FAQs
     
  1. What is Our Education?
  2. Are America's children really not guaranteed the right to an education in the US Constitution? 
  3. But why should high quality education be guaranteed as a right in the United States Constitution?
  4. What does "high quality education" mean? 
  5. Am I eligible to sign the petition?
  6. What are Our Education's short-term goals? 
  7. What are Our Education's long-term goals?
  8. What will the "on the ground" impact be of an education right amendment? 
  9. Is there more to Our Education than the petition campaign for an American right to high quality education?
  10. How does Our Education work with organizing groups that engage young people at the local school & district level? 
  11. Why is improving K-12 education so important?
  12. Do other countries guarantee the right to an education?
     
  1. What is Our Education?
    Our Education is a non-profit, non-partisan, organization working to engage and empower youth around the country in a national movement for quality K-12 education. The organization was created to respond to the sad reality that the most critical stakeholders in education—students—do not have a voice in school policy and reform efforts. 

     

  2. Are America's children really not guaranteed the right to an education in the US Constitution?
    Believe it or not, the word "education" does not appear a single time in the United States Constitution, and in 1973, the US Supreme Court ruled that America's children are not guaranteed the right to an education—either implicitly or explicitly.   

    Each of the fifty states is compelled through their individual state constitutions to provide their residents with a free school system, but as we have seen all too clearly, guaranteeing children access to "free schools" falls far short of providing the kind of first-rate educational opportunity every American child deserves. 

     
  3. But why should high quality education be guaranteed as a right in the United States Constitution?
    There are four important reasons why the United States Constitution should be amended to guarantee all American children the right to a high quality education.   
           
    1. First, an educated citizenry is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy. As such, in order to protect our very democracy, access to high quality education ought to be guaranteed as a fundamental right in our nation's most sacred document—the US Constitution.     
    2. Second, the current system of education in America is one where 15,000 different school districts in fifty different states provide far too wide a range of different quality schools between and among their students. This system has led to vast inequalities among students along geographic, socioeconomic, and racial lines—inequality that will only be resolved when the American people agree and demand that all schools should be held to the same, high quality standard. A constitutional amendment would do just that.
    3. Third, children today do not grow up to become citizens of Ohio to compete with citizens of California; they grow up to become American citizens, needing the skills and knowledge sets to enable them to compete with workers in India and China. Because education is the lifeblood of our nation's economy, we must provide high quality schools to all children no matter what city or state they live in—and a constitutional amendment addresses this critical need.
    4. Fourth, the current conversation about education in America has strayed from the most important issue: what is actually best for America's students. Education policy and resource mobilization are increasingly politicized today, with interest groups, teachers unions, and politicians jockey for their own ideologies and causes. As debates about education grow more politicized, and positions more entrenched, our nation desperately needs to change the way we view K-12 education—and ensuring a constitutional right to high quality education has the power to push us as a country to do what is right for our children, and not just what is easy and politically expedient.       

         
  4. What does Our Education mean by a constitutional right to "high quality education"?
    As a nation, we will never have "high quality education" for all until we first reach a meaningful definition for what "high quality" education actually means. Yet in America today, there exists a separate definition for quality in each of the 50 states and each of the more than 15,000 school districts around the country. Thus, by pushing for a constitutional right to "high quality education," one of the goals of the Our Education movement is to spark a national conversation about what quality of education all American children should receive. An open discussion about the skills and knowledge sets that all students should possess upon graduation would go far towards ensuring that our nation is able to respond to the challenges of the 21 st century.   

    With this in mind, Our Education is planning to hold a national youth conference at which a representative body of high school students from across the nation will gather to create a student definition of what the right to "high quality" education ought to mean. The goal is for this statement of student priorities and beliefs to kick-start a much needed dialogue among other key stakeholders about the kinds of schools and education that all American children should have access to and we as a nation believe "high quality education" ought to mean. 

     
  5. Am I eligible to sign the petition?
    Any and every person between the ages of 13 and 24 is eligible to sign the petition. Public school and private school students both are welcome to sign.  Also, you do not need to be in school currently to sign the petition—the goal of the Our Education movement is to empower the voices of all youth to improve our nation's schools.
     
