Class warfare?

[BridgeRunner]

So, my fb page is all lit up with my lefty friends getting upset about this (yes, it's a link to salon.com, please to not shoot me now, thnx):

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/25/kelley_williams_bolar

So, I'm thinking, huh, kind of a bummer for her that crime didn't work out, but hey, it's a crime.  I'm not sure that charging her for outright theft is entirely fair, but that depends on the circumstances, like whether the kids spent any time at the dad's house, has previously lived with the dad, how the arrangement came about, etc.  So, I don't know, I didn't hear the case and I wasn't on the jury. 

And then I got to the part where the judge talks about sticking her with a felony expressly for the purpose of destroying the value of her education and training.  Um. Wtf?  White collar crime is not somehow more ok than street crime, but administrative crimes, like sending a kid to school where her dad pays high taxes instead of where her mom pays no taxes, seem not so clear-cut.  It's only theft because they say it is.  To the extent that schools are the property of taxpayers and children the natural object of a parent's bounty, it's more than a little unjust that it's a crime at all, let alone a felony.  Let alone a felony applied specifically for the purpose of depriving her of the value of her education. 

So, I guess my more liberal friends are busy seeing class warfare.  I'm more concerned about the exploitation of the criminal justice system so that it is a felony to something to which it may be credibly argued a person is entitled.  Felonies should be BAD STUFF.  Not breaking a rule about which parent's residence determines which education the children may receive.

And while we're at it, why are we using felony convictions to bar people for life from activities they have a right to engage in?  No, she doesn't have a right to be a teacher.  But she does have the right to pursue a livelihood.  For the state to explicitly state that it is applying a permanent bar to ability to practice her chosen profession via its licensing requirements not because the bar is just and fair, but to handily punish her for an unrelated offense does not pass the sniff test.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I'm not familiar with the story.  

I see where it said the felony charge could put her future as an educator at risk, but I didn't see anything to indicate that the felony charge was sought expressly for the purpose of harming her career.  

Also not seeing anything about the dad.  What's the deal with him?

The author makes several references to this thing being about race, that she's being targeted because she's a poor black woman.  Is there any substance to back this up?

As for the licensing issue, that sort of thing happens a lot.  We have a family friend, a former trader on Wall St who was there when the towers came down.  The attack destroyed his company, wrecked his finances, and his family wound up living on public assistance for a while.  The checks ran out, rather, they were supposed to have run out, but they goofed and sent him an extra payment anyway.  He knew it was a mistake and that the money wasn't really his, but he was desperate, and in the grand scheme of things, against the backdrop of lower Manhattan getting wiped off the map, he didn't think it was that big a deal to cash the check anyway.  He got caught and went to court.  The public defender advised him to plead to a simple felony charge and do a few nights in jail so that he could put the matter to rest and get on with his life.  He did, then found out afterwards that felons aren't allowed to hold any of the licenses necessary to trade securities.  He lost any chance at pursuing the only career he'd ever known.  Oops.

Felonies are no joke.  Don't screw around with 'em.

[BridgeRunner]

I skimmed about a half-dozen articles posted by friends--thought this one had stuff about the dad's residence.  Dad lived in the district where they attended and was part of the scheme, was charged with something too.  To my mind, that fact renders it a crime of breaking regulations rather than a clear-cut theft.

Might have some time later to hunt up which other articles include other facts.  I picked the salon.com one because it's so radically lefty. 

I'm interested in cases where conservatives and liberals might reach similar conclusions via complete different avenues, so starting from a very leftist article makes it all the more interesting.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Did Mommy and Daddy know that enrolling Junior in Dad's district was against the law?  That is, did they do it deliberately, or was it an honest mistake?

[MicroBalrog]

http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/114346689.html

[roo_ster]

1. Dismantle public schools
2. If we want to provide every kid an education at taxpayer expense, provide a voucher and rivet it to the kid's *expletive deleted*ss to spend how the parent determines best, to include homeschooling.


If they wanted to send the kids to a school in that district, the kids ought to have lived with Dad. 

WAY too many felonies.  Making their premeditated fraud a felony is worthy of ridicule.

The Salon author needs to be beat about the head for being a nitwit race-hustling bint.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

what did they do to falsify the records?  was a case like that in atlanta  i think they got jail too and one of the parents was a cop

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/114346689.html

If all of that is correct, the felony conviction doesn't necessarily mean that the mother loses her chances to become a teacher, the judge is willing to try to persuade the school licensing folks not to bar the mother from teaching, and the felony conviction can be expunged.

So, the mother probably has a good chance at becoming a teacher despite her crimes.  She spends 10 nights in jail, does some probation and community service, then gets on with her life.

