Education is not a basic American right

YOUNGSTOWN —Dr. Paul Sracic said his students are always surprised to learn that there’s no guaranteed right to an education in the United States.

People take it for granted that they have the right to an education, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled otherwise years ago, said Sracic, a political science professor at Youngstown State University.

That’s one of the facts pointed out in a new book written by Sracic about the landmark school-funding case that helped set the stage for the school-funding battles today in Ohio and elsewhere.

That’s why school-funding court cases are all state constitutional issues now. There’s no support from the federal constitution, he said.

His work is particularly timely in light of a constitutional amendment proposal on Ohio school funding that was presented in Columbus today.

Ohio’s current school funding method has been declared unconstitutional by the courts, and Getting It Right for Ohio’s Future, a consortium of education groups, has called for a constitutional amendment to revamp Ohio’s school funding. The group is looking for voters to put the measure on the November ballot.

The amendment would declare that every child has a fundamental right to a high-quality public education and take much of the power over education spending away from the Legislature, giving it to a nine-member Education Accountability Commission made up of legislative and gubernatorial appointees and six elected members.

The panel would report to the state board of education.

Some legislators say it would call for massive funding increases that would take money from other state programs, shifting the burden of paying for education from property owners to the state.

Sracic said that 40 percent of Ohio’s budget goes for education and the proposed amendment calls for spending increases. That money has to come from somewhere, he said.

Sracic’s book, “San Antonio v. Rodriguez and the Pursuit of Equal Education: The Debate over Discrimination and School Funding,” explores the 1968 class-action suit filed on behalf of Mexican-American schoolchildren in San Antonio, Texas, claiming inequality of education funding.

The landmark case argued that equality in education, not just basic schooling, was a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. A Texas district court agreed with the parents, but, when the case got to the Supreme Court in 1973, the district court’s decision was overruled, 5-4, with the Supreme Court declaring that education is not a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution.

Sracic, YSU’s pre-law adviser, director of the Rigelhaupt Pre-Law Center and coordinator of the general education program, noted that the book emerged from his classroom lectures on how courts interpret the 14th Amendment.

The book has already been adopted for classroom use by the University of Wisconsin at Madison, University of Texas at Austin, University of California at Berkeley, St. Louis University and the University of Oklahoma.

Sracic will talk about the case and sign copies of the book at 7 p.m. Jan. 26 at Barnes and Noble Booksellers in Boardman.