This is for all my teacher colleagues who keep wanting to ignore politics and wish that it had nothing to do with education.
The National School Boards Association (NSBA) just reported on the decision of the Rhode Island Supreme Court in a case that challenged inequities in funding a public schools across the tiny state; a common issue in many, if not most states. The Court decided against the plaintiffs, and part of their reasoning was this:
...the court rejected the plaintiffs’ claims that the funding formula violated their substantive due process and equal protection rights under the state constitution because there is no fundamental right to an education. [Emphasis added]
Let that sink in for a minute. Education is not a fundamental right of every American child?
Well, not in Rhode Island. What about Mississippi? New York? California? Might want to check your state constitutions.
The plaintiffs in this case argued that the state funding formula for schools resulted in many children receiving an inferior education. The Court's interpretation was this:
The court rejected Plaintiffs’ argument that their right to education has been compromised because of their districts’ diminished financial ability. The court stated that “[d]isparities in per student expenditure resulting from the application of the formula, while very unfortunate, are not unconstitutional. It is for the legislature to determine what that minimum constitutionally required education foundation to be.”
The report continues:
...the court stated that the Education Clause [of the state] does not confer a fundamental or constitutional right to education, nor does it guarantee an “equal, adequate, and meaningful education.” Also, the court stated it has consistently held that the education clause “vests in the General Assembly sole responsibility in the field of education,”
I need some legal minds to weigh in on this, and what it means for the larger national discussion of public education, but I find this disturbing. It implies that education is a legislated program that can be operated, maintained, or eliminated at the whim of those legislatures.
Why isn't education a fundamental right under every state constitution and under the U.S. Constitution? That question has some heavy historical and political weight, and the answer says something ugly about us as a nation. So....every American has the right to a weapon, up to and including assault weapons, but not the right to become an educated citizen?
Cross-posting this response to my blog (which also appears at TransformED)
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Submitted by David B. Cohen on Fri, 2012-07-27 14:58
Great post, Renee. There are state constitutions that codify the right to an education. It would be interesting to see where education advocacy groups line up on that idea if it were proposed as an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I'm just speculating here, but I think we'd hear an eerie silence from the likes of Students First and Stand for Children. They are eager to focus on weakening unions and not particularly worried about universal health care and pre-school and other common sense reforms that would truly help children. Putting the right to education into a constitution opens the state to litigation because of rights denied. Washington and Colorado have had recent cases where rulings favored the student plaintiffs, though the practical effects of those rulings are still uncertain. California has a case that I hope will go forward, though it will require a successful appeal after the last ruling. For more on Colorado and California, see
http://accomplishedcaliforniateachers.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/time-to-t...
http://accomplishedcaliforniateachers.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/still-wat...
Posted by: TeachMoore | July 29, 2012 at 08:55 PM