why should high quality education be guaranteed as a right in the United States Constitution?

There are four important reasons why the United States Constitution should be amended to guarantee all American children the right to a high quality education.

First, an educated citizenry is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy. As such, in order to protect our very democracy, access to high quality education ought to be guaranteed as a fundamental right in our nation's most sacred document the US Constitution.

Second, the current system of education in America is one where 15,000 different school districts in fifty different states provide far too wide a range of different quality schools between and among their students. This system has led to vast inequalities among students along geographic, socioeconomic, and racial lines inequality that will only be resolved when the American people agree and demand that all schools should be held to the same, high quality standard. A constitutional amendment would do just that.

Third, children today do not grow up to become citizens of Ohio to compete with citizens of California; they grow up to become American citizens, needing the skills and knowledge sets to enable them to compete with workers in India and China. Because education is the lifeblood of our nation's economy, we must provide high quality schools to all children no matter what city or state they live in and a constitutional amendment addresses this critical need.

Fourth, the current conversation about education in America has strayed from the most important issue: what is actually best for America's students. Education policy and resource mobilization are increasingly politicized today, with interest groups, teachers unions, and politicians jockey for their own ideologies and causes. As debates about education grow more politicized, and positions more entrenched, our nation desperately needs to change the way we view education and ensuring a constitutional right to high quality education has the power to push us as a country to do what is right for our children, and not just what is easy and politically expedient.