At the heart of our democracy, at the heart of the American Dream, is the value we place on education. What, in part, has made America so attractive to immigrants is the prospect that with nothing more than an education and hard work one can succeed. Given this, it is quite ironic that the United States doesn’t promise a good, free education for its citizens. In fact, it doesn’t promise one at all. Our failure to ensure all our children a basic education, much less an equitable one, has had immense social, economic, and political opportunity costs for our society. In my view, these failures are unnecessary and can be remedied by guaranteeing everyone not only a decent education, but one that works to help individuals succeed in light of their particular needs. To this end, I believe that education ought to be a Constitutional right that enshrines the principle of equity, so that the educational needs of individual students and their larger communities are guaranteed.

Among the world’s developed countries, the national educational system of the United States ranks relatively low. Each and every one of the countries outranking the US share this distinction: a constitutional or statutory guarantee for education. In fact, rich or poor, 174 out of 195 world countries mention the word “education” in their Constitutions. Needless to say, the US is not one of them. Rather, the US has entrusted the education of its children to the states. Historically, this once made sense: the 13 colonies each had distinct cultural, political, and economic identities, and they wanted to retain those identities and freedoms within the larger union. In our current world, however, this system has left too much to state and local governments, yielding discrepancies in the quality of education offered to different local constituencies. Indeed, many states have neglected education and, in doing so, have jeopardized both their and our national interests and even democratic values. By contrast, the countries with the top systems have made education a national priority, and by “establish[ing] baseline requirements” those systems have also succeeded in “set[ting] the frame for policy and judicial challenges, as well as contribute to … a ‘culture’ of education” (Stephen Lurie, “Why Doesn't the Constitution Guarantee the Right to Education?”). How can we possibly make education a national priority within the United States? As the United States has an ingrained respect for our Constitution, a constitutional amendment is our most viable option for nationwide educational reform. Many argue that making education a Constitutional right would infringe on individual and local liberties. However, a Constitutional Amendment would not necessarily do so. First, an amendment would not exclude families from opting out of public education. Second, schools could still shape their own curriculums. An amendment would not take away individual schools’ choice for supplemental classes but simply guarantee all children a public education and set some basic academic standards, which would grant students protections against the inequities of our society. It is time that we start thinking about education as a human right.

Educational reform has become necessary, to ensure both the welfare of American citizens, as well as that of our democracy as a whole. Unfortunately, there is abundant evidence that our current educational system does not effectively give students the most basic skills they need to succeed economically. In Detroit, for example, recent standardized test results have shown that less than 10% of Detroit’s public school students scored satisfactorily in reading. Needless to say, this is terrible news for their economic future: “adults with the lowest levels of literacy are disproportionately unemployed” (Alia Wong, “The Students Suing for a Constitutional Right to Education” ). The American Dream is a fiction in places like Detroit, where 90% of the population is not given the education needed to be so much as proficient in reading. What is more, in a country where the public’s vote is so important, an educated public is essential to the political wellbeing of our country. It was the Supreme Court, in fact, which identified the US’s public school system as “the very foundation of good citizenship.” Our public school system seems to be failing us on that count, though. Without a  national mandate, education in civics, a subject that is crucial for cultivating citizens, is lacking in many schools. As a result, the deficiencies in the political education of most students are worrisome. “Civics knowledge is in an alarming state: Three-quarters of Americans can’t identify the three branches of government. Public-opinion polls, meanwhile, show a new tolerance for authoritarianism, and rising levels of antidemocratic and illiberal thinking” (Erika Christakis, “Americans Have Given Up on Public Schools. That’s a Mistake”).

The inequalities are not just among states, though. Within each state, city, and town, there are substantial differences in the quality of schools depending on the wealth of the district and its residents. In the United States, state governments have long controlled the gathering and distribution of funds for schools; the long-standing practice has been to finance local schools by local property taxes. While community involvement in schools has many benefits, the financing of local schools by local property taxes has led to gross inequalities between districts. While the federal government provides targeted funds for local schools, the lion’s share of school funds derives from property taxes, a practice that has produced a dire problem for educational quality, as some schools don’t even have enough funds to properly teach. Therefore, we are upholding a school system that creates a deep educational divide based on wealth, and which prohibits many children from enjoying the same opportunities as those in  “the school in the neighborhood over”. That “school in the neighborhood over'' is typically whiter. As many education writers have sadly noted: “Although races are no longer separated by law in our schools, the schools are more segregated than at any time since Brown” (Jonathan Zimmerman, “Brown: Without Deliberate Speed.”) This is because “the existence of economic segregation does not contradict evidence of racial segregation--it helps to confirm it” (Will Stangl, “School Segregation is Not a Myth). According to recent studies, in fact, the United States has some 969 “isolating borders,”  borders marking off school districts that are at least 25% whiter and receive 10% more funding, across 42 states, with an average disparity in funding of $4,000 per student (A. Harris, “The Whiter, Richer School District Right Next Door”). 

