Detroiters vow to fight after judge rules students have no fundamental right to learn how to read

[phands]

WTF....

[FONT=&quot]A district court judge may have ruled that Detroit schoolchildren don't have a constitutionally guaranteed right to be taught how to read and write, but attorneys for those children aren't accepting that ruling and have filed notice that they intend to appeal the decision. The case, known as Gary B. v. Snyder, was originally filed in 2016 on behalf of children from five of the city’s lowest performing schools—three public schools and two charters. The original complaint describes high school students struggling, “paragraph by paragraph,” to read a third-grade level novel, teachers forced to used their own funds to buy basic supplies including toilet paper, and vermin-infested, unsafe buildings.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In filing the suit, attorneys for the children sought to force the state of Michigan to institute literacy reforms, implement a “systemic approach to instruction and intervention,” and both fix and adequately supply the crumbling buildings. But while U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy III agreed with the plaintiffs that literacy is indeed important, he ruled on June 29 that the state has no obligation to provide poor Detroit students with an adequate education.[/FONT]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...ave-no-fundamental-right-to-learn-how-to-read

 

[Opoponax]

There is no fundamental right to an education in the United States.

Somehow, throughout all the rulings that SCOTUS has ever made, not once has it been held that education is a fundamental right. In other words, the judge's hands are tied. He can't force a state or local government to spend money on education. A state can pass a law providing that education is a fundamental right, which would presumably require adequate funding for public education, but that's up to each individual state.

But at least there ain't no big gubbermint tellin' states they ain't got no rights n' shit.

 

[fast]

There is no fundamental right to an education in the United States.

Somehow, throughout all the rulings that SCOTUS has ever made, not once has it been held that education is a fundamental right. In other words, the judge's hands are tied. He can't force a state or local government to spend money on education. A state can pass a law providing that education is a fundamental right, which would presumably require adequate funding for public education, but that's up to each individual state.

But at least there ain't no big gubbermint tellin' states they ain't got no rights n' shit.

Saying there is no fundamental right to education, and saying a state can pass a law providing that education is a fundamental law seems to be (to me) contorting and conflating two different things. I'm not saying you're doing that. You appear to be reporting what others might be doing.

I'll clear this up. There are different kinds of rights, and it's best to be clear about what is being referred to and not being referred to. First, and hear me closely, a legal right is a creature of law. What that means is that in a lawless society, there may be rights that people have, but they would not be of the variety granted by law.

Whether we have some fundamental right is a question we can ask ourselves, and people can try to answer that question if they like, but make no mistake about it, no matter the answer, that will not in any way affect the truth of the matter when it comes to the different question about whether we have the legal right to an education.

Let's try two different scenarios to drive this home. 1st, let's assume that education is not a fundamental right. There's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. If there has not been a legal right granted, that can be changed. That's something we can do.

2nd scenario. Let's assume that education is a fundamental right. Still, there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Sure, if we have a legal right (a creature of law) that was granted to us but retracted such that we no longer have that right, again, that in no way affects the fact it's still a fundamental right we have--just no legal standing.

With that, let's revisit the first sentence of your post: "there is no fundamental right to an education in the United States." Okay. Might be true. Might not be. I have no idea. Either way, there's not a darned thing you or I can do about it. No dictator, president, or king can alter the truth of what is. What is, fundamentally, is. It is what it is, as trivial truisms go.

Later in your post: "a state can pass a law." Yep, that's true. But, there's more to the sentence: "a state can pass a law providing that education is a fundamental law." Bullshit. They can pass a law, and it will alter the status of whether it's a legal right, but as far as fundamentals go, well, that doesn't jibe.

 

[RVonse]

There cant be anyway to guarantee that a person isnt stupid. Especially a retarded person with limited brains. Those individuals will never be smart no matter how much money is spent.

Its not what the do gooder liberals want to hear but it is the truth.

