And mud cat, sweet lou, so many greats. The american treasures who came after Jackie Robinson. On an era of pain, how a few good hits could level the playing field. Why the blackball players attack that ball, you guys would simply attack it, simple, it was white and good evening, thanks for joining us. Im joie chen. When it comes to improving this countrys Public Education, there are endless headlines about charter programs and districts that offer open enrollment for anyone who want to be there. But for School Choice movement the simple reality is that hundreds of thousands of students remain trapped in Failing School districts because of their zip codes. As what america tonights special correspond Soledad Obrien found out, illegallily enrolling in districts they dont belong in. Its 730 in the morning and jack larkin is getting ready to go to school. You need to do your writing journal. I did. Your philosophy journal too . I did. Jack and his parents live in milbourn, new jersey, some of the poorest neighborhoods in the state. Luckily, his School System is one of the states best. How about one of these nice green apples . Have it for snack. Jacks mom stephanie has a personal and professional stake on the millburn schools. Three bedrooms possibly four. She is one of the stop Real Estate Agents in town and knows the schools are the selling point of the neighborhood. The suburbs are all about the Elementary Schools. I love you, bye. There are five Elementary Schools a middle school and Millburn High School which consistently ranks as one of the stop performing schools of the country. A 90 graduation rates, juniors and seniors passing advance placement test. A great commute, a fantastic community and an excellent School System. Its really the three things that most people are looking for when theyre shopping for a home for their family. The schools are technically public. But the price of admission to live in this tony township is a whopping 1. 3 million. Thats the average sale price of a home here. Average real estate taxes run around 20,000 a year. There are some lower price rentals but no officially designated Affordable Housing in millburn. The way the works in new jersey, you go to school within your zip code. Lorna is author of the blowing nj left behind. Any parent blog nj left behind. Any kid would want to be enrolled in millburn. They have enormous access to their academic interests in all sorts of ways. A few miles down the road its a different story. If you live ten miles away from millburn say in north new jersey, then you might go to bering jer hig areer higher hig graduation rate. Almost no ap courses. Most of the kids fail to reach proficiency in Language Arts and math and the reason those kids go to berger beringer, is becauy fail in math. They are stuck. They cannot go to another Public School . No. And that seems to me so hellaciously unfair. Not everyone is stuck. New jersey does have Charter Schools and an Interdistrict Transfer Program for a small number of students. Less than 3 of the total. And the high performing School Districts want to protect their borders. After all, its mostly their local property taxes that are paying for the schools. Schools try to the vigilant about creating a Registration System that confirms that the children who are enrolled in the schools actually live in the district. Because the people who live in a wealthy district are funding the education . They are personally funding the schools. It all comes on the backs of those taxpayers. So if you say well, theres a kid from newark whos trying to being sneak in, we are not going to pay for that kid. He doesnt live here. Private investigator jimmy knows the extremes that schools will go to to keep students out. He has launched his business on it. In response to the growing number of School Districts that were reaching out to him to make sure all their students lived where they said they did. If a kind of suburban border patrol, from his surveillance van equipped with a secret pair periscope. He has tracked hundreds of students. How does it work . Walk me through the process. Does a school reach out to you and say we have a suspicion about a student . The school will reach out to me and theyll say we would like to you do an audit of the student roster. Theyll run the student names through database but it might often come back as totally out of district, out of town, out of state. In new jersey we had a case where the students actually lived in pennsylvania or new york and we would be able to identify the kids. There arent any statistics on how many students are enrolled in districts outside of where they liver. They dont track that data but there are more than 500 School Districts in this state and because in many cases there are poorly performing schools blocks away from highly performing schools, borderhopping happens all the time. Its very common for a hundred student every year to confront them, have residency officers that will confront the parent and say look, you dont live in the district, you have to register in the School District you actually belong to. How do you feel like in theory, everybodys School District should be equivalent, right . As an investigator i dont get involved in why people are doing what theyre doing. Basically theyre breaking the law. As an educator, it is a little more complicated. Something i struggle with. Hes a teacher in bergen county. As a teacher we know what we should do right . But as a superintendent we have stakeholders that we are responsible for. How much of your budget leer come from the taxes of the people who live in this district . Roughly 90 . Have you hired a private investigator before . We have. Weve had to and it breaks