allow for intra-district choice -- in the form of so-called magnet schools -- are still limited; students often can't attend magnets without the blessing of teachers and guidance counselors. Poor and first generation middle class families, who usually don't know the game or how to play it, still lose. A smattering of states, including California and New Jersey, allow for students in the worst of the worst schools to transfer to districts outside of their home communities. This still means that many families are still stuck sending their kids to failure mills and mediocre schools.

Public charter schools have proven to the be the most-successful form of school choice -- and one embraced by urban parents, centrist and conservative activists, school reform-minded governors and the Obama administration alike. Thanks to the Race to the Top reform initiative, states such as California and New York have either lifted or eliminated artificial caps on the number of charter schools that can be started. But charters still serve just three percent of all students and mostly in the nation's urban communities. Thanks to state laws that require charter school petitions to be approved by school districts, few suburban districts willingly bring competition into their backyards. So middle class and poor families in the suburbs dissatisfied with traditional schools have few options.

The continuing obstinacy among defenders of traditional public education -- including the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers -- to the idea of letting parents make real education decisions is part of the problem (as is the opposition of suburban families). But the biggest problem lies with the nature of school funding itself.

State governments provide the plurality of all school revenues (picking up 48 percent of the total tab); if they picked up the full tab, school choice-minded governors and legislatures can then open up the full range of choice, either through vouchers or weighted student formulas. But the fact that districts continue to depend on local property tax dollars gives them leverage to oppose even small-scale choice options; they can argue that choice will cost them money (even as they ignore requests from families within their districts, who are funding the tab).

States could pull off the trick of fully funding schools, expanding choice and even lowering overall tax loads by increasing taxes they already charge while forcing districts to quash their property tax levies; that has been the approach taken since the 1970s as part of property tax relief efforts and in response to earlier generations of school funding lawsuits.

But even with that, another aspect of the choice problem must be solved: Expanding the array of private and parochial options available for kids to attend.

For decades, Catholic diocesan schools -- which emerged in the 1850s to help Catholic children escape the heavy-handed Protestantism in an earlier generation of public schools -- have been the destination of choice for poor and middle class families alike. They have also proven to do a better job in improving student achievement than traditional public schools. But the number of Catholic schools in the United States has declined by 13 percent between the 1999-2000 and 2009-2010 school years, according to the National Catholic Educational Association. Last month, the Archdiocese of New York announced it would close 27 of its schools. Other private schools are also closing down, leaving fewer private schools to take up the slack.

Vouchers may stall some of the decline of Catholic and other parochial schools. But it is going to take other groups to start new ones. In urban communities, black churches are already housing charter schools on their grounds; they could easily take on the role of providing academic instruction, either on their own or in collaboration with other churches or online education providers to provide so-called blended (or online instruction with some physical classroom time). Churches in suburban areas, along with Rotary Clubs, other community organizations or even homeschooling parents working together, could also do the same.

Kids and their parents shouldn't be stuck with the worst America's public schools can offer.

About the Author

RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (25) | Leave a comment

Lawn Guy| 2.2.11 @ 6:54AM

http://edesposito.blogspot.com/

You will need to scroll down to locate text quoted:

Somehow missing from all the national reporting is the more complete version of the remarkable lengths the Copley-Fairlawn School District went to in trying to avoid bringing this to trial. After all, it was the taxpayers of Copley-Fairlawn paying the freight for her attempts to game the system. The district is charged with seeking out abuse and fraud. They did their job.

Months of working to get a resolution stretching into years, parent after parent after parent doing the right thing and working to appeal or resolve the issue instead of compounding lie after lie after lie after lie. After all, it's the prosecutor which must enforce the law. They did so with compassion and allowed the dozens of other families to do the right thing without the weight of the law about their shoulders. They did their job.

The opportunities presented to Kelley Williams Bolar to not only resolve the issue at little or no cost but to do the right thing by her employer, the Akron School Board, which suffered by losing the state funds they should have received from enrollment of the children. That Williams Bolar not only broke the law by lying time and time again should play a part in determining if she's fit to teach Akron's children. At the very least, it deserves a serious debate and not automatic calls for clemency before the full and unvarnished truth comes out. The Akron district should be outraged one of their own, a colleague, falsified statements time and time and time again and ultimately cost Akron the state support it would have had through rightful enrollment under the rules everyone else must follow. That's their job.

