Ohio reduces convictions in closely watched school-choice case | Reuters:
"Ohio Governor John Kasich said on Wednesday that an Akron-area mother convicted of felony charges for lying about where she lived to enroll her children in a suburban school district deserves a second chance.
Kelley Williams-Bolar, 41, attracted national attention and drew the support of school-choice advocates after she was convicted and jailed for using her father's address to enroll her two daughters in the higher performing Copley Fairlawn School District instead of the Akron Public Schools.
Kasich, a Republican, reduced Williams-Bolar's two felony convictions to misdemeanors, overruling the state's parole board, which last week rejected a pardon in the case.
"When I first heard about this situation, it seemed to me that the penalty was excessive for the offense," Kasich said.
"In addition, the penalty could exclude her from certain economic opportunities for the rest of her life. So, today I've reduced those felony convictions to what I think are the more appropriate, first-degree misdemeanors. No one should interpret this as a pass. It's a second chance."From my previous post update on williams-bolar:
Schools will never become advisory and helpful participants in communities if they have police power over families. Schools have grown used to this situation and citizens have also grown used to these authoritarian, top-down solutions. Now districts like the one Williams-Bolar is dealing with want to expand that power to ensure their private club of a school is properly policed. This is a far cry from what was intended when compulsory attendance was enacted to require children to attend for a few years and to move toward a literate society.
I think schools and the social experience within them create a patterning that impacts everyone who attends and this means the power and authority of rigid rules, bells, tests, grades, hierarchy and coercion. Even wealthy schools where these methods are muted by the general well-being will produce citizens more comfortable with authoritarian methods than they would be otherwise.
The case of Williams-Bolar is an alarming one in what it tells us about institutions and about ourselves. And it is a clear marker that we are way overdue to bring schools into the 21st century where they can play productive roles in their communities. Ending the ability of schools to police families is a first step toward making schools community resources that work with families and kids instead of against them.The implications of this case are far-reaching and frightening in ways few in the media have examined.
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