your heart to do that but you know theres 5,000 Community Members that you are responsible for and you have the ultimate responsibility, as a superintendent. And as an educator thats the part that drives your heart. In ohio, pennsylvania and five other states plus washington, d. C, boundary hoppers can be charge criminally for theft of Educational Services and wind up serving time. I never thought that i would go to jail for lying about my zip code. When we return, parents, locked up for stealing an educational. Education. Also ahead in our program. Hardball in the civil rights era. Mud cat grant and sweet lou johnson on deck in our american treasure series. Two who broke the color line on the baseline and why their history protect the history of all of us. We somehow got to maintain a certain type of scenario where these guys are brought forth all the time. Thats why i have all of these pictures in here. Because of history of disappearance. Consider this. The news of the day plus so much more. Answers to the questions no one else will ask. It seems like they cant agree to anything in washington no matter what. And welcome back. Before the break our america tonight special correspondent Soledad Obrien reported on boundary hopping. Thats a phenomenon when families sneak their kids out of the districts into good schools. Sol ada obrien introduces us to parents who suffer serious penalties for doing it. Kelly is a 43yearold mother and teachers aide. She was also a convicted felon. She went to jail in 2011 for illegally enrolling her children in a School District. I had issues around my neighborhood. I had a prowler who broke into our home. I talked to my father about it. He said send them to our school. Youre here all the time anyway so was it done to sneak it in . Did you know im putting an address where i dont live . Right. Ive been working for a School System for many years so i knew of a lot of students who did the same thing. Find an address, put it down right . It wasnt like i just found it, it wasnt like burger kings address it was my dads address. He lived in the township and i lived in the city. We literally lived five minutes away from each other. And they had better schools . Yes, the township had better schools. She loved the schools. Her daughter was enrolled in copley, fairlon. We had a computer lab, garden outside many our own greenhouse. And i was so grateful to have been able to go there for just two years. So tell me how you were caught. Well, they what i understand is they had an investigator from cleveland area i think, and woe come down and he would he would come down and he would watch my whereabouts like he would watch me go to and fro. And he came to the conclusion stating that they had clear and convincing evidence that i did not live or reside in copley. She withdrew her children in school and enrolled them back in akron. It was a huge difference. It was huge. We didnt learn that much. There was a lot of disruptive it was disruptive in classes, there was no resources, it was just completely different and i felt like i wasnt learning anything at all. Williams bolar was surprised she says when 18 months later she was indicted. What were the charges . Grand theft which was the money and signing forgery . Forkary. The judge said she wanted to send a message to others like her. I had the swabbing of the mouth, i had the finger printing. Who was taking care of your daughters . The irony of all it was my father. He had to watch them, he had to many care for them. In the district they were never in . Right. A petition to free her went viral and ohios governor john kasick pardoned her. I wouldnt have done it. I didnt believe i would go to jail for lying about my drenls. There are so many reasons why a parent would want to take their child out of that district into another district. Elicia andham let garcia were also charged theft of services or stealing and education. We got handcuffs like criminals with leather belts. We went in jail, we spent a couple hours in jail. Ham let garcia, an immigrant, married elicia, a ukrainian grant in 2008. They moved in elicias father, a homeowner in nearby montgomery county. Theorella enrolled in a School District. They decided to let fe isorella finish the school in grandfathers School District. Thats when the trouble began. The School District contacted us in april, said theres a problem with your residency. So we came in to meet with the principal. And what happened . She kept insisting that i never lived there. And shes turning us to the police. The superintendent wouldnt talk to us. But she made good on her threat and turned the case over to police. The garcias said they were cooperating, showing mail, alicias Voter Registration saying she lived in montgomery county. We didnt hear anything for a month and then in august, he called us and said that we have a choice to turn ourselves in or he putting out a warrant to arrest us. What was going through your mind while they were finger printing you and processing you . Disgusted, disgusting to everything in my head because i didnt believe this is actually happening in america over education. A fiveyearold child. And i pleaded with superintendent, i said look, were good parents. Were good citizens. Im a business owner, you know, i never did anything, i always you know walked a straight line. The garci garcias turned thes in. The trial is set for next week. In a criminal complaint the different allegation the garcias stole 10,000 tuition, a felony, punishable, by one year in prison. False information about their residency. In pennsylvania, as in all states, School Districts get some federal and state funding. But property taxes are the primary source for funding