How the United States can provide equal educational opportunity to
every child
The United States Supreme Court closed the courthouse door to federal
litigation to narrow educational funding and opportunity gaps in schools
when it ruled in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez in
1973 that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to education.
Rodriguez pushed reformers back to the state courts where they have had
some success in securing reforms to school funding systems through
education and equal protection clauses in state constitutions, but far
less success in changing the basic structure of school funding in ways
that would ensure access to equitable and adequate funding for schools.
Given the limitations of state school funding litigation, education
reformers continue to seek new avenues to remedy inequitable disparities
in educational opportunity and achievement, including recently returning
to federal court.
This book is the first comprehensive examination of three issues
regarding a federal right to education: why federal intervention is
needed to close educational opportunity and achievement gaps; the
constitutional and statutory legal avenues that could be employed to
guarantee a federal right to education; and, the scope of what a federal
right to education should guarantee. A Federal Right to Education
provides a timely and thoughtful analysis of how the United States could
fulfill its unmet promise to provide equal educational opportunity and
the American Dream to every child, regardless of race, class, language
proficiency, or neighborhood.