Missing somehow from the media record are the records where school lunches were approved by Copley-Fairlawn based on false income statements which didn't include the child support or even Williams Bolar's Akron public schools employment?

There should be outrage from those serving our country when learning that the response to one of many letters delivered to Williams Bolar was that she was not available because she was "deployed"; not only lying on court documents, sworn statements and multiple interviews but even invoking the image of military service to dodge the issue.
>>>
there is more to the story then the conclusions drawn from the headlines.

Sean| 2.2.11 @ 8:03AM

Is the school district going to refund the property tax money it takes from this person's father and family members?

Lawn Guy| 2.2.11 @ 8:15AM

I doubt it

http://www.ohio.com/news/114533394.html

A Summit County court hearing for the father of an Akron mom sent to jail for improperly enrolling her children in Copley-Fairlawn schools has been postponed until next month.
The charges against Edward L. Williams — tampering with records and grand theft — were separated from his daughter's school residency case before their trial this month in Common Pleas Judge Patricia Cosgrove's court.
Williams, 64, was charged with the two felonies in 2009, court records show, accused of providing false information to the Summit County Department of Job and Family Services regarding his marital status and wife's income.
Prosecutors contend Williams deceived the agency to obtain financial disability assistance, Medicaid benefits and other public aid.

He had been scheduled to appear Monday before Cosgrove, but the hearing was rescheduled for 8:30 a.m. Feb. 9.
His daughter, Kelley Williams-Bolar, a single mother going to college and working as a teaching assistant at Buchtel High School, was sentenced to jail last week after being convicted of falsifying records so her two children could attend Copley-Fairlawn schools.

Dai Alanye| 2.2.11 @ 10:10AM

Lawn Guy, who runs one of the more simplistically-designed blogs on the internet, is in such high dudgeon over this "theft of services" that he accuses Williams of costing both Copley-Fairlawn and Akron school money. You can't have it both ways---pick one or the other.

If we reverse the standard applied in this case, the state of Ohio and my local school district owe me money for forcing me to send my children to private schools in order to get them better educations.

My philosophy regarding funding of education is simple---get the Feds completely out, reduce the state role, and allow parents to fully control their children's education via vouchers. The regular argument against this is that parents are too stupid to have power over education. Perhaps this is true---look at the people we stupidly elect to schoolboards.

Lawn Guy| 2.2.11 @ 5:05PM

"That Lawn Guy’s a friend of them long-haired, hippie type, pinko fags
I betcha he's even got a Commie flag
Tacked up on the wall, inside of his garage
He's a snake in the grass, I tell ya guys
He may look dumb, but that's just a disguise
He's a mastermind in the ways of espionage."

They all started lookin' real suspicious at him
And he jumped up an' said; "Now, just wait a minute, Jim
You know he's lyin' I've been livin' here all of my life."
"I'm a faithfull follower of Brother John Birch
And I belong to the Antioch Baptist Church
And I ain't even got a BLOG, you can call home and ask my wife."

snipelee| 2.2.11 @ 2:21PM

"...rightful enrollment"? WTF! It's really all about money and union membership, isn't it? "Charged with seeking out fraud and abuse"? What a joke! Charged with protecting the local fiefdom is much more accurate. Go ahead, keep pushing. Your time in power is about to expire.

Alan Brooks| 2.2.11 @ 9:37PM

Some religious schools are worse than publik skools.
Best is homeschooling-- by FAR.

Kenny| 2.2.11 @ 7:10AM

"in most cases, the kids end up being removed from the schools while the parents may be forced to pay back tuition (which is funny given that the parents already foot part of the tab through their own state tax dollars)."

Wrong. State income tax from a resident of Akron does not flow into Coply-Fairlawn schools. Rather, massive amounts of income tax money from people in Copley and Fairlawn goes to the Akron schools.

skedaddle| 2.2.11 @ 7:38AM

What's so hard about moving to a better school district? My sister-in-law managed it while on welfare and receiving Section 8 housing. If she could do it with those restraints, anyone can do it.

