The Right to an Education
The most significant current political issue that Bob Moses raised at the conference this past weekend was this: You have no Constitutional right to an education. The 1973 Supreme Court decision San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez is very clear:
Though education is one of the most important services performed by the State, it is not within the limited category of rights recognized by this Court as guaranteed by the Constitution.
And so there you have it. Surprising to many, including myself, this is an important reality check and a call to action. If you read the details of the 1973 case, which are fairly interesting, you can see how the Court carefully keeps away from getting into the business of telling the States how to set up property taxes and educational systems. This is a wise thing. And while the majority opinion seems reasonable in that regard, I believe what Bob Moses believes: We need a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to a free, quality public education to all. In a world of increasing complexity, it’s not enough to let the systems of public education rest of a hodgepodge of state constitutions, property taxes, federal funding patchworks, and Equal Protection. We’ve woven those all together into a system that makes people feel like education is a fundamental Constitutional right, and I think that’s what I found it surprising to learn that it’s not. Of course there will be debate over what “quality” means and how we ought to measure it and what we’ve got to do when we find out things are unfair or that we’re not getting “quality”. But I think that’s the right debate to have. What do you think?
What do I think? I think that the federal government is exactly the wrong organization (if one could call it that) to start telling schools what to do and how to organize themselves. Local control is an enormous factor in the quality of education. You hand this over to the feds to “provide” it — which means *control* it — and most of that local control, in essence if not in fact, is gone.
It feels good to rhapsodize about free public education for all, but in fact we already have that, and amending the Constitution to hand the whole enchilada over to an already bloated and inefficient federal government would be an unmitigated disaster.
Leave it to the states and to the local community to run their own schools and leave the feds out of it. The “increasing complexity” of the world around us will not be met by centralizing the whole thing.
Comment by Robert — May 1, 2007 @ 8:55 am
I agree that (more) federal control over education would be bad, and that centralization would be disaster! Definitely. But I’m not sure that having a Constitutional right implies federal control: take voting rights for example. States control the implementation of voting — the 15th, 19th, and 26th amendments simply require them to make the franchise available to all citizens.
I guess what I’m wondering is… do we really have a free public education for all? How equal is “equal protection”? Is this public education worthwhile for all students, or is it irrelevant and exclusionary to some? I have students come into my classroom who don’t seem to have gotten much education in their elementary and middle schools in this community. It seems like this happens more often in economically disadvantaged areas. Clearly there are a multitude of forces at work here, and I’m not making claims about the causal links, but my sense is that one of those forces is a disregard for the importance of an educated populace to a functioning democracy.
So I’m posing two questions: 1, how do you (that’s anyone reading) see this issue of the quality of education in urban communities, and 2, do you think a Constitutional amendment would be relevant and productive?
Comment by mrc — May 1, 2007 @ 9:39 am
I agree that a Constitutional Amendment doesn’t necessarily mean Federal control of all education. It could mean that, and I see how such an outcome would fail students (e.g. No Child Left Behind), but the right legislative implementation would leave the specifics to the state.
What it would provide, however, is legal recourse for under-served communities. It seems to me that there are large proportions of the population that are not given equitable access to education, no matter how loosely you define “equal.” Federal courts are very capable of taking a fuzzy right (e.g. “Free Speech”) and judging whether the State or States have infringed upon it. They do this routinely without dictating the specifics of how the infringement can be ameliorated.
On the other hand, I have no idea how politically realistic an amendment would be.
Comment by nagu — May 1, 2007 @ 10:06 am
In terms of the original question, I don’t believe that a Constitutional Amendment is the answer nor do I think it proper. I believe that education is not a natural right inherent in the Declaration of Independence. If education is important, then it is up to parents of children to ensure this happens. (Education isn’t necessarily important. It is only important if one wants certain things or wants to do certain things.) If parents desire for their children to have an education, the education starts with them. The question becomes, don’t we have a duty to ensure that children don’t suffer because of irresponsible parents or parents who are unable to fully educate their children. I believe we do as neighbors, if this is what parents want for their kids.
If the responsibility initial falls at the feet of parents, then solutions need to remain as close to the parents as possible. The federal government is as far removed from the actual point of responsibility as possible.
Finally, implied in this discussion is that education is the key to a good, productive life and is a key to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I am not convinced that this is necessarily the case. I believe that most, if not all, of the initial framers of the Constitution believed in the value of education. But there must have been some very good reasons, in their mind for not granting that resposibility to the government. Surely it has always been the case, throughout the history of the world that some have had more access then others to lots of things.
Comment by Aston — May 1, 2007 @ 11:25 am
I guess I’m a little confused as to why we would need an amendment to the US Constitution to ensure public education, when I’m pretty sure all of the state constitutions allow for it. There are many rights that US citizens expect and receive that are not the jurisdiction of the Feds.
That being said, I do believe in national standards. Just as each state administers its own drivers’ licenses and license plates, but use the same size, shape, and format, I feel that students moving across state lines should expect roughly the same sort of education. There’s no need for the Feds to micro-manage, but that shouldn’t preclude some kind of national consensus on education.
Comment by tony lucchese — May 1, 2007 @ 5:58 pm
Leaving aside the actual question you raise, it is also interesting to ask why the Constitution does not address education.
The answer is easy: education was not being left to the states, education was not on anyone’s agenda. Public education did not become a significant reality until the 1820’s and 30’s, and then in New England. In much of the south, public education was introduced during Reconstruction (by the federal government), and of course the feds intervened again to change the structure of public education in the 50’s, and then elsewhere in the 70’s…
I take issue with arguments that intuit the intent of the writers of the constitution, attempting to treat this historical document as something of timeless and universal relevance. The constitution does not mention airplanes, cell phones, e-mail, or public education, because none of them existed when it was written.
If you are curious, Carl Kaestle’s Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 does a nice job on the early history of public education in the United States.
Comment by Jonathan — May 3, 2007 @ 4:30 am
The Federal / State jurisdictional question is an interesting one. I know that the state of New Hampshire has, since at least 1993, been grappling with the notion that public schools funded through local property taxes are a violation of the state Constitution.
You can read a summary with links to the judgements at (where else?) Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_Supreme_Court#Educational_Funding
I do believe that we could have Constitutional language requiring equal access to government-provided services, in addition to equal protection under the law. I don’t believe, necessarily, that we need a Constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to a free, public education (would this also mandate a free public education?)
Comment by Steve H — May 3, 2007 @ 5:36 am