 

[Opoponax]

There is no fundamental right to an education in the United States.

Somehow, throughout all the rulings that SCOTUS has ever made, not once has it been held that education is a fundamental right. In other words, the judge's hands are tied. He can't force a state or local government to spend money on education. A state can pass a law providing that education is a fundamental right, which would presumably require adequate funding for public education, but that's up to each individual state.

But at least there ain't no big gubbermint tellin' states they ain't got no rights n' shit.

Saying there is no fundamental right to education, and saying a state can pass a law providing that education is a fundamental law seems to be (to me) contorting and conflating two different things. I'm not saying you're doing that. You appear to be reporting what others might be doing.

I'll clear this up. There are different kinds of rights, and it's best to be clear about what is being referred to and not being referred to. First, and hear me closely, a legal right is a creature of law. What that means is that in a lawless society, there may be rights that people have, but they would not be of the variety granted by law.

Whether we have some fundamental right is a question we can ask ourselves, and people can try to answer that question if they like, but make no mistake about it, no matter the answer, that will not in any way affect the truth of the matter when it comes to the different question about whether we have the legal right to an education.

Let's try two different scenarios to drive this home. 1st, let's assume that education is not a fundamental right. There's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. If there has not been a legal right granted, that can be changed. That's something we can do.

2nd scenario. Let's assume that education is a fundamental right. Still, there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Sure, if we have a legal right (a creature of law) that was granted to us but retracted such that we no longer have that right, again, that in no way affects the fact it's still a fundamental right we have--just no legal standing.

With that, let's revisit the first sentence of your post: "there is no fundamental right to an education in the United States." Okay. Might be true. Might not be. I have no idea. Either way, there's not a darned thing you or I can do about it. No dictator, president, or king can alter the truth of what is. What is, fundamentally, is. It is what it is, as trivial truisms go.

Later in your post: "a state can pass a law." Yep, that's true. But, there's more to the sentence: "a state can pass a law providing that education is a fundamental law." Bullshit. They can pass a law, and it will alter the status of whether it's a legal right, but as far as fundamentals go, well, that doesn't jibe.

There are lots of fundamental rights guaranteed us by the federal Constitution. Education isn't one of them. A state can provide for something better than that, but the federal constitution is the floor. That's legal fact. For example, the 5th and 6th Amendment gives us certain rights to counsel, when the right attaches, etc. A state can provide an arrestee more protection than the 5th Amendment does. So it goes with education. A state can provide in its own law/constitution that each person in the state has the fundamental right to a free public education. However, the federal government is not required to fund that. Thus, no federal right to even a basic education.

I think you should do some research on what a fundamental right is in the U.S.

 

[Opoponax]

There cant be anyway to guarantee that a person isnt stupid. Especially a retarded person with limited brains. Those individuals will never be smart no matter how much money is spent.

Its not what the do gooder liberals want to hear but it is the truth.

That might be mildly interesting for half a minute if anyone was making an argument that we all have the right to not be retarded. This is about basic literacy, and the travesty that millions of young Americans don't have the most basic access to basic education. Trump has literally said that he loves the uneducated, which only gives voice to the conservative hatred of education and knowledge. But calling those who have not had the opportunity to really learn how to read "retarded" is pretty goddamn novel.

It is consistent though. All the love in the world before birth, but after that, fuck 'em. The dumber the better, the poorer the better. What a country!

 

[Copernicus]

It seems to me that the government has "implied powers" guaranteed by the Constitution. I think that that also ought to extend to "implied rights" for citizens. Education is certainly a right, if the law makes education mandatory for children.

 

[fast]

There is no fundamental right to an education in the United States.

Somehow, throughout all the rulings that SCOTUS has ever made, not once has it been held that education is a fundamental right. In other words, the judge's hands are tied. He can't force a state or local government to spend money on education. A state can pass a law providing that education is a fundamental right, which would presumably require adequate funding for public education, but that's up to each individual state.

