Skip to main content

Funding the Right to Equal Educational Opportunity

An Overview and Call to Follow the Money

  • Chapter
  • 625 Accesses

Part of the book series: Constructing Knowledge ((CKCS,volume 5))

Abstract

On paper, education and equal educational opportunity are rights. In a landmark decision that echoed far beyond the nation, the US Supreme Court in 1954 found that educational opportunity, “where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.” Writing for a unanimous Court in Brown v. Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren affirmed equal educational opportunity as a right and underscored the centrality of education to other rights, given the importance of education “to our democratic society” and the likelihood that no child “may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he [or she] is denied the opportunity of an education.”

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   49.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Bailey, M. J., & Dynarski, S. M. (2011). Gains and gaps: Changing inequality in US college entry and completion. In G. J. Duncan & R. Murnane (Eds.), Whither opportunity? Rising inequality, schools, and children’s life chances (pp. 117–132). Russell Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, B. B., Sciarra, D. G., & Farrie, D. (2010a). Is school funding fair? A national report card. Newark, NJ: Education Law Center. Retrieved from http://www.schoolfundingfairness.org/National_Report_Card.pdf.

  • Baker, B. B., Sciarra, D. G., & Farrie, D. (2010b). Is school funding fair? A national report card, 2008 update. Newark, NJ: Education Law Center. Retrieved from http://www.schoolfundingfairness.org/SFF_2008_Update.pdf.

  • Baker, B. B. (2012). Revisiting the age-old question: Does money matter in education? Washington, DC: The Albert Shanker Institute. Retrieved from http://www.shankerinstitute.org/images/doesmoneymatter_final.pdf.

  • Bell, D. (2004). Silent covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the unfulfilled hopes for racial reform. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Books, S. (2010). Why and how poverty matters in schooling. In G. S. Cannella & L. D. Soto (Eds.), Childhoods: A handbook (pp. 157–172). Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, R. (2010, February 27). District may end N.C. economic diversity program. The New York Times, p. A18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clinton, B. (1993). Remarks to the Democratic Leadership Council — Bill Clinton speech — transcript. Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2889/is_n48_v29/ai_14891633/

  • Coleman, J. S., Campbell, E. Q., Hobson, C. J., McPartland, J., Mood, A. M., Weinfeld, F. D., & York, R. L. (1966). Equality of educational opportunity. Washington, DC: US Department of Health, US Government Printing Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, M. (2011, December 14). With states desperate to keep jobs, companies have upper hand, report shows. The New York Times, p. A23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cornman, S. Q., & Noel, A. M. (2011, November). Revenues and expenditures for public elementary and secondary school districts: School year 2008–09 (fiscal year 2009). NCES 2012–313. Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012313.pdf.

  • Cowan, A. (2007, June 3). School’s deep-pocketed partners. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/03Rschool.html?fta=y.

  • DeParle, J. (2011, January 5). Harder for Americans to rise from economy’s lower rungs. The New York Times, p. A1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Filardo, M. W., Vincent, J. M., Sung, P., & Stein, T. (2006). Growth & disparity: A decade of US public school construction. Washington, DC: BEST (Building Educational Success Together). Retrieved from http://www.ncef.org/pubs/GrowthandDisparity.pdf.

  • Gillespie, L. N. (2010). The fourth wave of education finance litigation: Pursuing a federal right to an adequate education. Cornell Law Review, 95(5), 989–1029.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenhouse, L. (1972, December 19). Property tax reform enthusiasm lags. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F50913F73F59107A93CBA81789D95F468785F9.

  • Hanushek, E. A. (1986). Economics of schooling: Production and efficiency in public schools. Journal of Economic Literature, 24 (3), 1141–1177.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haskins, R., & Sawhill, I. (2009). Creating an opportunity society. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Retrieved from http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2009/1027_opportunity_society/1027_opportunity_society_presentation.pdf.

  • Heuer, R., & Stullich, S. (2011). Comparability of state and local expenditures among schools within districts: A report from the study of school-level expenditures. Washington, DC: US Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/title-i/school-level-expenditures/school-level-expenditures.pdf.

  • Hightower, A. (2011, January 13). Weighing states’ school performance, policymaking. Quality Counts 2011, Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/01/13/16stateofthestates.h30.html.

  • Hu, W. (2011, January 23). Unlikely allies fight Cuomo’s plan for property tax cap. The New York Times, p. A19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jäntti, M., Bratsberg, B., Røed, K., Raaum, O., Naylor, R., Österbacka, E., Björklund, A., & Eriksson, T. (2006, January). American exceptionalism in a new light: A comparison of intergenerational earnings mobility in the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom and the United States. Discussion Paper No. 1938 (January). Retrieved from http://ftp.iza.org/dp1938.pdf.

