Tanya Mcdowell

Homeless Connecticut mother is fighting charges that she stole $15,000 worth of education by enrolling her son in the wrong school.

Tanya McDowell was in court on Wednesday on the unusual accusation that she stole $15,686 worth of education for her son by sending him to school in Norwalk when they have no permanent address in the town.

Police investigated Tanya McDowell after a lawyer for the Norwalk Housing Authority contacted authorities, the New York Times reports. The Housing Authority alleged that McDowell had used her baby sitter’s address so her son could attend a suburban kindergarten in Norwalk.

McDowell is charged with felony larceny and conspiracy, and she could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison if convicted. She is represented by a lawyer with the Connecticut NAACP Legal Redress Committee, NBC Connecticut reports. McDowell pleaded not guilty on Wednesday, the Daily Norwalk reports.

The Norwalk school board president correctly noted that "there has to be a penalty for stealing our services" — if that turns out to be the case. But arrest is a severe overreaction. Sending the child to the proper district's school, as usually happens in such cases, would have been enough.

In Connecticut, local taxes pay for local schools. In general, the more affluent the community, the better the schools. Over the years, this has led to massive educational inequality, and correcting that should be a top state priority.

Gwen Samuel, founder of the Connecticut Parents Union, held a news conference outside court on Wednesday to call for prosecutors to drop the first-degree larceny charge against McDowell.

�We could've put the brakes on this and made sure that we were doing what was best for the child. I think it moved from zero to 90 too fast, and that is where we are here today, she said. We cannot be so pressed for financial dollars that we are now arresting parents.

The baby-sitter whose address McDowell is accused of using to enroll her son in school was evicted from her public housing unit during the investigation.