Samuel Zurier: Why Rhode Island Needs A Clear Constitutional Right To Education
Monday, November 03, 2014
Brian Bishop’s discussion about the issues Rhode Island could face in a Constitutional Convention raises several interesting points, but it contains a fundamental error concerning a Constitutional right to education. He describes it as being “at odds with the American constitutional experience,” but in fact the opposite is the case. Because our Constitution lacks this fundamental right, we are out of step with the national mainstream, and a Constitutional convention would allow us to correct this shortcoming and build a strong platform for our State’s future prosperity and growth.
The first Constitutional convention in the United States took place in 1779 at the request of the Massachusetts Legislature. The Commonwealth elected 312 delegates, including John Adams, a Revolutionary War leader and future President. The delegates selected future President Adams, along with Samuel Adams (another Revolutionary War hero) and James Bowdoin to serve on the drafting committee. John Adams became the principal drafter. The Constitution he prepared was ratified first by town meetings and then by the People of Massachusetts in 1780. Today, the Massachusetts Constitution is described as “the world’s oldest functioning written constitution.” In many ways, the Massachusetts Constitution served as a model for the United States Constitution drafted in Philadelphia seven years later.
A key feature of the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution was its Declaration of Rights, which included the following:
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this Commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns.
In the 1993 McDuffy decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court interpreted the Massachusetts Constitution’s Education Clause to provide a fundamental right to education throughout the Commonwealth. In response, the Massachusetts Legislature enacted the Educational Reform Act of 1993, which laid the foundation for the country’s most successful public school program, as measured by the Nation’s Report Card assessments of all students in public schools across country.
The Massachusetts Education Reform Act is a classic example of a legislative “grand bargain,” in which all of the adult stakeholders made accommodations in favor of children. Officials in local school districts yielded provincial prerogatives so that all children could be educated to uniform standards. Teachers agreed to scale back contractual prerogatives to increase their accountability to fulfill their mission. And legislators treated the Court’s decision as providing the “political cover” to direct funding in the proper amounts to the places where it was most needed. Over time, the Massachusetts educational miracle supported the Bay State’s economic miracle, providing better opportunities to all of its citizens both through greater education and a stronger economy based on a better educated work force.
Over our country’s history, the great majority of states codified a right to education in their states’ Constitutions. Rhode Island did so in 1842, adding Article XII, Section 1 which read as follows:
The diffusion of knowledge, as well as of virtue among the people, being essential to the preservation of their rights and liberties, it shall be the duty of the general assembly to promote public schools and public libraries, and to adopt all means which it may deem necessary and proper to secure to the people the advances and opportunities of education and public library services.
As you can see, the language is similar to that of Massachusetts, and in the early 1990's, Rhode Island was poised to follow the successful path of our northern neighbor. A 1993 decision by the Rhode Island Superior Court interpreted our Constitution’s education clause to create a fundamental right to education. In response, the Rhode Island General Assembly drafted (but did not vote on) the Guaranteed Student Entitlement Act, which contained many of the same elements as the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993. Unfortunately, some legislators decided to appeal the Superior Court’s decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and that Court reached a different conclusion: the Rhode Island Constitution’s Education Clause, despite its similarities to Massachusetts, did not support a fundamental right to education.
With that court ruling, we lost our State’s opportunity to replicate the Massachusetts educational miracle. Instead, our education program has muddled along, moving incrementally in contradictory directions, as different groups have exerted political influence to “move the needle” in favor of their particular interest at the expense of the interest of the public as a whole.
Since that time, the Nation’s Report Card data has documented exactly what we lost. In the early 1990's, Massachusetts and Rhode Island were near each other in the national rankings, but in the decade that followed, Massachusetts vaulted to the top while Rhode Island remained mired in mediocrity. Over the past twelve months, Rhode Island lost six years of educational progress, as our initial goal of high school diploma requirements based on Statewide assessments was pushed back from 2014 to 2017 by the General Assembly, and from 2017 to 2020 by the Commissioner of Education.
Our State’s future depends critically on a Constitutional right to education that will place us in the national mainstream of State constitutions, and provide the political cover for a legislative “grand bargain” that will support the program we have acknowledged we need, but which we have to date lacked the political will to enact.
For these reasons, I urge voters to approve Question 3 for a Constitutional convention, and to follow the example of the John Adams and the nation’s first constitutional convention in approving a clear right to education.
Sam Zurier is a member of the Providence City Council, representing Ward 2.
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