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 does it solve?
What does a federal right to education solve?
What does a federal right to education solve?
In the first season of The West Wing, Rob Lowe's character says, "Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything." A federal right to education will help solve many of America's biggest systemic problems. More than just revolutionizing education, it will revolutionize all of America.
The American Citizen
Improves educational adequacy and equality
A federal right to education will greatly improve the adequacy and equality of American public schools. In doing so, it will help combat many of America's greatest systemic problems.
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Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer
of the conditions of men, — the balance-wheel of the social machinery.
HORACE MANN
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It equalizes the "great equalizer." All Americans will have access to quality education irrespective of their socioeconomic status or geographic location (inner-city, suburb, rural town). No longer will some kids leave school with all the knowledge and skills while others leave illiterate. All Americans can optimize their exceptional human potential.
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True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.
People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
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It lubricates social mobility. Education attainment is one of the greatest determinants of success in America. Disparities in funding, access to quality education, college affordability, and job opportunities contribute to a cycle of disadvantage for low-income families. A federal right to education breaks millions of Americans out of a multi-generational doom-spiral. It is Robin Hood written into law.
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Because it is the most highly developed type of government,
democracy requires the most highly developed citizens.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
It empowers the citizen. A democracy is entirely dependent on the citizen's ability to self-govern. Self-governing is not an innate skill—citizens must be trained. A democracy is only as good as the education system within it. A federal right to education ensures proper and equal education for all Americans. It creates an informed citizenry capable and willing to maintain a democratic society.
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He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
VICTOR HUGO
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It gives citizens opportunity and hope. Quality education gives people opportunities and hope in their future. People with opportunities do not need to partake in "informal economies" to survive. People with hope stay out of jail. Our nation spends $270 billion every year to police, prosecute, and imprison. A federal right to education is the fiscally responsible, proactive solution to our bloated, reactive criminal justice system.
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If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
"A Nation at Risk" a 1983 report
United States National Commission on Excellence in Education.
An informed citizenry forms a strong military. A 2009 study found that 75% of American citizens, aged 17 to 24, are not qualified to serve in the Armed Services due to being physically unfit, having criminal records, or have inadequate levels of education. A federal right to education creates a citizenry able to defend ourselves from conventional threats and the new, evolving, and unknown threats of the future.
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It is easier to break an atom than a prejudice.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
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It stops racism where it is first learned. As children, we first learn that people are treated differently through the lens of our schools. White kids go to nice schools, non-white kids go to run-down schools. We grow these observations into opinion, and these opinions harden into our customs, traditions, laws and regulations. A right to education ensures that all Americans, regardless of skin color, receive a quality education. It attacks the system's roots, and perhaps by ripping those out, it will help kill the infestation that plagues this nation.
Educational
Inequality
Economic
Inequality
Failing Democracy
Criminal Justice
National
Security
Systemic Racism
The American City
Incentivizes density
A federal right to education is a Marshall Plan for our cities. It will incentivize the increase of living density in America. In doing so, it will help combat many of America's greatest systemic problems that have been caused by America's addiction to sprawl.
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Why is Density Good?
Density makes things more efficient. You can do more with less. Dense urban areas make efficient use of land and the infrastructure that connects it. They are centers of economic opportunity while being environmental sustainable. Increased accessibility and walkability enhances cultural and social vibrancy.
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How Does a Federal Right to Education Incentivize Density?
With all schools equal, a federal right to education eliminates the need to leave the city to find quality public education and raise a family. For the first time since the end of WWII, Americans have an incentive to stay in and return to the city to live, work and play.
Suburban sprawl is the expansion of low-density residential areas out from an urban center, often resulting in fragmented communities and increased reliance on cars.
Before a federal right to education
After a federal right to education
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Consider what makes a city magnetic, what can inject the gaiety, the wonder, the cheerful
hurly-burly that make people want to come into the city and linger there.
JANE JACOBS
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It returns the lost tax base to the city. It incentivizes Americans to stay in and return to cities. Cities fill their public coffers. They are able to provide improved and expanding services—mass transit, parks, neighborhood development. Denser communities spend tax payer money more efficiently and responsibly. Cities can be cities again, our citizens can be citizens again.
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Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you...
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
WALT WHITMAN
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It glues us back together. A more educated citizenry is more accepting and compromising of each other. Dense communities increase the ease and frequency of interacting with diverse and differing individuals and groups. They promote the establishment and preservation of “third places”—the “great good places” where people can easily meet, talk and build social trust and cohesion among a community.
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The safety of the street works best, most casually, and with least frequent taint of hostility or suspicion
precisely where people are using and most enjoying the city streets voluntarily
and are least conscious, normally, that they are policing.
JANE JACOBS
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Dense, healthy neighborhoods can police themselves. Active neighborhoods require less police surveillance. They are inhabited by numerous "natural proprietors" that survey the street and are personally invested in keeping it safe. With more density, comes more "eyes on the street." Police are given a safer city to protect. Less police in a safer city cools the inflamed policing issues in America today.
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It is health that is real wealth.
MAHATMA GANDHI
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Density improves health. More highly educated individuals are healthier, less risk adverse. More equal societies improve physical and mental health. Dense communities encourage walking and biking and discourage automobile use. Density is associated with reductions in obesity, heart disease, diabetes... Our cars are killing us, a federal right to education helps us get out of them.
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Urbanism is the most cost-effective and robust solution to climate change.
PETER CALTHORPE
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It incentivizes increased living density. Through urban densification, the U.S. can meet half of its climate goals. Denser communities are more energy efficient. By elevating America's inner-city public schools to be equal in quality as all others, it incentivizes Americans to stay and return to cities. It eliminates the need to leave the city to find good education.
Crumbling Cities
Social
Cohesion
Policing
Public
Health
Climate Change
E D U C A T I O N I S T H E S I L V E R B U L L E T.
E D U C A T I O N I S E V E R Y T H I N G.
We don’t need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce; they should be making six figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to it citizens, just like national defense.
SAM SEABORN
The West Wing, "Six Meetings Before Lunch"
Season 1, episode 18
How do we get it?
A federal right to education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet. It revolutionizes the American Citizen as well as the American City. So how do we get it? We have always had the will to make change, but how do we do it?