I received an e-mail today from Our Education, a group pushing for education reform, whose stated purpose is “a constitutional amendment to guarantee all American children the right to a high quality public education.” My first reaction was to think that a constitutional amendment is not necessarily the best solution, but they make a few compelling points.
We think of education as a right at this point, but it simply is not, in a national sense. OurEd points to a Supreme Court ruling which states that “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.” This case specifically addresses the gap in education caused by differences in wealth, and the Supreme Court says that there is nothing in U.S. law that can do anything about it. I don’t want to get too preachy here, but you see the point — disadvantaged children remain disadvantaged because they don’t have a right to education that is equal to rich kids (or even middle-class ones!).
It is true that every state guarantees a free education, but how many of us have looked back and cursed our terrible public school education? Or vice versa — gone to college and wondered why some people never seem to have learned any basic math, history, or how to write an essay longer than a page? The fact is that educational requirements are wildly disparate between individual schools and even entire states, and this is why Americans on average come out as such morons against other countries with better national requirements.
When the Constitution was first created, formal education was still in its infancy, but now it is widespread and essentially a requirement for many parts of life. There is simply no denying that education not only directly affects a person’s ability to maintain their life and liberty and to pursue happiness, but is also crucial to the survival and advancement of the human race as a whole.
Certainly federalizing education will cause problems, but the current system has its own problems that cannot be solved as it stands. Certainly a constitutional amendment is an incredibly dramatic and powerful answer, but education IS that important. And, I mean, it’s not as if it hasn’t been done before. With stupider things. Remember Prohibition? We’ve already created two idiotic constitutional amendments dealing with alcohol — because that’s the most harmful thing on the planet, right? — I’m sure we can manage just one that addresses education, which is surely one of the most important issues of our time.
Anyway, that was a bit of a rant. And I haven’t even touched arts or sex education yet…