But at least there ain't no big gubbermint tellin' states they ain't got no rights n' shit.

Saying there is no fundamental right to education, and saying a state can pass a law providing that education is a fundamental law seems to be (to me) contorting and conflating two different things. I'm not saying you're doing that. You appear to be reporting what others might be doing.

I'll clear this up. There are different kinds of rights, and it's best to be clear about what is being referred to and not being referred to. First, and hear me closely, a legal right is a creature of law. What that means is that in a lawless society, there may be rights that people have, but they would not be of the variety granted by law.

Whether we have some fundamental right is a question we can ask ourselves, and people can try to answer that question if they like, but make no mistake about it, no matter the answer, that will not in any way affect the truth of the matter when it comes to the different question about whether we have the legal right to an education.

Let's try two different scenarios to drive this home. 1st, let's assume that education is not a fundamental right. There's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. If there has not been a legal right granted, that can be changed. That's something we can do.

2nd scenario. Let's assume that education is a fundamental right. Still, there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Sure, if we have a legal right (a creature of law) that was granted to us but retracted such that we no longer have that right, again, that in no way affects the fact it's still a fundamental right we have--just no legal standing.

With that, let's revisit the first sentence of your post: "there is no fundamental right to an education in the United States." Okay. Might be true. Might not be. I have no idea. Either way, there's not a darned thing you or I can do about it. No dictator, president, or king can alter the truth of what is. What is, fundamentally, is. It is what it is, as trivial truisms go.

Later in your post: "a state can pass a law." Yep, that's true. But, there's more to the sentence: "a state can pass a law providing that education is a fundamental law." Bullshit. They can pass a law, and it will alter the status of whether it's a legal right, but as far as fundamentals go, well, that doesn't jibe.

There are lots of fundamental rights guaranteed us by the federal Constitution. Education isn't one of them. A state can provide for something better than that, but the federal constitution is the floor. That's legal fact. For example, the 5th and 6th Amendment gives us certain rights to counsel, when the right attaches, etc. A state can provide an arrestee more protection than the 5th Amendment does. So it goes with education. A state can provide in its own law/constitution that each person in the state has the fundamental right to a free public education. However, the federal government is not required to fund that. Thus, no federal right to even a basic education.

I think you should do some research on what a fundamental right is in the U.S.

A quick link provides this: "They are commonly understood as inalienable, fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being" and which are "inherent in all human beings", regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status."

Things such as this (from another link) "Some universally recognized rights that are seen as fundamental, i.e., contained in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political ..." can be better navigated easier once we separate them by origin, as I outlined in my post.

The distinction is like the discussion people have about laws of nature, (which is even more complicated by use of the term, "law."), so I won't go into that.

A state recognized variation on what is constitutionally recognized as a fundamental right is a varient of a legal right recognizing a fundamental right. You are trying to dub a constitutionally recognized fundamental right (a legal right) as if it's the fundamental right itself, especially when recognizing variants of constitutionally recognized fundamental rights.

It's tricky, I know, but keeping it straight is paramount to keeping our eye on the ball.

A human right and a legal right are two different things. If you pick a right and say that it's both a human right and a legal right, you're not mistaken (language!), but it opens the door for great confusion. A fundamental right that once was legally recognized but is no longer recognized does not dissipate the fundamental right--only the legal right.

A human right exists independent of its legal recognition. Try this one; suppose someone purports that we have a fundamental right to do x (that happens to be immoral). Subsequently thereafter, this purported right is said to be recognized and becomes legal. In this case, we have a legal right, but there is no fundamental right that's actually recognized.

I know what you're doing. You're transplacing the term "fundamental." It's an easy mistake to make. People do it all the time.

