"Privatization replaces the democratic role of citizens finding solutions to collective problems and transforms it into consumers trucking and bargaining in a marketplace. Finding solutions in a public space emphasizes accountability, voice, transparency, rules and claims through reasoning that goes beyond the self. The market emphasizes cost-benefit thinking, profit-seeking strategies, bargaining and the satiation of individuals’ wants; good things in many circumstances, but not necessarily when it comes to the powers of the state."The so-called market also uses the state police arm to profit from wars, incarceration and the expanded use of police and punitive measures in what should be public services. This is very clear in the strange case of Williams-Bolar.
Kelley Williams-Bolar, the mom who kids attended school in a district her father lived in about two miles away, is serving time in jail on a felony charge. The so-called crime she committed was defrauding the schools. In most other industrialized countries, such a crime would not even be possible.
The so-called public school system is NOT a public school system at all. This woman would not be in jail if there was a truly public school system in Ohio. The semi-private, semi-public hybrid school system that ensures that districts remain segregated by class and race has sent a message to anyone in Ohio who thinks schools are a public social service. They are not.
Truly public schools, like real national health, could transform the US and improve the quality of life for everyone including the wealthier citizens. And enforcing arbitrary and unfair laws is going to make the already huge prison system even larger. In addition to the minor drug offenses that take up nearly a quarter of the US prison system, and the new Jim Crow that ensures these crimes are enforced on racial minorities, we can also make room for a growing number of truancy and "theft of education" crimes. State officials said they wanted to make an example of Williams-Bolar whose father lived in the district two miles from her.
Why Is Kelley Williams-Bolar In Jail For Sending Her Kids To A Suburban School? | Change.org News:
"It's a sad truth that public schools in American vary widely in quality, safety and affluence. Kids in one zip code can get top-notch teachers and swanky classrooms while kids just a few miles away make do with cast-off books and rat-infested hallways. Your education can determine your future - and Williams-Bolar wanted her daughters to have a brighter one.
Williams-Bolar's family maintains that the switch was not academically-based, and was rather for the safety of her daughters. She told the court that she'd been scared for her daughters' safety in Akron, and that there was no intention at all to deceive school officials. But that wasn't enough for Common Pleas Judge Patricia Cosgrove, who thought her behavior deserved a felony conviction."
background posts
update on williams-bolar
I think people accept the police power of schooling and then they accept a lot more authoritarian approaches to community issues and everything else. We also easily accept the loss of liberty as shown by the easy growth of something called Homeland Security, whatever that might be. Schools should not have or use police powers at all. Schools are a social service and in no way does the function of schooling in a community need or call for police.
Mediating situations like that of Williams-Bolar should be a service offered by the schools and cases like these should never reach a courtroom. Why aren't parents able to walk into schools and get counseling and advice on these issues? It is because schools treat parents and families as problems and that is because schools have power over families instead of the other way around. Schools should be working for families.
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