Homeless woman prosecuted for enrolling son in Conn. school

Connecticut authorities have filed theft charges against Tanya McDowell, a homeless woman, alleging that she used a false address to enroll her son in a higher-income school district, The Stamford Advocate reports. If she's convicted, McDowell may end up in jail for as many as 20 years and pay a $15,000 fine for the crime.

McDowell is a homeless single mother from Bridgeport who used to work in food services, is now at the center of one of the very few false address cases in the Norwalk, CT, school district that is being handled in criminal court--rather than between the parent and school. Authorities are accusing McDowell of enrolling her 5-year-old son in nearby Norwalk schools by using the address of a friend. (Her friend has also been evicted from public housing for letting McDowell use her address.)

McDowell says she stayed in a Norwalk homeless shelter sometimes--but she didn't register there, which would have made her son eligible to attend the school.

The case is attracting some national attention in the education world, as it's similar to the headline-making story of Ohio mom Kelley Williams-Bolar, who spent days in jail after using her father's address to send her kids to a better-performing school. Her story ignited a debate about inequalities in the public school system.

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20 yrs and 15 grand for sending her son to better school so he can have a better chance in life???? some cruel DA wants to make a name for himself, meanwhile we let the wall street ppl and corrupt politicians rum amok. Let rapist, murderers and all sort of criminals on the street after serving 2 yrs. Heck, illegal immigrants get treated better than that, they get to send their kids to great high school and private college & aint nobody says shit.

What happen to this country? It is turning to be a shit hole.

 

That is AWFUL. In my state homeless kids have the right to go to school.

 

Well I think that this lady had it coming to her but not the long sentence. That needs to be lowered to a proper sentence. At best, community service.

 

I'm not sure why she didn't just use the address of the homeless shelter. I think the punishment is excessive. And she they say she was at the shelter anyway.....this should go away.

 

Possible 20 years? Really? We've seen murderers get less time. Ridiculous...

 

Agree, that seems - uh, excessive is not even the correct term. Its just so completely fucked up.. based on a technicality if she stayed that that shelter.
I hope someone fix this:-(

 

I tend to see intrigue in this situation. There are those who might find this prosecution is politically motivated. People look at this and see the injustice in what seems like persecution. Others see it as an action meant to bring the issue of vouchers to the forefront. The proponents of vouchers would suggest that allowing parents the use of vouchers, parents could choose the school they deem appropriate for their child. The problems with vouchers are obvious, the deterioration of public school funding as parents rush to put their children in segregated private schools. The use of public funds to fund private charter or "Christian" schools. Just one paranoid opinion. At the end of the day, it would be unfortunate to use this lady as a political pawn for any cause.

 

Anyone else notice they're quick to "verify" the black family's addresses. Really interesting that we dont't see other families going through this. Hmmm

 

Yea, I am proponent of voucher but you mentioned something that is partly or already done in a non voucher system.
I see nothing wrong with funding charter schools if they are doing the job correctly. We have to be able to use every possible system to assist the American children in getting a quality education. Right now(particularly for black boys), the system is broken and the high school drop out rates are too high for the public schools. This doesn't mean all charter schools outperform the public ones but the ones that do should get assistance in increasing the graduation rate.

 

You will find that the people who are trying to run this woman into the ground more than likely have their own children in a private school as our dear leader Barack Hussein Obama and a majority of the politicians in this country. They would rather give an illegal immigrant the right to send their children to a school of their choice than you a native born american. Mr. Ron Paul. We need a peoples revolution in this country. People take back your country. Ballot or the bullet.

 

Don't hold your breath. Americans are soft and as lazy as puppy shit.

 

The system is messed up in many ways.

 

In your response, you referenced a highlighted portion of my posting. However, you can't remove that statement from it's context, that the problem is how vouchers would affect school funding. Right now, funding for private schools is done at the expense of the parents, and that's fine by me.

Obviously, the graduation rate of high school students needs to be improved, as much as yielding a quality gradate who can compete in the modern world, can read, write and do basic math without a calculator and actually think for themselves.

Essentially transferring funding away from public schools can only make the matter worse as urban students will be affected disproportionately. IMO, a far more useful process would be to address the problems of public schools. Some of the issue is unequal funding but there are social factors at work too. I personally see the lack of parental involvement as a significant difference in schools. Kids see less incentive for graduation nowadays. We live in a society of instant gratification where marketing people convince everyone that they should have the best of everything, now, and that doesn't support the work required to obtain those "niceties". IMO, too many focus on trying to obtain that "dime piece" or "Adonis" , while ignoring the qualities necessary for success in relationships and life. Average is somehow a bad thing now, and yet 80% of the population is average.

They see their parents and friends who are graduates struggling and not doing well, in part as a result of a service based society that has eliminated well paid manufacturing jobs. High schools have gotten away from teaching skills like, auto repair, wood working, machining, cosmetology and others. Maybe, we should more strongly consider technical careers, rather than professional careers, much like Europe, and make these viable alternatives to give students real motivation for graduation.

But, enough of the homily, I'm allowing my passion for these topics to flow through. My point is that vouchers haven't been shown to be the cure-all. I believe that we need to look at lot harder at the problem and try to come up with viable solutions for improvement, rather than knee-jerk reactions.

 

You should watch the lottery. It showed how the public education system in New York city was doing a terrible job at graduating students(less than 50% graduated) in response to the charter that had something like a 90% graduation rate in a urban environment(without public funding, I believe). If something is working well, then we shouldn't turn a blind eye to it. A voucher system does work in certain cases. I am not saying it works in all case but to just toss the idea away if it can help children is a bad idea. In this case in new york city, Having a voucher system would have allowed more students into a school that had a 90% graduation rate over the public school system that had less than 50% graduation rate. Instead, they have to pull lottery because the parents can not afford the school on their own. This is not how the system should work where if you can't afford it then your child is doomed to a mediocre at best education system. We have to open the system to allow everyone to go to a school that can get the job done. A voucher system would do this.


We need to try all solutions to help the american children. The charter schools that are excellent at education should be revered for their ability to have such a high graduation rate and given public funding as well. At the end of the day, a school is a school. If it does a superb job at graduating students from urban or non-urban environments, then I don't see any reason why they shouldn't get public funding(charter or not).

The following is a link to discussion on the documentary of the lottery.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Sackl

 

One of the big reasons why private/catholic/charter schools work is because they have the ability to exclude and expell students. The fear of being kicked out adds real structure. We don't have that anymore and kids know it so they do whatever they want.

 

I agree completely with you. The fact that SOME charter schools have high graduation rates is no reason to "throw the baby out with the bath water". There are SOME public schools as well, that have high graduation rates. It's a far better idea to solve problems than use bandages that may allow wounds to fester. Vouchers, IMO, are a knee jerk and political answer that is fraught with more problems than being a solution. Public schools produced a quality education for students over several generations. So, what happened? That's the question that needs to be answered, and fixed.

 

People it is working the way it suppose to......keep the poor folks in their place...... that is the message

 

Too bad her name isn't Tanya Morales.

 

Not as soft and lazy as the people that run here instead of fixing their own shit-bombed countries.

 

At least those people did SOMETHING. We do absolutely NOTHING.