A F E D E R A L R I G H T T O E D U C A T I O N
What is it?
What is a federal right to education?
What is a federal right to education?
Perhaps the best way to understand the answer to that question is to break it down into pieces:
What is a federal right to education?
Education is the act of transmitting and acquiring knowledge. Education is beneficial to the individual, society, and the human species as a whole.
Individual. Education equips individuals with the tools to navigate life, allowing them to live longer, more capable lives that can better interpret and enjoy the human experience.
Society. Education benefits society by promoting science, technological innovation, and economic growth. It fosters civic participation, social cohesion, and encourages the fair and just treatment of others.
Species. Education facilitates collective learning. Collective learning is arguably the greatest of all human preadaptations and the reason for the success of the human species.
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Collective learning
Collective learning is the sharing, storing, and accumulation of information over time and across generations. We humans have the ability to communicate in symbolic language and transmit our acquired knowledge to others. So that when we die, all our knowledge is not lost, but instead, is passed on and retained in the minds of others and in forms of information storage (books, hard drives, etc). Carl Sagan beautifully describes, in his famed television series, Cosmos, how important the storage of information is to the perpetuation of knowledge:
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What an astonishing thing a book is... one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs.
Collective learning is uniquely human. Other animals can't collectively learn. When they die, all their knowledge dies with them. Much of human success can be attributed to this ability and process. And this process of transmitting and acquiring knowledge, is called education.
A mouse can not pass on knowledge to future generations through symbolic language. When it dies, all its acquired knowledge dies with it.
What is a federal right to education?
Simply then, it is the right to know, to learn, to become human, and partake in the beautiful, collective learning process.
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A right to education is a human right that guarantees a person access to a quality education. The United Nations suggests that a right to education is the most important human right. They say education is “an indispensable means of realizing other human rights.” Essentially, education is the most important human right because you need it to realize the existence of other human rights! The United Nations goes on by saying:
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Education is the primary vehicle by which economically and socially marginalized adults and children can lift themselves out of poverty and obtain the means to participate fully in their communities. Education has a vital role in empowering women [and] safeguarding children… Education is recognized as one of the best financial investments States can make. But the importance of education is not just practical: a well-educated, enlightened and active mind, able to wander freely and widely, is one of the joys and rewards of human existence.
Wow.
A human right is inherent. Meaning, we have it merely because we are human. Human rights can be denied, but they can never be taken away. We always have them.
What is a federal right to education?
It is a fundamental human right that is not granted by the United States federal government.
A federal right to education grants American citizens the right to know, to learn, to become human, and partake in the collective learning process of the human species. It ensures all Americans have access to quality education irrespective of socioeconomic status or geographic location (inner-city, suburb, or rural town).
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A federal right to education is the greatest equalizing action available to the American people. It has equalizing power similar to that of the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, 15th) or the 19th Amendment. It finishes the job Brown v. Board of Education set out to do. It helps produce an informed, scientifically literate citizenry necessary to maintain a democratic society, the rule of law, and the enlightened traditions of self-government.
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Ultimately, it is the next, natural step in the maturation of our American civilization. One is reminded of the words of the American bard, Walt Whitman:
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All truths wait in all things,
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon...
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These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they
are not original with me...
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This the common air that bathes the globe.
Why don't we have it?
It is hard to believe that the United States, a nation founded on the distilled ideals of the Enlightenment, does not grant its citizens the right to become enlightened.