Appleby| 2.2.11 @ 8:30AM

There is always an answer other than crime. For example, parochial schools almost always will work with the parents of poor children who need special arrangements for tuition, including sometimes sweat equity and monthly payments. They will also provide uniforms and help the parent(s) in other ways, without blowing a trumpet in the town square.

Did this woman try any other avenue besides theft of services? How about moving in with her father, for the easiest answer?

beebop| 2.2.11 @ 8:33AM

Today's newspapers in Ohio provide additional information:

1. It was not the SCHOOL to which she objected but the neighborhood in which she resided.

2. Governor Kasich is investigating.

3. How much was spent to investigat/litigate? I'm thinking more than the tuition lost. Robbing Peter and paying Paul?

4. Vouchers would eliminate all of this!

Jason | 2.3.11 @ 12:46PM

"Vouchers would eliminate all of this!" Crazy idea to let a free market idea, like competition, reform our public education, but it would make a world of difference for everyone. You could also REPEAL big government ideas (Bush's No Child Left Behind unconstitutional law) because states and school districts could set their own curriculums and let the parents determine which schools are successful. Go vouchers! Go freedom!

froglegs| 2.2.11 @ 9:31AM

Isn't it ironic that if the mother were an illegal alien from Mars that there would have been no crime?

Ken in Tyler| 2.2.11 @ 9:55AM

Sympathy for the Mom. Respect for the law and personal responsibility. She had numerous options and from the list chose deceipt and fraud. While we need to improve both the law and public education, lets not adopt the leftie tactic of using a "victim" as a poster child to make our point.

JeffreyInSA| 2.2.11 @ 3:51PM

I understand the concept of we are a nation of laws, not people. However, when the laws are so egregious I can understand people not following them. So many laws and regulations are in effect today, that any DA that wanted to could arrest and convict everyone of us under some pretext if he/she wanted. Our nation of laws has been so subverted that it has made criminals of us all.

It used to be there had to be an injured party in order for there to be a crime. If you live & breath in America, you pay taxes. Even illegal aliens pay taxes when they purchase things. So the argument that this women hasn't contributed by paying taxes is pretty thin. At worst, money could be transferred from district A where she actually lives to district B where her kids went to school. Jail for this is absurd. It may be that this lady did more than has been reported so far, but my sympathy has to be with her and not the school district.

If they forced us to only shop at our local government designated grocery store, we'd go into instant rebellion. Yet we blindly hand over our children to the government daily.

Molly Brown| 2.2.11 @ 11:25AM

Everyone thinks school vouchers will empower people to leave the public school system for charter schools. Do you really think Ohio or another state can afford $20K per student for a charter school? Who is going to make up the difference? Middle class, workers, corporate slaves? What about personal responsibility? I've read articles the Mr. Bolar was paying Kelley child support for their two daughters. However, she falsified documents to get section 8 housing in Akron, free lunches in Copley-Fairlawn, and possibly Pell Grants and student loans. The salary she earned as a teacher's aid in the APS was also not reported. Yet Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Kevin Huffman and others have made Kelley into the Rosa Parks of education reform. I would support charter schools as a tax payer if the children were taken out of their section 8 housing and allowed to prosper in state run homes and orphanages. Home environments are destroying our youth, especially in the inner city. Without discipline and oversight, homework doesn't get turned in, and unruly students disrupt the classroom or discourage others from becoming too educated and uppity.

JeffreyInSA| 2.2.11 @ 3:59PM

Molly, the money is obviously all ready being spent. Vouchers are just moving money from one account to another. Maybe some initial administrative costs would be incurred to get this setup. But afterwards it wouldn't be 20K in addition.

The resistance to vouchers is for due mostly to fear of not being able to compete and fear of giving up control.

What do you mean about personal responsibility? Parents who participate in the choice of their kid's school would be increasing their role & responsibility.

I think Kelley should be up their with Rosa Parks. She took steps to improve her child's future against an oppressive government. She's doing the same thing as Rosa, but her act wasn't orchestrated ahead of time like Ms. Parks was.

John Navratil| 2.2.11 @ 8:38PM

Molly Brown,

Where did $20K come from? Years ago when my children were starting out in private schools in Houston (because the public schools were so bad) there was a shortage of class space in the district. Students were offered to private schools in the area with the following conditions:

(1) They could only be reimbursed as they would have been reimbursed. That meant a required first and second roll-call.