    If you are too old to sign the petition, please visit the Our Education for Adults section of our website. 


  6. What are Our Education's short-term goals?
    In the short-term, Our Education's goals are to: 
         
    1. Increase the public's awareness and support for high quality public education for every American child.  
    2. Increase the public's awareness and support for the importance of student involvement in decisions affecting their own schools and their own education.
    3. Build a large and representative student network across the country in a database that can be used for future efforts
    4. Set the agenda, accept delegates, and plan the logistics for our youth leadership conference to pass a Students Bill of Rights.
    5. Pilot the Student Voice Project in Connecticut and in a handful of other school districts to learn best practices for local-level student engagement     

        
  7. What are Our Education's long-term goals?
    The road to a day when all American children have access to high quality k-12 education is a long and challenging one. Although the momentum, public awareness, and political will generated by the National Youth Petition Campaign will immediately benefit education in this country, the actual passage of a constitutional amendment should be viewed as a long-term goal. However, as students, there are many decisions being made at the local school district and the state level that demand your attention and would benefit greatly from your viewpoint. Accordingly, here are the long-term goals for Our Education:   
           
    1. Win multiple local, state, and federal level policy changes in accordance with youth priorities in the Students Bill of Rights by engaging students in our million+ network through email action alerts and grassroots action     
    2. Grow the Student Voice Project to schools throughout the country based on our designed models for student access, capacity building, and peer involvement
    3. Continue to increase public awareness in support of high quality public education for every American child & student involvement in education policy, making measurable progress towards the passage of a High Quality Education Constitutional Amendment
    4. Make high quality public education a critical issue in political debates, especially the 2008 presidential campaign       

          
  8. What will the "on the ground" impact be of an education right amendment?
    In the short-term, if the right to high quality education is guaranteed in the US Constitution, voters, elected officials, educators, and courts will work together first to define what kind of educational opportunities children must have access to, and then to provide those opportunities to all children. 

    To be sure, creating an American right to high quality education will not be a silver bullet that instantly cures all of the challenges we face in K-12 education today. However, a Constitutional Right would enshrine high quality education as a fundamental American value, even as what constitutes "high quality" evolves over time. In this way, a constitutional amendment is a long-term strategy intended to benefit our children and our nation not just today, but well into the 21 st century.  

  9. Is there more to Our Education than the petition campaign for an American right to high quality education?
    The education right petition campaign is one of three initiatives that Our Education is working to implement. At the conclusion of the petition campaign, we will bring student leaders from throughout the nation to a Washington DC based national conference to pass a Students Bill of Rights, our second initiative. The Students Bill of Rights will serve as an actionable definition of what youth in America believe the right to a Quality Education ought to mean, and will be delivered to policy makers, advocacy groups, and other key parties. Our Education also works through its Student Voice Project to increase youth access, capacity, and involvement in education policy discussions at the local level 

  10. How does Our Education work with organizing groups that engage young people at the local school & district level? 
    There are a number of examples of young people making a difference in the quality of their schools at the local level.  Recognizing the strong work done by these existing youth community organizing groups, Our Education seeks to inform today's students about these ongoing efforts and connect them to the leading organizations whenever possible.  
    As these youth organizations continue to push for change at the community level, Our Education's role is build youth awareness and community regarding the need for change also to occur at the national level.  And what young people are saying here is clear: as Americans, we must commit to providing all children with first-rate educational opportunity regardless of who they are or where they happen to be born.  

     
  11. Why is improving k-12 education so important?
    It is important because the future of our nation hinges on our ability to educate future generations of youth for the challenges of the next century. The health of our national economy, the well-being of our democracy, and the promise of the American dream are all placed at risk with each day that millions of children are forced to attend second-rate schools. If America and her people hope to experience a free, prosperous, and opportunity-filled 21 st century, our schools will have to lead the way by providing all children with access to high-quality education. 

  12. Do other countries guarantee the right to an education?
    Yes. A number of countries, such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, and Russia, among others, guarantee their citizens the right to an education. For more information, visit http://right-to-education.org.