Though it seems logical that disparities in funding would produce disparities in academic performance, many disagree, citing the fact that although most cities have invested more money into education per student than suburban schools, suburban schools still achieve better testing scores. This claim, however, does not take into account the differences in racial and socioeconomic makeup between suburban and urban communities. Cities, which generally have more BIPOC, are more affected by the “education debt,” because of the historical disadvantages of BIPOC (Jack Schneider, “What School-Funding Debates Ignore”). In fact, court-ordered “increase-in-funding” mandates for low-performing students, who tend to be schooled in low-funded schools, have gotten results: post-investment, the students begin to perform increasingly better. These benefits continue into adulthood: closing the school funding gap would generally mean as much as 25% higher earnings in adulthood for students living in poverty  (Alana Semuels, “Good School, Rich School; Bad School, Poor School”). However great the improvements stemming from more equal funding would be, it is still not enough. If we truly want to help equalize academic performance and achievement in adulthood, then we must first “equitable-ize” the resources we give students, because equal inputs do not result in equal outcomes for historically disadvantaged groups. One size does not fit all. This being the case, it is evident that “if students living in poverty are less than half as likely to be proficient in reading and math,” then “substantially more resources” should be designated “to schools with 90% low-income students than those with 20%” (Ary Amerikaner, “States Are Burying Damning Data about School Funding”). As shown in a study conducted by Rutgers and Syracuse University, schools with high percentages of low-income students will generally need two to three times more funding to remedy their greater challenges (Ary Amerikaner, “States Are Burying Damning Data about School Funding”). The horrible irony is that schools accommodating lower-scoring and poorer students are getting fewer resources. In comparison to majority affluent schools, schools with higher percentages of low-income students often have bigger class sizes, lower-paid teachers, less tech, poor facilities, and fewer support staff, such as guidance counselors and tutors. If a weighted funding system, which evaluated the financial needs of each school based on their socioeconomic status and academic scoring, were implemented, over time we would get equalized outcomes. Implementing this system would provide the money needed by poorer schools for educational resources such as free preschool, lower student-to-teacher ratios, tutoring, and language support. Though equitable funding has proven highly effective, to date it has merely been implemented by a few states. In fact, many states have yet to even deal with the problem of the equalization of funding. As cited in The Atlantic article “How Ineffective Government Can Hurt Poor Students”,  “14 states provide less money to students with higher percentages of low-income students, 19 states provide the same amount of funding for low-income students and affluent students [and] only 4 states provide ‘sufficient overall level of funding and provide significantly higher amounts of funding to high poverty school districts’”. In other words, the states are still shockingly far from tackling the challenge of ensuring for every student an equitable education. Given the evident failures of the individual states, a Constitutional Amendment offers itself as the most practical political tool for the improvement of our current educational system. 

Given the politics of the courts, furthermore, the implementation of such a change is only likely to follow from a constitutional amendment. The courts have not proven themselves to be a force for change of the funding structures for schools. The Supreme Court has not even faced the issue of equality, much less equity. Most famously, in 1973 there was a Supreme Court case, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, in which a parent of two students attending a neglected school sued the state of Texas, claiming that state funding violated the Constitution’s “equal protection” clause. Although the Supreme Court disagreed, since then many suits have been brought before state-level courts: school-funding-based lawsuits have been filed in some 45 out of the 50 states. Even if it were the case that this was not unconstitutional, such immense support for a change to the system exposes that it should be. People have been demanding change for a while, and it is time that we face this challenge together.  

Fundamentally, American public schools were intended to be a place where American values were at their finest―a place that brought together children of all races, cultures, and socioeconomic statuses and gave them the opportunities to be equals. However, because of funding inequities, educational debt, and modern segregation, this vision is failing, and leaving millions of poor students behind with it. People are losing hope in the American public school system and the values that it stands for, and are often turning to alternative schools because of the disarray in which public schools currently find themselves nationwide. But at the heart of it- it should not be necessary for families to turn to these schools for lack of a better public option. It is the national government’s duty to provide a good education for all of its citizens, and if it seems that this is not happening then change must be made, because when our democracy fails to deliver equitable educational opportunities that help all students instead of only the privileged few, so does it fail itself.