Public Schools. The gap between rich and poor School Districts is so vast, that the state earned a d on the National Report card on school funding. That report card is put out by the Education Law Center in new jersey. There would be an argument from a school that would say listen, we fund this school with taxpayer money. Some state and some federal funds. But the people in the Community Pay for this school thats in this county. So youre not from here. You dont get to attend. I can answer the argument. First of all my wife did live on that street. My father is a taxpayer who owns the house there. And i believe every children should have access to quality education. The economy the socioeconomic status everyone. And your School District is somewhere else, not in montgomery county. I answer her that is wrong, we are a member of the same state, actually, same country. Do not treat me like an illegal alien because i live in philadelphia. But you should stay in philadelphia, where you are paying taxes. If you are a person who doesnt have the money to live in montgomery county, that is not your fault that you cant make the same money, okay . Is the school in your neighborhood in philadelphia, is that school unsafe . It is safe. They passed the ayp, the no child left behind law. The d. A. Cancelled a planned interview with us. But the garcias think they are a test case. The moreland School District are, so far the only family being prosecuted is the garcias. The garcia family to make an example, to make sure everybody in philadelphia, this can happen to you. This is an interesting phrase you used, across the border. Thats the phrase they use. We are talking philly, not canada. There is a line they dont want people to cross. Our special correspondent, Soledad Obrien joins us. Is there a likelihood that this woman will go to jail . There is a possibility the garcias could go to uranium. Ijail. If you value that education as 10,000, it could be possible that they will spend a year in jail. Some people will say they should get to probation. The case goes to court on the 28th. You never know. What about other families involved in this . There were ten other families had had a similar situation. The garcias said we are being targeted. What about the other ten families . We are told that the families worked out a deal, they paid the tuition. The garcias say we have offered to pay back what we owe and we were rebuffed. That detail on which they are opposite sides, if they were able to work it out for these ten families what exactly happened in the garcias case well have to find out. That opposite up a broader question, how many are involved in this kind of thing . Could there be a whole lot more . Yes, i think theres a lot. We know its in the thousands and when you talk to superintendents of certain districts theyll say when they did their canvassing of their roles, in fact in some cases they had to ask 200 students to leave. So in a place like new jersey where youre spending roughly 18,000 per kid thats serious money. Theres one or two kids every so often, sometimes they dont have any at all. It depends what border youre actually talking about. But in some districts it is a huge number and ultimately it goes to the bigger problem, inequity in education, which philosophically theoretically should be the same for every student who is in Public School but in practicality and in reality it is really not. You hear that in the Washington Area we hear this so often. But think of i. T. Districts are trying to control their costs in all this, im sure theres a need for taxpayers to think look you are supposing to take what the Education System gives you. What is the solution . I mean aside from lets really making all the schools fair and how practical is that . Twhas solution here . Whats the solution here . Yeah, its a tough thing. There are some programs where the schools can opt in to take some students. But at the end of the day, when taxpayers are footing the bill for, say, 98 of the cost, there is a sense from some people in town that listen, we actually pay for the overwhelming amount of tuition and we should limit who has access to it. They are sometimes spending a lot of money on a school that is just less good. They want access to other things. I think and most of the people you talk to say its not a small fix obviously but it really is a fix that involves how do we feel about reform in education . It is really a massive problem. How do you make it equal for every student no matter what school they are attending . How do you possibly allow students from one district to access another district . New jersey mass a very tiny limited program and i think its a matter of a bigger question, what do we value in Public Education . It supposed to be fair across the board . Once you answer that big questioning question, you can look for solutions. Theres no big solution on the horizon i think. America tonights special correspondent Soledad Obrien. Thanks so much soledad. You bet. Were makin taking a look ats on america tonight tomorrow. The risks for some children, their education and even their safety. Parents should have a right to oversee their childrens education. Parents should not decide whether or not a child gets an education. Right now laws around the country when it comes to home schooling generally do not reflect that. I think a failing home school should be handled like any other school, it should be shut down. And right now theres no method to do that. Sheila macvicar brings us a story on home schooling. Thats tuesday on america tonight. Connect with us at our website, aljazeera. Com americatonight. Coming up after the break tonight, security at sochi. The new video raising