 

[laughing dog]

There are lots of fundamental rights guaranteed us by the federal Constitution. Education isn't one of them. A state can provide for something better than that, but the federal constitution is the floor. That's legal fact. For example, the 5th and 6th Amendment gives us certain rights to counsel, when the right attaches, etc. A state can provide an arrestee more protection than the 5th Amendment does. So it goes with education. A state can provide in its own law/constitution that each person in the state has the fundamental right to a free public education. However, the federal government is not required to fund that. Thus, no federal right to even a basic education.

I think you should do some research on what a fundamental right is in the U.S.

A quick link provides this: "They are commonly understood as inalienable, fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being" and which are "inherent in all human beings", regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status."

Things such as this (from another link) "Some universally recognized rights that are seen as fundamental, i.e., contained in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political ..." can be better navigated easier once we separate them by origin, as I outlined in my post.

The distinction is like the discussion people have about laws of nature, (which is even more complicated by use of the term, "law."), so I won't go into that.

A state recognized variation on what is constitutionally recognized as a fundamental right is a varient of a legal right recognizing a fundamental right. You are trying to dub a constitutionally recognized fundamental right (a legal right) as if it's the fundamental right itself, especially when recognizing variants of constitutionally recognized fundamental rights.

It's tricky, I know, but keeping it straight is paramount to keeping our eye on the ball.

A human right and a legal right are two different things. If you pick a right and say that it's both a human right and a legal right, you're not mistaken (language!), but it opens the door for great confusion. A fundamental right that once was legally recognized but is no longer recognized does not dissipate the fundamental right--only the legal right.

A human right exists independent of its legal recognition. Try this one; suppose someone purports that we have a fundamental right to do x (that happens to be immoral). Subsequently thereafter, this purported right is said to be recognized and becomes legal. In this case, we have a legal right, but there is no fundamental right that's actually recognized.

I know what you're doing. You're transplacing the term "fundamental." It's an easy mistake to make. People do it all the time.

This is all very interesting and totally irrelevant. The judge ruled on a legal right.

 

[Derec]

So why is Snyder the target of the lawsuit and not Detroit? Doesn't Detroit run the schools?
By the way, Detroit's problem is not the spending, it's mismanagement.
Detroit Schools Spend More, Educate Less Than Other U.S. Urban Districts

If the issue were spending, a court could in principle remedy it by ordering the city spend more. But that is not needed. The problems are much more fundamental and thus not very amenable to solution-by-lawsuit. Unfortunately, mismanagement has been Detroit's middle name for decades now.

From the Dailykos article (I know it's swill, but that's what the OP gave us)

The original complaint describes high school students struggling, “paragraph by paragraph,” to read a third-grade level novel, teachers forced to used their own funds to buy basic supplies including toilet paper, and vermin-infested, unsafe buildings.

So where is all the money going? And what does Snyder have to do with it? Why not sue the schools themselves. They are failing you. Not the gov. Hiring an exterminator, buying TP, that's school secretary type of job, not a governor type job.

 

[Copernicus]

So why is Snyder the target of the lawsuit and not Detroit? Doesn't Detroit run the schools?
By the way, Detroit's problem is not the spending, it's mismanagement.
Detroit Schools Spend More, Educate Less Than Other U.S. Urban Districts

If the issue were spending, a court could in principle remedy it by ordering the city spend more. But that is not needed. The problems are much more fundamental and thus not very amenable to solution-by-lawsuit. Unfortunately, mismanagement has been Detroit's middle name for decades now.

From the Dailykos article (I know it's swill, but that's what the OP gave us)

The original complaint describes high school students struggling, “paragraph by paragraph,” to read a third-grade level novel, teachers forced to used their own funds to buy basic supplies including toilet paper, and vermin-infested, unsafe buildings.

So where is all the money going? And what does Snyder have to do with it? Why not sue the schools themselves. They are failing you. Not the gov. Hiring an exterminator, buying TP, that's school secretary type of job, not a governor type job.

