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Schooling as a Fundamental Right:Should an Equal Education Amendment be Enacted?
©2007 Gary K. Clabaugh, Ed. D.EQUAL EDUCATION AMENDMENTSection 1
. Equality of Educational opportunity under thelaw shall not be denied or abridged by the United States orany state on accountof race, sex, income or place of residence.
Section 2
. The Congress shall have the power to enforce,by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
 
RETURN
 edited 4/15/09InmakingNo Child Left Behind the law of the land, Congress and President Bush got their school reformpriorities backwards. Before demanding that no child be left behind, they first should have remedied theeducational inequalities that limit the learning of millions of American youngsters.
The Situation
How severe are these inequalities? Consider the School District of Philadelphia. Nearly 80 percent of its K-12 students live at or near the poverty level; and financial neediness spawns profound educational deficits.Nevertheless, a typical Philadelphia student has $2,215
less
spent per year on his or her schooling than atypically less disadvantaged suburban student. As a matter of fact, fully six of those suburban districts spendover $5,000 more per pupil per year than Philadelphia.[1]Given the School District of Philadelphia’smaximum class size of 32, that equals $160,000.00 more per classroom, per year.It would be one thing if such educational inequalities were confined to the Philadelphia area or even toPennsylvania. But outrageous inequalities in per student spending persist in district after district, and stateafter state. Here is a brief sampler of the unequal per-student spending that disadvantages so manyAmerican children.· Camden, NJ $15,485 / Brick Township, NJ $9,472 – a difference of $6,013.· Palo Alto Unified, CA $10,709 / Victor Valley Union High, CA $5,125 – a difference of $5,584.
 
· Yonkers, NY $15,148 / North Syracuse, NY $9,856 – a difference of $5,292.· Atlanta, GA $11,502 / Columbia County, GA $6,580 – a difference of $4,922.· Pittsburgh, PA $12,242 / Reading, PA $7,340 – a difference of $4,902.[2]These differences, typical of differences over most of the nation, would buy a whole lot of resources. YetAmerica’s politicians, fully aware of this pitiable situation, are piously demanding that no child be leftbehind. Their hypocrisy is truly breath taking, even by Washington standards.In general, low per pupil spending typically correlates with inadequate family income and depressedproperty values. Consequently, needy kids from poor families living in impoverished areas typically go tounder-resourced schools. But even when family income is roughly comparable, dramatic per-pupil spendinginequalities still persist. In Illinois, for example, the Chicago area Arlington Heights School District, with amedian household income $81,495, spends an average of $14,595 per child. Plainfield, another Chicago areaIllinois district, median household income $97,112, spends just $6,582. This is a remarkable difference of $8,033 per child. And this time it favors the lower income district.[3]
Why Care?
From a pedagogical point of view, this rampant inequality makes no sense. It also makes no sense in termsof its morality. And it certainly does not enhance the nation’s competitiveness —a concern that topped thelist of complaints about our schools in A Nation At Risk — the prominent 1983 report on Americaneducation, from the National Commission on Excellence in Education. You may remember that it fueled thewidespread dissatisfaction with the state of America’s public schools that has been with us ever since.It is hard to overstate how important the nation’s educational inequalities really are. In Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), a unanimous Court recognized that "education is perhaps the mostimportant function of state and local governments." Yet child after child is disadvantaged simply because of where they live. Such arbitrary inequality is profoundly unfair to all impacted students, parents andeducators. What is more, given the importance of schooling to the electoral process, free speech and nationalcompetitiveness, it is most unwise for the nation.
Judicial Remedy Fails
There was a time when the judiciary seemed to offer a solution. In the early 1970’s a number of state andfederal courts ruled that this sort of educational inequality violated the disadvantaged student’s rights underthe Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, in the landmark SAN ANTONIOSCHOOL DISTRICT v. RODRIGUEZ, 411 U.S. 1 (1973), the US Supreme Court provided a differentinterpretation. They ruled that the right to an
equal 
education, indeed the right to any schooling whatsoever,is neither explicitly nor implicitly guaranteed by the Constitution.
 
The court acknowledged that inequalities between school districts do, in fact, deprive many U.S. youngstersof equal educational opportunity. But a majority of the justices were quick to add that there was
"... noevidence that the financing system discriminates against any traditionally definable category of "poor" people or that it results in the absolute deprivation of education."
In other words, since educational inequality impacts a wide variety of "poor" people, and no youngsters aretotally dispossessed of public schooling, just short changed, the equal protection clause of the Constitutiondoes not apply. One wonders if they would have reached the same conclusion if one of their owngrandchildren were included among the victims. But, of course, their grandchildren, not to mention thechildren and grandchildren of most Congressmen and Executive branch officials, go to private school.Not surprisingly, Justice Marshall and Justice Douglass vigorously dissented. In fact Marshall, withDouglass concurring, wrote:
... the
 
majority's holding can only be seen as a retreat from our historic commitment to equality of educational opportunity and as unsupportable acquiescence in a system which deprives children in theirearliest years of the chance to reach their full potential as citizens. The Court does this despite the absenceof any substantial justification for a scheme that arbitrarily channels educational resources in accordancewith the amount of taxable wealth within each district or state."
Justice Marshall emphasized the unlikelihood of a political solution to this inequality.
The right of every American to an equal start in life, so far as the provision of a state service as important as education is concerned, is far too vital to permit state discrimination on grounds as tenuous as those presented by this record. Nor can I accept the notion that it is sufficient to remit these appellees to thevagaries of the political process which, contrary to the majority's suggestion, has proved singularlyunsuited to the task of providing a remedy for this discrimination. I, for one, am unsatisfied with the hopeof an ultimate "political" solution sometime in the indefinite future while, in the meantime, countlesschildren unjustifiably receive inferior educations that "may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikelyever to be undone...."[4] 
Marshall’s skepticism concerning political solutions has proven accurate. Thirty-three years after Rodriquez,shameful educational inequalities still persist and the political process has proven a totally inadequateremedy. That is why it is time to consider amending the Constitution to guarantee equal educationalopportunity to every child in America.
Lasting Change
Unlike the Johnson era Great Society legislation that lost its momentum in the Reagan years, a constitutionalamendment would apply the consistent and persistent pressure necessary to sustain educational equalization 
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