Do school districts pick on poor parents?

In a report on a homeless Connecticut woman who is facing criminal charges for using a false address to enroll her son in a public school, the Associated Press asks whether school districts and local governments are treating poor parents unfairly by selectively prosecuting them.

Tanya McDowell, whose case we've written about extensively here, appears in court in Norwalk today to face charges of felony larceny for enrolling her 5-year-old in school using her friend's public housing address. (The city, not the school district, is bringing the charges against McDowell.)

The AP points out that while at least 26 other children were illegally enrolled in the Norwalk school district, McDowell is the only one facing criminal charges. In a similar case in Ohio, at least 50 children were removed from the wealthy Copley-Fairlawn district for using false addresses, but only one parent, Kelley Williams-Bolar, ended up in jail. Both McDowell and Williams-Bolar are poor and black, which has sparked civil rights activists to allege they are the victims of discrimination. McDowell is being represented by a lawyer from the NAACP.

"It is, in our view, an uneven enforcement that comes down mostly to poverty," Williams-Bolar's lawyer David Singleton told the AP. "The criminalization of this is really troubling. To the extent we see people prosecuted, I think it's mostly going to be people who are unable to afford to pay their way out of it."

Most false address cases are solved between the district and the parent, with the parent paying the school back for the offense. When parents can't or refuse to pay the penalty, it's more likely that the district will get the courts involved. Even so, it's unusual for such cases to be tried in criminal rather than civil court. Some education experts fear the cases will increase as school districts face budget cuts and need to increase revenue.

(Williams-Bolar: Al Behrman/AP)