Should your zip code determine your access to the American dream? Or is the U.S. Constitution's guarantee to provide "equal protection" a principle we have silently agreed to uphold in theory -- but not in practice?
This makes me wonder about Tanya McDowell, the Connecticut mother facing felony charges for lying on her 5-year-old son's registration forms so he could attend a better school. McDowell's story is painfully reminiscent of Kelley Williams-Bolar, the Ohio mother who made a similar choice earlier this year -- and is now a convicted felon.
These two stories of civil disobedience come against the backdrop of an ongoing national conversation about our public school system and how it must be improved. They also provide an unsettling irony in lieu of the 57th anniversary this May 17 of Thurgood Marshall's historic victory in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that triumphantly reaffirmed a core American principle: "In the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place."
If Marshall were alive today, he would urge us to stop celebrating our symbolic victory in Brown, and start accepting our actual responsibility for tolerating a public education system that is, clearly, still separate, and still unequal.
Marshall said so himself, in a lesser known 1973 Court opinion, San Antonio v. Rodriguez. But this time he was not the lead lawyer, arguing the case, but the Court's first African-American justice, issuing a ruling. And this time, he was on the losing side.
The case began when a group of poor Texas parents claimed that their state's tolerance of the wide disparity in school resources -- much of which were determined by the value of local property taxes -- violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. A state court agreed, but the U.S. Supreme Court, in a narrow 5-4 decision, reversed.
Gone from the Court's 1973 ruling was its 1954 contention that "education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments." Gone, too, was its assertion that "it is doubtful any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity," wrote a unanimous Court in Brown, "where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms."
Instead, the five-Justice majority in Rodriguez wrote simply that while the Texas school system "can fairly be described as chaotic and unjust...it does not follow that this system violates the Constitution."
"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." If it were, the majority conceded, "virtually every State will not pass muster."
For Justice Marshall, that was precisely the point. "The Court concludes that public education is not constitutionally guaranteed," he wrote, even though "no other state function is so uniformly recognized as an essential element of our society's well being."
Marshall understood that without equal access to a high-quality public education, democracy doesn't work. "Education directly affects the ability of a child to exercise his First Amendment rights," he explained. "Education prepares individuals to be self-reliant and self-sufficient participants in society. Both facets of this observation are suggestive of the substantial relationship which education bears to guarantees of our Constitution."
So here we are, nearly thirty years after Rodriguez -- and nearly sixty after Brown -- and yet parents like Tanya McDowell and Kelley Williams-Bolar feel compelled to break the law to ensure that their children receive a fair shot at the American dream. Meanwhile, income inequality has reached unprecedented levels, the nation has simultaneously grown more racially and ethnically diverse, and massive spending disparities remain between schools.
In today's America, when it comes to public education, have we allowed our five-digit zip codes to become the equivalent of a lottery ticket to a better future? Is this really who we wish to be?
After so many years and so little real change, something new -- perhaps even something drastic -- needs to be done.
What if we took away the legal ambiguity that resulted in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision? What if we made the guarantee of an equal opportunity to learn our nation's 28th Constitutional Amendment?
This post was crossposted from CNN.com.
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Do we still believe that a free, high-quality education for every child is one of America's best ideas?
Anyone can find a dozen examples, every day, of how this concept has been co-opted and perverted and abused (and influenced by a corporation or two). But--unless Americans hold on to that dream, it doesn't matter what the Constitution says.
David Labaree does an excellent job of tracing the evolution of the purposes and mission of public schooling in several articles and a great book "Someone Has to Fail." When we lost the idea that the core mission of American public schooling was democratic equality, and started layering other goals and ambitions on to a system that could not support them, the public schools began "failing" to meet those (impossible) goals.
What's happened in the last decade, of course, has been this principle on steroids: Accusing the public schools of any number of sins and failures, while ignoring the way we designed and managed it to do just that.
Great piece.
Fundamental Rights exist in the state of nature. Publically funded education does not exist in a state of nature.
Getting an education from the state requires the labor of others. No one has a fundamental right to the labor of others.
Also, to answer your title. I don't think free education is a right…or at least it shouldn't be seen that way. It's a PRIVILEDGE - so take advantage of it everyone.
Actualizing quality education is another challenge all together. A far more difficult one. But the first step has to be the acknowledgement that all children deserve an equal chance at success in life.
I would challenge us not to stop at inputs and equal funding but to think about the outcomes we desire for all of our children. Perhaps this means not equal funding but equitable funding, with more funding going to those in need of more supports if they are to reach equal outcomes.
The schools can provide opportunity, but they are not going to overcome the basic unfairness between children coming from stable 2 parent households that push learning and education and children coming more chaotic and less supportive environments.
Public education is meant to be the great equalizer--that is its fundamental, historical philosophy. And that is what we should strive to atttain.
Why not make all those services private, if the goal is to have the resource allocation match whether or not a person has paid into it? Or alternatively, if your goal really is quality of life, why not help to make sure that everyone has adequate access to resources to ensure that everyone reaches their fullest productive potential? In both senerios you'll benefit; you either won't get stuck paying for something that you don't use, putting more money in your pocket, or you'll be surrounded by people with productive capabilities similar to your own, increasing overall productivity, thereby (if you're invested at least) putting more money in your pocket.
Yes, if I pay for something it is a right. What is the problem with that? I'm not trying to keep anyone from joining my middle class public school system, but I expect those using it to pay.