Update: A One-Woman Parent Trigger

Perhaps the best and most important thing I came across over the weekend was this Salon / Colorlines article following up on Kelley Williams-Bolar, the Ohio parent and former teachers' aide who was arrested for faking her child's address last year (How did this parent end up in jail?)  

It's one thing to blast Ben Austin's Parent Revolution or Jeb Bush or anyone else who's white and affluent and purports to want to make things better for kids.  But do you say when it's a working class black mom with strong ties to the public school system?  It's not so easy to attempt to discredit or impugn her (though I'm sure some will try). 

What happened to her is described as "a bracing case study of a system that treats high-quality education as a commodity to be earned and parceled out, instead of the public good it’s commonly thought to be." 

Still on probation for a little while longer, Williams-Bolar has got a daughter in a private school and has become an advocate for parental choice -- which doesn't make her district co-workers happy. 

For other weekend reading highlights go here.

Comments

[CarolineSF]

I've never seen any critics of so-called education "reform" try to discredit or impugn struggling parents. Why would you be "sure" that we would start behaving as badly as the reformers do at this point?

[Sarah]

Regardless of race or monetary status, poorly-worded reform documents are poorly-worded reform documents...

I personally never think of or pay attention to the person behind the bills being written, I judge them on their value as legislation. People actually do? I like to live in my own little perfect world (probably imaginary) where that kind of thing, such discrimination no longer happens...

A good idea is a good idea...