Education For Poor Students Threatened By Exclusionary Housing

By Joy Resmovits, HuffPost

Tanya McDowell, a Connecticut mother, made headlines last year when she was accused of stealing — specifically, of stealing an education for her son.

McDowell, who was homeless, was accused of felony larceny by authorities who said she sent her child to a stronger school in Norwalk, instead of the one she was zoned to in Bridgeport, her last permanent address.

“Who would have thought that wanting a good education for my son would put me in this predicament?” McDowell said in court last month, according to The Connecticut Post. Her eyes downcast, McDowell pleaded guilty to fraudulently enrolling her son in the wrong school district and selling drugs. She was sentenced to five years in prison.

A new Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program report released Thursday lists which metropolitan areas’ housing policies most severely impede low-income students from attending high-performing schools, and found that zoning laws preventing the construction of affordable housing in wealthier neighborhoods are still widespread.

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