Homeless Mom Charged, Facing 20 Years For Sending Son To Better School

The Story

Basically a mom used a friend's false address to send her son to school.

This line was interesting:

A penalty, maybe, but should it be this harsh?

Discuss.

Because if there's one thing that schools should never be forced to do, it's provide children with an education!

How about we charge the local school board with the crime of not fulfilling their obligations?

Aren't education services supposed to be equal everywhere in a given country (at least in theory)?

In which case, you can't really "steal" by going to a different location, merely get the education you were supposed to be getting in the first place.

edited 25th Apr '11 10:01:03 PM by deathjavu

^In theory, yes. In practice, not so much

You're going to get a better education in say Beverly Hills than in Watts, for example

In the US, the schools are primarily funded by property taxes, so no, there's no equality or national education system. The Department of Education certainly doesn't run things.

Because thats what America needs, less educated people and more people in prison for victimless "crimes"

but if she was 'homeless', wouldn't that imply that she had no address, so that was really a choice between putiing 'no address' and an address where stuff could be sent to reach her. that sounds like a tough decision

On the other hand, i get the 'school has a catchment area' argument, and that the education budget comes from property taxes (no comment on the silliness of this system)

it's not really THAT big a deal. I hear it's a bigger deal in the UK (maybe not, but i have aquaintences there who tell me funny stories about school catchment areas and the tricks parents use to try and get their children into 'better' schools, so I have no idea as to the extent of this 'problem')

putting down innaccurate info on a form really doesn't equal 20 years in prison. maybe if being homeless is a crime...

Wow, what pieces of shit.

Oh huh. Some distant relative of mine did this using my address when I was in high school (with my parents' permission). Although oddly enough I never actually met them. I thought this sort of thing was pretty common.

when going to school is a crime, you pretty much know that something's fucked up

She defrauded the school, which warrants some sort of punishment, but I really think they could have been a tad more lenient here.

It's not really a more serious thing in the UK, it's just that some self-important types have been caught using organised crime laws to check people really live where they say they do by following children around for days. Needless to say they eventually got in trouble for such practices, after a few years.

See, this is where education reforms need to be focused on, not disenfranchising teacher unions.

How incredibly silly. Schools around these parts get paid by the student to avoid such problems.

Didn't we already have this thread a few weeks ago?

Having neither read this thread or the article I'm going to name the stuff I can remember from the last one and see if I can guess how much stuff is accurate.

1) She's in a midwest state, I want to say Missouri or some such.

2) She lived in one district (with a low tax rate and poor schools) and sent her child to a different one (with a high tax rate and good schools, funny how that works) by claiming the child lived with [her father].

3) She claimed it was because she lived closer to her work place and couldn't afford to move to the proper district.

4) She was sentenced for lying about the location of her home and child and stuff, not sending her kid to school.

Nope, this case is in Connecticut. I think the article does mention the one you're talking about (a similar case in Ohio).

This is nothing new really. This sort of address trick has been around for decades. However, most people get away with it.

I agree the punishment does not fit the crime here though.

My bad.

Isn't the US something like second in the world in education spending? What exactly is that money doing?

Building football stadiums? I'm kidding on the square there really.

The problem with US schools is that the funding is not distributed evenly. There are schools with more money than they know what to do with and schools which struggle and are extremely underfunded. Because schools are funded by local property taxes for the most part, it really makes the have/have not problem much worse.

Edit: And it's even worse than that. I've read so many times that in reality, kids in lower-class areas need more, and not less resources than kids in upper-class areas. So it's kinda ass backwards.

edited 26th Apr '11 8:04:01 AM by Karmakin

↑↑Funding the fast food industry and forming biased scientists that support big companies, from what I understand.

edited 26th Apr '11 8:05:25 AM by SilentReverence

And in some cases it's not that the schools aren't getting enough funding, it's that the area is just toxic.

I'm not sure what there is to argue about. I see one truth here, and that is that whoever came up with that sentence should themselves be sentenced something fierce for grand fuckassery and being an embarrassment for the human species.

Justice is blind. In this case, a blind six year old with a dagger in one hand and scales in another.

The woman is a fraud and a thief. Why shouldn't she be punished? Twenty years seems excessive, sure, but not outrageous.