Derec, you haven't bothered to look into the actual issues here, so I suggest that you read articles likes this: How Detroit students made a federal case out of the city’s broken schools

It turns out that the state of Michigan seized control of the Detroit public schools in 1999 and has kept it heavily segregated and in shambles over the past two decades. The state government has been appointing the heads of the Detroit school system, but, for the purpose of this case, it is now calling them "local officials". This is similar to the case of Flint's water supply, where the state government actually pulled all the strings that ended up poisoning an entire city. The Snyder administration asked for this when it assumed control over so many local governments and government processes in Michigan, the idea being that it would fix the problems rather than making them worse.

"Just to be clear," Hudson-Price says, "we're not suing the district. The defendants in this case are state officers. We have met incredible teachers and administrators who are doing the best with what they have. The teachers we met across the board are spending on average hundreds of dollars of their own money each year, sometimes thousands of dollars, to provide things like toilet paper, hand sanitizer, bug spray, things that it wouldn't occur to me to come out of the teachers' pockets."

Given these extreme conditions and the state's considerable involvement in creating them, along with the example of Flint coloring views of how the Snyder administration treats majority-minority communities, you begin to see the unmistakable contours of a civil rights case. The same government that gives you toxic waste for drinking water also gives you a school district that cannot teach.

...

The arguments seem curious, given how high-toned appeals to saving Detroit's schools left the state's fingerprints all over the district. Lansing first wrested control of the district from its elected school board in 1999, under Republican Gov. John Engler. And as counsel for the plaintiffs points out in the suit, the state had appointed five different emergency managers for the district to supplant local authority for almost a decade. (In what seems an odd about-face, the state now argues that emergency managers are actually "local officials.") The evidence of the state's intervention doesn't end there, and includes the Education Achievement Authority's plan to "dramatically redesign public education" in Detroit's lowest performing schools, and even a law Gov. Snyder signed in June of last year allowing Detroit's school district to employ non-certified teachers.

What's more, before the state of Michigan intervened, the district had a surplus of $93 million, healthy enrollment, and test scores that were on the rise. After the state's "rescue" in 1999, and then after the ensuing succession of emergency managers, little remained of those promising figures. By 2015, as reported by Curt Guyette in Metro Times, enrollment had plummeted by nearly 50 percent, the number of schools cut in half, and a tide of red ink annually amounted to tens of millions of dollars, and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars.

But even had all that intimate involvement never taken place, Hudson-Price declares, the state would still be responsible for providing a basic education to every student in Michigan. That duty is spelled out in the state constitution, which says that leadership and general supervision over all public education is "vested in a state board of education." She says the extent of Lansing's involvement "just emphasizes the extent to which this was the state's responsibility."

 

[Trausti]

I lived in the Detroit area in the early/mid aughts. I recall the news reporting that the Detroit Schools took $$$ and instead of investing / improving schools, the administrators chose to build themselves a lavish office building and take sweet salaries and bonuses. Maybe related.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There cant be anyway to guarantee that a person isnt stupid. Especially a retarded person with limited brains.

I find that second sentence to possess an incredible level of "irony".

Those individuals will never be smart no matter how much money is spent.

Its not what the do gooder liberals want to hear but it is the truth.

Is this a Poe?

 

[steve_bank]

Technically I'd say he is right. COTUS says all rights and powers not explicitly listed are relegated to the states. Some states I believe do have right to primary education laws.

There is a Washington law on mandatory funding for education. It has had problems.

COTUS does not say getting good nutrition is a right either.

 

[Derec]

Derec, you haven't bothered to look into the actual issues here, so I suggest that you read articles likes this: How Detroit students made a federal case out of the city’s broken schools

Well, the OP only linked to DailyKos so I was going by that.
This seems another biased article, but much better argued than the Kos piece. Still tendentious though.
And why aren't they suing the district? The problems are based in the district, not state-wide. And as I have already shown, Detroit has pretty high funding per student. If that is not properly spent (and it seems not to be), then the problem is in the district, not governor's office.
I think the left wing law firm representing the plaintiffs is doing this for partisan political reasons, which is sad.

