NEWSCOLLEGE ACCESS

Victory! Gov. John Kasich today reduced the charges against Kelley Williams-Bolar, a single African-American mother jailed and convicted of a felony earlier this year for enrolling her children in a school district in which she did not live.

The news comes after more than 184,000 Change.org members emailed Kasich’s office in support of Williams-Bolar since January of this year, when her conviction sparked a viral campaign on Change.org created by Massachusetts resident Caitlin Lord (read Lord's account of why she started the petition).

Alongside African-American citizen coalition ColorOfChange.org, Change.org members from around the country called Kasich’s office on Tuesday, September 6, urging him to pardon Williams-Bolar. Ohio’s Parole Board had recommended that Williams-Bolar not receive a reduction in sentencing.

Teen mothers are expected to fail. Just ask Bee Lavender, who, after she became pregnant at 18, remembers a swift and merciless change in the way most people treated her:

"It was a profound shock to go from being the good kid, the honours student, the girl who talked about youth leadership on television, to being perceived as human detritus," Lavender wrote in The Guardian.

Lavender dropped out of college and moved back home. But you wouldn't know it today if you met her. An acclaimed writer and activist, her books include a memoir about danger titled Lessons in Taxidermy and the anthologies Breeder and Mamaphonic. She's the publisher of the website Hipmama.com and is the founder of Girl-Mom.com, an advocacy project for teen parents. She's also taking a stand today for another teenage mother, Kymberly Wimberley of McGehee, Arkansas.

Earlier this year, students on college campuses around the world demonstrated against a spate of hefty tuition hikes, from the University of California to the University of London.

But a new 230 percent tuition hike for some Arizona community college students comes with a new, disturbing twist: xenophobia.

The Maricopa County Community College system - the largest in Arizona - announced in March a 230% tuition hike for out-of-state students. The kicker? Unlike some college tuition increases, this one isn't about tighter budgets - it's a veiled attempt to shut out undocumented students from college classes.

When she graduates, Ana Teresa Bagatella will be the first in her family to graduate from college.

But she may have to consider dropping out. Why? If Congress cuts Pell grants in the 2011 budget, Bagatella won't be able to afford school. Her dream of helping her community combat obesity and diabetes will be cut short.

Bagatella's is a story of American opportunity. The oldest child, Bagatella helped her single mom raise her younger sister while her mom worked two and sometimes three jobs. But even thought she did all the housework and took care of her sister, she dedicated herself to her studies.

Do you know what FAFSA stands for? Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

The first word, "free," is pretty important. It lets students and their parents know that applying for aid won't cost them any money, and might just gain them something in the form of grants and loans. Most people these days apply for federal student aid online, at FAFSA.gov.

But some families, like Darlene Lee's, have typed in ".com" instead of ".gov". A pretty easy mistake, right? But FAFSA.com has a catch - it isn't free. In fact, when Lee got to the end of her son's application, she was asked to pay $79.99 for FAFSA.com's service of filing her application and checking it for errors.

Here's the latest jaw-dropping news about Kaplan University, the commercial chain of schools that made $1.5 billion for the Washington Post Company in 2009.

Turns out Kaplan, as well as other for-profit colleges, explicitly trains its admissions staff to exploit 'pain' and 'fear' as they recruit their typically low-income students. "Uncover their pain and fears," a newly-released Kaplan training document instructs recruiters who are trying to sell potential students on classes. "Once they are reminded of how bad things are, this will create a sense of urgency to make this change."

These underhanded tactics, revealed earlier this week by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, are bad enough. But the truly horrifying thing is that many students end up worse off, not better, after attending Kaplan, saddled with thousands in debt and unable to find the lucrative "American dream" they were promised. Today, though, they got some new advocates: Students at Columbia University.

Your voice counts.

If you've ever doubted that, you should have been in Columbus, Ohio today as 165,000 signatures were delivered to Ohio Govenor John Kasich on behalf of Akron mom Kelley Williams-Bolar, jailed last month for sending her children to a safer school. Convicted of a felony, her career is now in jeopardy. The petition urges Kasich to pardon Williams-Bolar so that she can work as a teacher.

As of today, more than 86,000 have signed the petition on Change.org; we were joined by our allies at ColorofChange.org and MomsRising.org in collecting more than 165,000 signatures calling for justice for Williams-Bolar.

Wow. 165,000 signatures, calling for a pardon for Williams-Bolar. That's 9,606 pages and approximately 40 pounds, delivered to Kasich's 30th-floor office and into the hands of Brad Reynolds, Gov. Kasich's Director of Constituent Affairs, earlier today. If you signed the petition on Change.org, know that your voice was heard.

Education and civil rights activists are making their voices heard: For-profit colleges, like Kaplan University, shouldn't be given government money if their students never graduate, can't pay their student bills and don't find employment.

This week, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a group of more than 200 national civil and human rights organizations, let Education Secretary Arne Duncan know that they support a "gainful employment rule" for federal college funding.

"For-profit colleges have launched an all-out campaign using the American Dream as bait to trap vulnerable students into under-performing schools and saddle them with a lifetime of debt," said Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference, in a release.

Kelley Williams-Bolar, an Akron, Ohio mom slammed with a felony conviction for sending her children to a suburban school district, got out of jail yesterday after serving 9 days of her 10-day sentence.

Today, she visited Change.org and was overjoyed by what she saw there, a family spokesman told us today. She took courage from the tens of thousands of people who have signed the Change.org petition on her behalf, said Rev. Bruce Butcher, an Akron minister working with the family.

"She expressed joy for what she'd seen," Butcher told us today. "She expressed joy in the support she's seeing online. We appreciate what you're doing and we appreciate the support."

As of this writing, more than 36,000 people have sent messages to Ohio Gov. John Kasich in support of Williams-Bolar. The mom of two argued in court that she was trying to keep her daughters safe from the violence in her Akron neighborhood. But because she allegedly falsified residency documents to send her daughters to school in the district where her father lived, she was sentenced to 10 days in jail, three years of probation and 80 hours of community service.

For trying to give her daughters a better life, Williams-Bolar went to jail. Here are three ways to help Williams-Bolar fight this conviction:

During his campaign, Ohio Governor John Kasich pledged to bring jobs into the state and help heal Ohio's distressed economy.

How will he handle the situation of Kelley Williams-Bolar, an Akron woman who wanted the best for her children but is now in jail and may be prevented from having a job? More than 11,000 Change.org members hope he'll do the right thing.

Thousands of people across the country have asked Gov. Kasich to pardon Kelley Williams-Bolar, an Akron, Ohio woman sentenced for sending her daughters to school in a district where they did not have residency.

Williams-Bolar was jailed, given 80 hours of community service and slammed with three years of probation after she was convicted of falsifying residency records so that her two daughters could go to school in nearby Copley, Ohio, where her father lived. Williams-Bolar, an African-American single mother, lived in public housing in Akron.