  • Jillson, C. (2004). Pursuing the American dream: Opportunity and exclusion over four centuries. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kozol, J. (1992). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools. New York: Harper Perennial.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kozol, J. (1996). Amazing grace: The lives of children and the conscience of a nation. New York: Harper Perennial.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kozol, J. (2005). The shame of the nation: The restoration of apartheid schooling in America. New York: Crown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kozol, J. (2009, September 6). In depth: Jonathan Kozol. Video clip and transcript. C-Span2, Book TV. Retrieved from http://www.c-spanvideo.org/appearance/574374262.

  • Krugman, P. (2012, January 8). America’s unlevel field. The New York Times, p. A19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ladd, H., and Fiske, E.B. (2011, December 11). Class matters: Why won’t we admit it? The New York Times, A23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ladson-Billings, G. (2008). A letter to our next president. Forum for Education and Democracy. Retrieved from http://forumforeducation.org/our-team

  • Mattera, P., Cafcas, T., McIlvanine, L., Seifter, A., & Tarczynsky, K. (2011). Money for something: Job creation and job quality standards in state economic development subsidy programs. Washington, DC: God Jobs First. Retrieved from http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/moneyforsomething_noappdx.pdf.

  • Miron, G., Urschel, J. L., Yat Aguilar, M. A., & Dailey, B. (2011). Profiles of for-profit and nonprofit education management organizations: Thirteenth annual report — 2010–2011. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/EMOprofiles-10-11

  • National Council of Churches. (2010, May 18). An alternative vision for public education: A pastoral letter on federal policy in public education: An ecumenical call for justice. New York City: The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Retrieved from http://www.ncccusa.org/elmc/pastoralletter.pdf.

  • National Education Access Network. (2012). New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. Retrieved from http://schoolfunding.info/

  • Orfield, G. (2009). Reviving the goal of an integrated society: A 21st century challenge. Los Angeles: The Civil Rights Project, UCLA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orfield, G., Eaton, S. E., & The Harvard Project on School Desegregation. (1996). Dismantling desegregation: The quiet reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: New Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Otterman, S. (2010, August 4). Diversity debate convulses elite high school. The New York Times, p. A1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pew Economic Mobility Project (2011). Does America promote mobility as well as other nations? The Pew Charitable Trusts. Retrieved from http://www.economicmobility.org/assets/pdfs/CRITA_FINAL.pdf.

  • Purpel, D. (1989). The moral & spiritual crisis in education: a curriculum for justice & compassion in education. New York: Bergin & Garvey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reardon, S. F. (2011). The widening academic achievement gap between the rich and the poor: New evidence and possible explanations. In G. J. Duncan & R. Murnane (Eds.), Whither opportunity? Rising inequality, schools, and children’s life chances (pp. 91–116). Russell Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rebell, M. (2011, October). Providing comprehensive educational opportunity to low-income students. New York: Campaign for Educational Equity, Teachers College, Columbia University. Retrieved from: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/i/a/document/18661_1rebell.pdf

  • Rich, M. (2011). Private sector gets job skills; Public gets bill. The New York Times, p. A1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rothstein, R. (2004). Class and schools: Using social, economic, and educational reform to close the black-white achievement gap. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saul, S. (2011, December 13). Profits and questions at online charter schools. The New York Times, pp. A1, A24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schrag, P. (2003). Final test: The battle for adequacy in America’s schools. New York: The New Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shelly, B. (2011). Money, mandates, and local control in American public education. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, D. (2006). Trying to teach in a season of great untruth. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solomon, D. (2005, September 4). School monitor: Questions for Jonathan Kozol. The New York Times Magazine. Interview. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/magazine/04QUESTIONS.html.

  • Southern Education Foundation (2010). The worst of times: Children in extreme poverty in the South and nation. SEF Research and Policy Report. Retrieved from http://www.southerneducation.org/pdf/TWOT-Extreme%20Child%20Poverty%20Rpt-Final.pdf.

  • Steinbeck, J. (1939). The grapes of wrath. New York: Viking Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Troubled Online Charter Schools. (2012, January 11). Editorial. The New York Times, p. A26.

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations. (1989). Convention on the rights of the child. New York: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Retrieved from http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm.

  • US General Accounting Office. (1997, February). State efforts to reduce funding gaps between poor and wealthy districts. Report: GAO/HEHS-97-31. Washington, DC: US General Accounting Office. Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov/assets/230/223749.pdf

  • Warren, E. (2011, September 18). Elizabeth Warren on debt crisis, fair taxation. YouTube video. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htX2usfqMEs.

  • Welner, K., & Farley, A. (2010). Confronting systemic inequity in education: High impact strategies for philanthropy. Retrieved from http://www.ncrp.org/files/publications/Confronting_Systemic_Inequities_in_Education_lowres.pdf.

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Sense Publishers

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Books, S. (2013). Funding the Right to Equal Educational Opportunity. In: Hall, J. (eds) Children’s Human Rights and Public Schooling in the United States. Constructing Knowledge, vol 5. SensePublishers, Rotterdam. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-197-9_11

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Societies and partnerships