Seems fair to me.  Seems more than fair, actually, assuming she winds up a teacher in the end.  They say she lied her way into $30,000 worth of schooling, which ain't exactly peanuts.  

I busted my *expletive deleted*ss working my way through college, which I think cost me about $40k in tuition bills in the end.  So I have a solid appreciation for what that dollar value of schooling is worth in terms of the hours of sweat, stress, sleep deprivation, and determination necessary to acquire it.  Against that context, I find it awfully hard to sympathize with a woman who would cheat her way into $30k of schooling that wasn't rightfully hers.

[BridgeRunner]

Seems fair to me.  Seems more than fair, actually, assuming she winds up a teacher in the end.  They say she lied her way into $30,000 worth of schooling, which ain't exactly peanuts.  

I busted my *expletive deleted*ss working my way through college, which I think cost me about $40k in tuition bills in the end.  So I have a solid appreciation for what that dollar value of schooling is worth in terms of the hours of sweat, stress, and sleep deprivation necessary to acquire it.  Against that context, I find it awfully hard to sympathize with a woman who would lie, cheat, or steal her way into $30k of schooling that wasn't rightfully hers.

You're reaching.  These are not analogous.  They should be, per roo_ster's post, but they aren't.

[BridgeRunner]

1. Dismantle public schools
2. If we want to provide every kid an education at taxpayer expense, provide a voucher and rivet it to the kid's *expletive deleted*ss to spend how the parent determines best, to include homeschooling.


If they wanted to send the kids to a school in that district, the kids ought to have lived with Dad. 

WAY too many felonies.  Making their premeditated fraud a felony is worthy of ridicule.

The Salon author needs to be beat about the head for being a nitwit race-hustling bint.

This sums up my opinions about 100%, but I'm fiddling with the liberal voice :)  (Yeah, I'm not interested in the case itself much at all, more intersecting areas of outrage and how they are expressed and to what effect. Hence my carelessness in posting an article epitomizing the liberal voice that omits some relevant information.)

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

so what did they do to falsify records exactly?  it makes me go hmmm when the folks outraged haven't trotted out the "all she did was...." card.  when folks hide facts it does not help them in my view

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

You're reaching.  These are not analogous.  They should be, per roo_ster's post, but they aren't.

No, I'm not.

$30k is a big stonking pile of money.  That's the after-tax take home pay for a years worth of fulltime work for an average American employee.  That's $7,000 per kid per year.  

How many hour of overtime would you have to work to come up with that much extra money?  At $15 an hour, that's almost 10 hours extra work per week.  And that's just for one kid, for one year.  The mother did it for two kids, for two years.  Is working an extra 20 hours a week no big deal?

You seem to see it as just a simple paperwork fudging, a teeny weeny little white lie.  I think it's more than that.  I think it's about the resources that went into providing that education she "took" for her kids, resources paid for by the residents of that district, resources that should have gone to kids that actually lived there.  You go produce those resources and then come tell me it's no big deal who gets the benefit of them.

[MicroBalrog]

We were promised that the purpose of public education was to provide equal education for all its beneficiaries, regardless of economic background. That was the whole purpose of mandating it, taxing us to provide it, etc.

If we then provide better public education to people in 'wealthy' districts than to those in 'poor' districts, what's even the point?

[roo_ster]

$30K in gov't education costs is considerably less value than somebody going out and paying a third party $30K for education.  Still a decent chunk of change, though.

As CSD notes, they haven't gotten specific as to the parents' shenanigans. 

But, what sort of shenanigans would be necessary?  Most likely lying about the kids' residence and custodial parent.  The kicker is that it probably was on multiple gov't forms that say something to the effect of, "Providing incorrect information on this form designed by supercilious busybody educrats is a felony punishable with lotsa fines & pound-you-in-the-*expletive deleted*ss-prison time."

I don't think we're talking ID fraud or anything even as serious as what an illegal alien & employer would need to do to work on the books.

Woulda been so much easier to actually house the kids at dad's M-F during the school year.  Instead, they concoct this dumbazz scheme.  If dad was not paying taxes in that district, I'd be a bit less sympathetic.

I am OK with them spending 10 days in jail for being turd-burgling O2 thieves.  Not OK with their idiocy being felonies.

[geronimotwo]

^ i have to agree that if the dad was paying taxes, i don't see what the problem is.

off topic, but pertaining to the "class warfare" theme,  at our unionized school the teachers start around 38k plus benefits.  one of which is to pay for their higher education.  in the same school an aid gets about 15k, with no provision to further their education.  ??  seems they are the ones that would benefit the most.

[HankB]

If parents and kids were illegal aliens, I doubt very much that any charges would have been filed.

[roo_ster]

If parents and kids were illegal aliens, I doubt very much that any charges would have been filed.

Too true.

Some laws aren't enforced on illegals.