The First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights to access equal information in America's public schools

America’s public school system finds itself strongly challenged at a time when both domestic and world affairs call upon us to rethink the way we develop and prepare our country’s citizens. Unfortunately, countless students in school districts across the Nation daily receive unequal access to information in school, resulting from the inequitable distribution of resources caused by property tax based systems of funding public education. The Supreme Court declared in Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950), and Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), that every student is entitled to equal access to equal information undergirding the critical thinking training they receive in schools. However, the Supreme Court sanctioned school funding disparities caused by property tax based systems by claiming that there is no fundamental right to an education in the United States per the Court’s ruling in San Antonio v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973). As a result, this paper asserts that the funding disparities resulting from property tax based school funding systems is the chief cause of disparate access to information in schools based purely on where students live. Disparate access to information in schools in turn leads to disparities in critical thinking training since the depth and degree of critical thinking training depends on one’s access to information in school. Disparate access to information in America’s public schools violates students’ First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights and adversely affects our children for a lifetime.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Ash, Carey Laroy Hawkins

Contributors dc:contributor

• Anderson, James D.
• Alexander, S. Kern
• Dixson, Adrienne D.
• Sharpe, Jamelle C.
• Trent, William T.

• San Antonio
• United States
• America
• First Amendment
• Fifth Amendment
• Fourteenth Amendment
• public
• school
• education
• Access
• unequal
• property
• tax
• Brown
• Sweatt
• Goss
• Plyler
• children
• Knowledge
• economy
• funding
• finance
• equal
• Liberty
• information
• stigma
• critical
• thinking
• critical race praxis
• critical race theory
• critical legal studies
• law
• Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)
• opportunity
• globalized
• Allen
• Roth
• Brandenburg
• Gitlow
• Grosjean
• Houchins
• Kimel
• Kleindienst
• Meyer
• O'Connor
• Tinker

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2015 Carey Hawkins Ash

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/78775

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/78775