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Running head: EDUCATION RIGHTS 2

Is Education a Right or a Privilege?

In nearly every election and important political debate, education continues to be an common and controversial topic. Much of the discussion is around the “right” to quality education, and how social, economic and racial factors seem to favor one group or another with regard to quality education. In the landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown v. the Board of Education in 1954, education was proclaimed to be a “right which must be made available to all on equal terms” (Carson, 2004). Over sixty years later, it is clear that this goal still has not been reached, either nationally or internationally. As wealth equality has changed during that time period, similar trends are seen in education. As the economy shifts from manufacturing to technology in the United States, education becomes that much more important in securing high wage employment. The same is true in other counties. In fact, if a global and historic view of education is taken, I believe that it is clear that education is really a very important privilege, rather than a right.

When the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, was passed in 2010, many dismissed it as just another unnecessary social program that put more burden on the taxpayers in order to make sure that the poor and other less privileged parts of society had access to affordable health care. This was despite the fact that the United States was the only first world country that did not already guarantee healthcare for its citizens. Many of the people who opposed Obamacare as a “social program” have taken advantage of the free public education in the United States for themselves. Since it was a part of life that was taken for granted, free education was considered as much of a right as clean water or access to police and fire services. By looking at things more internationally, it is clear that the American perspective is probably altered by history, convention and perception.

Wealth inequality was a constant topic of debate in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Bernie Sanders presented numerous statistics about the wealth of the top 1% in relation to everyone else. As countries, including third world countries, move towards unregulated capitalist systems, the results are easy to see. In Africa for example, there remains a stated goal for 100% of all boys and girls to complete at least a primary education (Ohanyido, 2012). Even though the enrollment rate increased from 65 percent to 83 percent in the ten years following 1999, the goal is still not being met today. Africa’s gross enrollment rate remains the lowest in the world. Poorer countries in Africa and elsewhere in the world struggle with infrastructure, teacher retention and recruitment, war, famine and political strife. Overcoming these and other issues is a huge task that makes even the most basic of education an accomplishment.

Many poor countries require help from the United States, United Nations or private citizens just to enable to most basic of educational infrastructure. This includes nations where education for women has been traditionally undervalued. The long-term efforts of Greg Mortenson in Pakistan were recorded in his own best-selling account (Mortenson, 2006). The fact that a private citizen was able to, in some aspects, outperform the government of an entire nation, gives perspective to the scale of the issue internationally. Accounts such as this can give us more perspective regarding the struggle that is required to obtain an education of any kind. It is this sort of perspective that allows us to understand the many privileges that our country engenders for us. For example, while $25,000 per year for a family of four is considered poverty level in the U.S., many citizens of third world countries are forced to persist on just pennies per day.

Much of the debate in the U.S. today is based on the perception that poorer areas of the country are in turn able to spend less money on education, therefore the public education in these areas tends to suffer as compared to the wealthier areas. This can tend to blur the lines between racial and economic factors, since many poor areas of the U.S. are predominantly non-white. The idea of subsidizing private schools has sometimes been proposed as an antidote for this issue. The idea behind this is that parents will be provided a stipend for sending their child to private school and essentially save the taxpayers and equal amount by remaining out of the public school system. This in turn creates competition for students between public and private schools. Using this free market model, we would expect the public school performance to improve in reaction to the competition. Studies have shown that this is not necessarily the case and that the students benefitting from the programs were often from higher income families (Price, 2014). In order for public schools to compete with private schools on a level playing field, the public schools must have access to the same resources. Since these resources are inevitably finite, it is not truly possibly for public schools to compete against private on a level playing field. It was also concluded through the study that access to private school education would not necessarily overcome the challenges that students faced at home and in their neighborhoods, based on the lower income levels.

Other legislative initiatives, such as No Child Left Behind, use a similar philosophy of forced equivalence to try to establish a minimum level of quality education for everyone. These types of programs often face the criticism that they are attempting to solve a number of different problems with a single approach. Since education is a complex and sensitive issue for most families, perhaps it requires more thought and customized programs to be successful. The forced bussing programs of the 1960’s and 1970’s were another example of a forced quality standard. While many minority students, including Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson and other successful citizens, benefitted from the improved facilities and teachers they encountered after bussing, the concept also stirred controversy and anger in many communities. While strong personalities like Johnson were able to overcome some of these barriers, this was not always the case.

Despite the progress, even more recent studies have shown the relationship between poorer students and lesser quality of education. As recently as 2007, school districts and Seattle and Louisville, KY have attempted to evoke Brown v. the Board of Education in order to defend more progressive bussing and magnet school programs designed to continue the progress towards a level playing field (Bazelton, 2008). In Louisville, almost every school was between 15-50% African American. Continuing the progress towards quality education for all requires looking at all socio-economic factors, including race, income, family structure, etc.

While education in general, and primary education in particular, has been viewed as a birth right for American citizens for generations, the disparity between races and economic classes with regard to quality of education has been acknowledged as well. This is why Brown v. the Board of Education is still viewed as such a watershed event. The ruling in favor of desegregation was perhaps ahead of its time and a huge leap forward from the Jim Crow laws of the past that suppressed African Americans disproportionately. Ten years after the decision, 98% of African American students still attended predominantly black schools and by the 1970s, resistance to school desegregation had become national (Carson, 2004). Despite the resistance, the progress of African Americans in society has been persistently evident, including the election of an African American President in 2008. While the events of the 1950’s helped move our nation towards more equality in educational quality, we cannot deny that education itself is a privilege that many other countries are not as lucky to regard as such. It is perhaps the privilege we have had for so long in this country that leads many to view these blessings as a birth right.

The events of the 1950’s and 1960’s put educational equality into the spotlight. Although it had long been accepted that everyone had a right to an education, it was also commonly known that the quality of this education tended to vary. This variation is easier to see when we look at the issue on a national basis. On this basis, we also perceive this education as a right that we sometimes take for granted. In fact, the privilege aspect is sometimes only thought of when distinguishing between the higher and lower quality institutions. By looking at this issue globally instead, it is easy to put ourselves in the shoes of those who may not have even had the option of primary education. When we look at the issue on that basis, it is easy to conclude that education is a priveledge rather than a right.

Bazelton, E. (2008). The Next Kind of Integration. From: Muller, G. (2010) The McGraw Hill Reader, Issues Across the Disciplines, 12th Edition, 201-211. New York, N.Y.: McGraw Hill Education

Carson, C. (2004). Two Cheers for Brown v. Board of Education. From: Muller, G. (2010) The McGraw Hill Reader, Issues Across the Disciplines, 12th Edition, 219-225. New York, N.Y.: McGraw Hill Education

Mortenson, C., Relin, D. (2006). Three Cups of Tea. New York, N.Y.: The Penguin Group

Ohanyido, C. (2012). The Pivotal Role of Education in Africa’s Development.

Global Education Conference. Retrieved from