(2) There would be no cherry-picking. If you wanted to be in the program, you had to take what you were given.

There was no shortage of takers. At the time, HISD spent, on average, $6500 per child (200K children $1.3 billion budget). That was pushing 20 years ago and I'm sure the numbers have changed. One thing has not. Public school is the most expensive bad education you can buy.

Vouchers have the benefit of empowering parents who care enough to get their kids into schools they wish.

I'm not sure where you are going with your point on Section 8 housing. Do you really want the state in the business of not only educating our youth (arguably a fatal conflict of interest), but raising them as well? Try reading "Brave New World".

cowgirl| 2.2.11 @ 12:46PM

Homeschool. Homeschool. Homeschool. And by the way, I am ready for ANY discussion about socialization.

Kenny| 2.2.11 @ 12:57PM

Wrong Molly.

vouchers are not for charter schools but private ones. Furthermore, the typical voucher is worth about $3,000.

Vouchers would save the taxpayers billions of dollars. Of course, the losers with vouchers are the unionized teachers, but that's all for the good, isn't it?

SugartownSuper| 2.2.11 @ 1:18PM

There are no simple answers. I have been involved in independent education as a teacher's kid, parent, and trustee for over 50 years. In my area, the Philadelphia suburbs, we have what are considered some of the finest public schools in the nation, cheek-by-jowl with the Philadelphia Public School system, widely considered one of the worst. In all fairness to public education generally, they are forced to take virtually all comers. We in the independent school community, as individual schools, are not. We can be very selective depending on our particular mission, whether it be single-sex, coed, military, religious, academically gifted or academically challenged as the case may be. The vast majority of public schools in our country on the other hand, do a pretty good job with the lower academic 15 pct., and a pretty good job with the top academic 15 pct., the 70 pct in the middle just kind of muddles along. Add discipline issues, political interference in the curriculum, unionism effects, and the corruption often associated with the urban school systems, and it is a miracle that ANY graduate of a public school can add 2 and 2. The desperation of parents for the betterment of their children is understandable and were I in the situation that Kelley Williams-Bolar found herself, I guarantee you that I would do anything to get my children what my children were, in fact, lucky enough to get: a superior education from teachers earning cr*p wages [compared to their pulic school counterparts] in old and frowzy classrooms housed in buildings no public school administrator would walk into. The whole debate must focus on the ONLY issue here: What is the right thing to do for the kids?

Negro X | 2.2.11 @ 8:41PM

Why does this ignorant woman beleive her child needs an education? I find it appalling that she has biten the hand that feeds her. Hasn't the left provided her and her family with all the entitlements they'll ever need? The last thing we need is another uppity educated negro questioning the government.

FREE tea| 2.3.11 @ 5:18AM

---Aside from the now admitted dumb-down
programming that IS our culture, to say nothing of dum-down flouride and drugs in the water, those relentless chem-trails, and the MASSIVE, soon to be mandatory, vaccination campaigns
against infants, children and anyone else
Bill Gates can get his paws on ----Bush Jr.
has been devastatingly exposed and called out
on the issues of 'No child left behind'
and the Soviet-style poly-teching of America
via 'charter schools' ---by former Reagan
education official Carlotte Isserbyte.

"The Right Wing has been lying to the American
people for decades now---"

AGAIN, it can't be pointed out too often,
Nixon/MAO ---was TREASON.

CHECK OUT her recent interviews on Youtube.

-ESSENTIAL-

Augusta| 2.3.11 @ 5:32AM

This sickens me! These children deserve Calculus, while in many urban schools they're being taught nonsense like 'Sewing 101' - That is not hyperbole, but fact. This is little different from the dark days of Slavery and Jim Crow where blacks were brutally punished for learning! The public schools in the suburbs aren't much better, but the suburbs do at least have a few high performing schools. Parents are entitled to choose what's best for their own children! This lady, who is guilty only of loving her children, will now become the poster parent for the school choice movement. Obama is a useless phony who only spreads dependence and ignorance! This is blatant segregation! Please urban moms and dads - please move out of the bad school districts, do whatever it takes. God Save the Black Family!