In Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, why do Maycomb officials bend the rules for the Ewells? Is this the right thing to do?

The Ewells are treated differently than other residents of Maycomb on a few occasions. Most notably, the Ewell children aren't forced to attend school (they generally show up on the first day and then aren't seen for the rest of the year). The reason the Ewell children get special treatment is because their family is generally considered the disgrace of Maycomb. In particular, their father, Bob Ewell, is a mean-spirited man who seems to care little for anything besides himself, and he especially does not care about educating his family. As such, school officials get the Ewells to show up on the first day of school, but have resigned themselves to being unable to force Mr. Ewell to motivate his children to attend school regularly. 

While understandable, this decision to overlook the Ewells is probably not the right thing to do. Bob Ewell is poor and uneducated, and failing to get his children into school only ensures that the cycle of poverty will continue into future Ewell generations, as education is a reliable means of improving one's opportunities in life. As such, though a hands-off approach with the Ewells is probably the most practical thing to do, it also does nothing to help the Ewells better their miserable situation.