Posted on 07/06/2018 12:03:22 PM PDT by Red Badger
A federal judge has concluded that the Constitution doesn't require schools to promote students’ literacy.
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What to do when a school is infested with vermin, when textbooks are outdated, when students can’t even read? Perhaps the answer is sue the government.
That’s what seven students in Detroit have done. Their class-action suit filed against the state of Michigan asserts that education is a basic right, and that they have been denied it.
Usually, such education-equity cases wend their way through state courts, as all 50 state constitutions mandate public-education systems, while the country’s guiding document doesn’t even include the word education. But this case, Gary B. v. Snyder, was filed in federal court, and thus seeks to invoke the Constitution. And as of this week, it’s headed to the federal appeals court in Cincinnati.
The lawyers filing the suit—from the pro bono Los Angeles firm Public Counsel—contend that the students (who attend five of Detroit’s lowest-performing schools) are receiving an education so inferior and underfunded that it’s as if they’re not attending school at all. The 100-page-plus complaint alleges that the state of Michigan (which has overseen Detroit’s public schools for nearly two decades) is depriving these children—97 percent of whom are students of color—of their constitutional rights to liberty and nondiscrimination by denying them access to basic literacy. Almost all the students at these schools perform well below grade level in reading and writing, and, the suit argues, those skills are necessary to function properly in society. It’s the first case to argue that the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to become literate (and thus to be educated) because other rights in the Constitution necessarily require the ability to read.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Some of them might even answer,”Are you calling me a bookie?”
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I didn't think of that. Guess the question is racist. /s
Dunbar High School in DC was one of the best in the country and was all black. Of course, this was before the Welfare State destroyed the black family.
“Guess the question is racist. /s “
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Isn’t everything? (Sigh)
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Thanks Wuli.
Correct, what you said: “They have a basic right to pursue literacy...”
My first reaction was that they have a right to have ACCESS to education, but they are not guaranteed a certain outcome. They also (IMO) have some responsibility in their results. A truly ambitious student, surrounded by books and teachers, WOULD find a way to figure out how to read, etc.
Possibly these students who are suing, are just looking for another way to define their victimhood and reap rewards therefrom (or the lawyers see it that way).
I think they should sue - then take it to the ‘new and improved’ Supreme Court...
Well, perhaps they *are* pursuing education.
They are learning how to use the court system to win a jackpot. They are studying Alinskism.
Perhaps it will inspire them to become lawyers and do these kind of suits as a profession. Might be very lucrative.
ROTFL! Ain’t cursive a b*tch?!
Next up are NEA and the UFT.
This is the beginning of a massive class action litigation that will make asbestos and tobacco look like slip and fall cases.
The lawyers are going to go after the deep pockets and the unions have very deep pockets.
On the bright side, a major funding source of the Democrat Party will dry up.
Ohh, this was a problem? I thought this was happening by Democrat design? Detroit voters, sometimes you get what you buy. 50+ Years of democrat control didn’t make it a utopia.
Well aware: Wrote a book which included 150+ pages on the DWS/Flint battles and the true causes of the Flint water crisis.
I take it you didn’t get the joke...
My daughter was reading by kindergarten. When they had Parent Teacher night all the kids would point at my daughter and tell their parents she can read! I read to her almost every night and she asked me to teach her to read. We started with simple words and worked our way up. All on her own desires. Later she read books all the time.
How can a reading textbook be outdated?
Old words?.................
The K12 system is and has long been utter garbage.
Heck, in Mississippi we didn’t even have compulsory education. I knew kids who had never even seen the inside of a schoolhouse...........
I wouldn’t be surprised if these kid’s lot was much better in top schools.
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