Have no fear...Valerie Strauss can handle her detractors.

But...

As I indicated in my Friday post...this is just the beginning!

The education reformers will be all over this. Not the Strauss article...their minions are simply honing their ire with their comments. The education reformers - led by President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan - will use the Williams-Bolar "Rosa Parks Moment" to bolster their attack on public education and its practitioners.

It is sooooooo much easier for those responsible - the political demagogues - to create scapegoats (teachers) and sympathetic victims (Williams-Bolar) and attack a symptom of what's wrong with the United States public education system instead of taking on the disease...P-O-V-E-R-T-Y.

BTW...

With the money I make from selling my "Free Kelley" t-shirt, I plan on buying one that says "Free Valerie".

From the Washington Post...

Link to Original Story

The Answer Sheet
By Valerie Strauss

Not a Rosa Parks moment

An Ohio mother of two was sent to jail for nine days because she falsified documents so her children could attend a school outside their district that was better than the school for which they were zoned.

The episode, which unfolded in Summit County, Ohio, is now being tagged by some a “Rosa Parks moment for education,” a view that likens this mother, Kelley Williams-Bolar, to civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

It isn’t.

Parks, of course, was the seamstress who, on Dec. 1, 1955, famously refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger and was arrested for violating a city ordinance. Her act was one of several that launched a movement to end legal segregation in the United States.

Williams-Bolar was convicted by a jury of two felony counts of tampering with records -- lying on registration forms and applications for reduced/free school lunch -- then sentenced to 10 days in jail, though she ended up serving nine, as well as two years of probation and 80 hours of community service, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

A single mother attending college and working as a high school teaching assistant, Williams-Bolar lives in subsidized housing in Akron. Her father lives in nearby Copley Township, which has predominantly white schools, and Williams-Bolar wanted her children to enroll there because the Copley-Fairlawn School District has higher performance ratings than the school in her home district.

The school system prosecuted her, estimating that her children had cost it approximately $36,000 by attending illegally.

Now some people are saying that she was singled out for prosecution because she is African American and that she took a principled stand on the issue of poor public education and the right of parents to have a choice about their children's school. Hence, the Rosa Parks of our time.

The Summit County prosecutor, meanwhile, maintains that Williams-Bolar deserved her felony convictions.

"There are many single mothers and families in similar situations who want the best for their children who are not breaking the law," Sherri Bevan Walsh wrote in a statement. "In fact, dozens of other similar cases in recent years have been resolved at the parent level prior to prosecution because they either removed their children from the school district, paid tuition or moved into the school district.

"Ms. Williams-Bolar was the only case that could not be resolved at the parent level because she would not acknowledge that she did anything wrong and she refused to cooperate in any way."

According to the Akron Beacon Journal,

"From 2005 through Friday afternoon, the Copley-Fairlawn School District formally confronted 48 families whose children were illegally attending its schools. The breakdown:

• 29 families were black.
• 15 families were white.
• two families were Asian.
• one family was Pacific Islander.
• one family was multiracial."

It is, of course, easy to sympathize with a parent who wants the best for his or her child. What parent doesn’t?

But that doesn’t mean parents should be given carte blanche to lie to public school systems about where they live. Making a felon of Williams-Bolar and sending her to jail was wrong. But declaring her the modern equivalent of Rosa Parks is, too.

Rosa Parks had the courage of her convictions. She broke an unjust law knowingly and knew there would be consequences -- and she didn’t make her stand through subterfuge. What catapulted Parks into the history books was bravery, transparency and honesty.

Williams-Bolar didn’t take a public stand, nor did she decide to give up her public housing subsidy and move in with her father so her children could legally go to the school she preferred.

The real lesson is that the issue of equity should be front and center in the education debate.

The real question is: Why isn't it?

From the Education Week...

Link to Original Story

Teacher in a Strange Land
By Nancy Flanagan

Equal Access: Rosa Parks, Lite

Almost two decades ago, I drove across the state with a well-known leader of the state Chamber of Commerce, en route to a speaking engagement. The man was the embodiment of "straight arrow:" flag pin in suit coat lapel, hair sprayed into immobility and fluent in the language of capitalist sound bites. Although we didn't agree on lot, the conversation was friendly, and he was very knowledgeable about school policy issues.

We fell into a discussion about a policy that didn't exist at the time in our state. Both of us agreed was a good thing: public school choice. We talked about how things would be if parents had genuine options in choosing the best free public education for their kids, regardless of where those kids lived. He turned, grinned and uttered a phrase that I'm certain had never crossed his lips before: Free the people!

Valerie Strauss is currently taking considerable heat for suggesting that Ohio mom Kelly Williams-Bolar is not, in fact, a latter-day Rosa Parks, but a small-time cheater who got caught falsifying public information, albeit for a defensible reason. Most people would agree that the punishment and humiliation Williams-Bolar has suffered are totally out of whack for someone who was arguably just looking for a better deal for her kids. Aren't we all looking for a better--although legal--deal for our kids?

Seems like the right principle, but the wrong vehicle. We need to find a way to close the dangerous and growing gap between advantaged schools and dysfunctional schools without elevating creative dishonesty.

Rosa Parks' act of defiance was public, civil disobedience in response to discriminatory legislation. Kelly Williams-Bolar did not publicly demand equity for her children; she privately lied in an attempt to subvert an admittedly inequitable system. Her bold act was not her initial cheating--it was resisting and challenging authorities once she was caught. She has become a symbol of another kind of Tiger mom--one willing to be arrested and incarcerated for the sake of her children's education. Whether she set out to be that symbolic hero--or whether she was talked into it to advance a cause--is unclear.

The solution sought by Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights movement was, in part, a change to discriminatory laws. What's the solution to Kelly Williams-Bolar's grievance? Better schools for all kids, not just those who win a lottery or have the good fortune to live in the right neighborhood.

How to get that? It's not just a matter of "free the people" choice policies-- it's a change of minds and hearts. We've had economically segregated public schools forever, supported by tax policy and enrollment zones. If there's a choice between excellence and equity, parents choose excellence. There has to be something for everyone in building a truly equitable system, or it will never be built. When open access to quality education requires fraud, we're all in trouble.

Is Kelly Williams-Bolar the next Rosa Parks? No, but her story is important, a cautionary tale about what happens when the system denies opportunity and reinforces inequality. Williams-Bolars's was only one of about 40 families crossing ethical boundaries in the desire to access good schools for their kids.