Ohio Mom Proves that More School Choice is Imperative

Last week a story appeared about an Ohio mom who went to jail for sending her kids to a better school than the one they were attending. http://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-mom-jailed-sending-kids-school-district/story?id=12763654 While her methods may have been fraudulent, what mother would not have at least thought of doing the same thing? She is enrolled in school to become a teacher while also working full time to take care of her children. Money is tight and the neighborhood, and it's schools, is not the best one. So she used her parents address and sent the kids to another school where they would be safer and get a better education.

Frankly, I might have done the same thing in the same circumstances. The whole issue would have resolved itself shortly as she was just a few hours away from her degree. The income increase would let her move into a better neighborhood. Now that is in jeopardy because no one can work as a teacher in Ohio who has been convicted of a felony. For some reason, she was convicted of a felony.

Now I ask you...what should have happened to her? How about a slap on the wrist? After all we live in a country where a tax cheat is now head of the IRS. What she did was nothing like that. Why could they not have looked at who this woman was and how she was trying to rise out of her circumstances to provide a better living for her daughters? Isn't that what we all want?

As much as I dislike being on the same side of an issue with Al Sharpton, we agree that this was over the top. I don't, however, agree that is was racially motivated. Yes, they were looking to make an example of someone and her ticket came up. (There have been 30-40 similar issues in that district in the past two years, but nothing like this happened to them.)

But there is no proof that racism was behind this atrocious miscarriage of justice and the race cards gets played too often without proof. I don't see this as a black/white/purple/green issue. It is a "what's right" issue. It is a matter of doing the right thing based on circumstances.

A former guest on my radio show and author of The Big Black Lie and the Black Sphere blog, Kevin Jackson, http://www.theblacksphere.net was going this week to Ohio to see if he can help her, but had to postpone it until next week due to the weather. I believe the whole verdict should be vacated or at least, reduced to a misdemeanor so she has a way of supporting her children.

What if by putting her children in that other school, she prevented a bullying incident that occured like the one we heard about this week in PA? http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/caught-tape-13-year-attacked-classmates/story?id=12809350

So what is the answer? More school choice is the answer. More charter schools, more vouchers, finding ways to ease the restrictions between school districts. If a school is losing students because it is not safe or the educational opportunity is not up to par, then work on that school. Don't punish kids and parents who are doing the right thing the wrong way. Find ways to make the school, first safe, and then a better educational opportunity.

This madness has to stop where real criminals get away and poor hard working people are victimized by the system that should be protecting them. That is my rant.