Even when I mentally adjust for the alarmist rhetoric, I find this truly frightenting. What a pathetic use of resources… what a painful sign that our public schools are failiing, when they circle the wagons like this and villify their neighbnors, in an attempt to keep their local systems afloat.
Other school districts use services like VerifyResidence.com, which provides “the latest in covert video technology and digital photographic equipment to photograph, videotape, and document” children going from their house to school. School districts can enroll in the company’s rewards program, which awards anonymous tipsters $250 checks for reporting out-of-district students.
Only in a world where irony is dead could people not marvel at concerned parents being prosecuted for stealing a free public education for their children. —Micheal Flaherty: The Latest Crime Wave—Sending Your Child to a Better School – WSJ.com.
Doesn’t the US have a system for allowing enrolment in an alternative public school? Here in Australia (or at least in West Australia), all you have to do is write a letter of application to the Department of Education, explaining why you think your child should attend school X instead of school Y. “School X is better than school Y” isn’t an acceptable reason, since the official line is that every public school is equally excellent. But as far as I can tell, almost any other reason is good enough. Two of my sisters got into a better high school just by telling the department that most of their friends would be going to that school.
That certainly sounds like a good system you have down under there.
The US inner cities are often a patchwork of poorly funded schools in crime-ridden areas, just a short bus ride away from upper class schools in wealthier neighborhoods. The legacy of racial segregation in the US means that these school districts often break down along racial lines, and schools in poorer areas get even poorer when students go elsewhere (becauses schools get tax money based on number of pupils enrolled).
My wife and I homeschool our kids, so I have no firsthand knowledge, but maybe someone else reading this thread will be able to chime in.