Thursday, March 15, 2012

Registration set for Edmond 'public' schools

"Preregistration for kindergarten students at Edmond Public Schools for the 2012-13 school year will be March 28 and March 29," The Oklahoman reports.
Parents must bring two proofs of residency such as a current utility bill or mortgage contract, deed or lease agreement and a birth certificate. ... Parents who have applied for transfer to a school outside their neighborhood should preregister at their neighborhood school unless they have been notified their transfer request has been granted.

Yes, that "proof of residency" is critical. (After all, this is Edmond. We can't let just anyone in, you understand.) As the liberal Berkeley law professor John E. Coons has observed,

We still arrange education so that children of the wealthy can cluster in chosen government enclaves or in private schools; the rest get whatever school goes with the residence the family can afford. This socialism for the rich we blithely call "public," though no other public service entails such financial exclusivity. Whether the library, the swimming pool, the highway, or the hospital—if it is "public," it is accessible. But admission to the government school comes only with the price of the house. If the school is in Beverly Hills or Scarsdale, the poor need not apply.

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