This is not civil disobedience, it's just plain old falsification of records. If she had falsified another crucial piece of information - say, income level on a scholarship application - would Ms. Williams-Bolar still get all of this "end justifies the means" sympathy?
If you're still not convinced, let me ask you: Would you not lie about where you lived if it meant you could get a better life for your child? I am not sure you could be called a good parent if the answer to that question is no.
Would it be moral, do you think, for a parent in Nazi German to lie when asked if their child was half Jewish in order to prevent the child from being taken away to the concentration camps? In my mind, it would -- and it would be a good lesson for the child: that truth is LESS important than saving a human life.
Now suppose that the situation were more starkly clear-cut than it is here. Suppose that the jack-booted thugs knocked on the door and demanded to know whether your child was A or B. If A, then the child would get an excellent education and have an opportunity to demonstrate their potential in life. If B, then the child would receive no education beyond 5th grade and would be prohibited for the remainder of their life from making a living in any profession other than drug dealer. I don't know about you, but in this case too I would think it moral to lie and claim A when the child was actually B. This lie hurts no one, and it saves a human's potential, if not technically their life. I even think it would make a good life lesson for the child.
What about this case? The extremists may think that the choice of urban or suburban school IS a case of "chance in life" vs "drug dealer", but the reality is much less clear cut. Some people who attend poor urban schools DO succeed in spite of the disadvantages. But many more of them do not. The lie may not be justified in this case. But if you agreed with me on one or both of the hypothetical cases above, then you should see that it is a matter of degree, NOT a stark absolute -- a decision that requires careful consideration of the degree of institutional injustice that your lie serves to combat, and a decision that persons of wisdom and ethics may disagree on.
exodus 1:15-20 (NRSV)
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ‘When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.’ But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, ‘Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?’ The midwives said to Pharaoh, ‘Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.’ So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong.
tl;dr : The king told midwives to kill baby boys. The midwives did not. When asked by the king why the boys still lived, they lied.
In all seriousness though, this passage was a big point of discussion in the middle ages. Many were uncomfortable with the midwives apparently being rewarded for lying. One solution was although they were rewarded they were not rewarded as much as they would have been if they had not lied.
My interpretation: The midwives lied in the service of life; the God of this passage rewarded them. Therefore, the God of this passage is a God of life. He does not support needless destruction and is willing to allow his servants to lie if life increases as a result.
> "The case you are building is not rock solid :)"
Unfortunately, with Biblical Studies it is impossible to build a rock solid case. There is always another persuasive argument just around the corner!
As others have noted: there's a fundamental inequity here, often based on years of discriminatory practices and uneven funding. In my book, flouting the law to highlight a social inequity that hurts humanity at large is a good thing.