A Case Study: How Democrats Avoid Talking About High Quality Public Education
By Miesha Headen, Ohio State Director
Make no mistake. Kelley Williams-Bolar — the woman recently convicted of falsifying documents to enroll her children at a public school where she was not a taxpaying resident — is a real woman with real problems. She is a single mother with two teenage daughters. She has a section 8 voucher for a single family home. She is a teachers’ assistant in the Akron City Schools. She is attending night school to get her teaching certification.
For two years, she had a choice to make: From her street in Akron, she could turn right, walk less than one mile, and send her children to one of the Akron City schools, or she could turn left, skirt the law, and drive for about five miles to send the children to the Copley-Fairlawn City schools.
Why did she do it? Judging from the rally putatively on her behalf on Friday, January 28th , Democrats and their traditional allies don’t want to talk about that.
To a carpenter, every problem requires a hammer. To the Democrats, every problem is about the perils of poverty rather than middle class aspirations to be “excellent” rather than “effective.” Democratic elected officials, religious leaders, and well-meaning civic leaders stood up one after another to speak passionately for the legal defense of Williams-Bolar.