Giving Compass' Take:

· Carolyn Phenicie discusses education in the United States and explains that making it a federal right is the best way to achieve equity in American education. Phenicie further explains that right now, privileged Americans receive the highest quality of education while everyone else attends schools with less funding and resources. 

· What other factors are causing inequality in education? How are these issues being addressed? Should education be a federal right? What are the arguments against it? 

· Here's another article about making education a constitutional right. 

There isn’t currently a federal right to education. The Supreme Court made that much clear in the 1970s. But should there be?

For one side of the debate Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute, guaranteeing a federal right to education is the only way to fix the sinking ship of inequitable American education. For opponents, it’s a “utopian abstraction” that will inevitably result in increased federal meddling in local decisions.

The crux of the debate was the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez. Justices decided, 5-4, that there is no fundamental constitutional right to education, and that the system of funding schools through property taxes did not violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause, even if it resulted in inequitable funding.

The Supreme Court’s decision to leave it to “the laboratory of the states” to find a better way to ensure that all children receive an equitable education has largely been ineffective, said Kimberly Robinson, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

Read the full article about necessary change to America’s education system by Carolyn Phenicie at The 74.