 

[ZiprHead]

Derec, you haven't bothered to look into the actual issues here, so I suggest that you read articles likes this: How Detroit students made a federal case out of the city’s broken schools

Well, the OP only linked to DailyKos so I was going by that.
This seems another biased article, but much better argued than the Kos piece. Still tendentious though.
And why aren't they suing the district? The problems are based in the district, not state-wide. And as I have already shown, Detroit has pretty high funding per student. If that is not properly spent (and it seems not to be), then the problem is in the district, not governor's office.
I think the left wing law firm representing the plaintiffs is doing this for partisan political reasons, which is sad.

I think you've come to your conclusion for partisan reasons, which is sad.

 

[James Madison]

There are lots of fundamental rights guaranteed us by the federal Constitution. Education isn't one of them. A state can provide for something better than that, but the federal constitution is the floor. That's legal fact. For example, the 5th and 6th Amendment gives us certain rights to counsel, when the right attaches, etc. A state can provide an arrestee more protection than the 5th Amendment does. So it goes with education. A state can provide in its own law/constitution that each person in the state has the fundamental right to a free public education. However, the federal government is not required to fund that. Thus, no federal right to even a basic education.

I think you should do some research on what a fundamental right is in the U.S.

A quick link provides this: "They are commonly understood as inalienable, fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being" and which are "inherent in all human beings", regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status."

Things such as this (from another link) "Some universally recognized rights that are seen as fundamental, i.e., contained in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political ..." can be better navigated easier once we separate them by origin, as I outlined in my post.

The distinction is like the discussion people have about laws of nature, (which is even more complicated by use of the term, "law."), so I won't go into that.

A state recognized variation on what is constitutionally recognized as a fundamental right is a varient of a legal right recognizing a fundamental right. You are trying to dub a constitutionally recognized fundamental right (a legal right) as if it's the fundamental right itself, especially when recognizing variants of constitutionally recognized fundamental rights.

It's tricky, I know, but keeping it straight is paramount to keeping our eye on the ball.

A human right and a legal right are two different things. If you pick a right and say that it's both a human right and a legal right, you're not mistaken (language!), but it opens the door for great confusion. A fundamental right that once was legally recognized but is no longer recognized does not dissipate the fundamental right--only the legal right.

A human right exists independent of its legal recognition. Try this one; suppose someone purports that we have a fundamental right to do x (that happens to be immoral). Subsequently thereafter, this purported right is said to be recognized and becomes legal. In this case, we have a legal right, but there is no fundamental right that's actually recognized.

I know what you're doing. You're transplacing the term "fundamental." It's an easy mistake to make. People do it all the time.

Fundamental rights doctrine is a specific legal doctrine in the U.S., recognized under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses. Here, in this case, the doctrine is invoked in regards to "access to literacy" and is alleged to be a right in the 14th Amendment Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. Whether something is a fundamental right has been determined by asking whether the alleged right is " 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty', or 'deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition."

 

[James Madison]

It seems to me that the government has "implied powers" guaranteed by the Constitution. I think that that also ought to extend to "implied rights" for citizens. Education is certainly a right, if the law makes education mandatory for children.

Well, the allegation here is "access to literacy" is a fundamental right. Based on the legal test for determining fundamental rights, the District Court ruling is not unreasonable and does follow the existing case law.

 

[fast]

James,

I think I see what's going on. The ambiguity I see is a mindfield to navigate. The issue I have with this goes much deeper down the rabbit hole. Does the fundamental rights doctrine speak of fundamental rights, or does it merely pertain to Fundamental Rights? From what I've gathered, any mention of fundamental rights from someone concerned with whether "accesss to literacy" is a Fundamental Right speaks as if they are the same as fundamental rights.

It's sad that such a cross over has materialized. A fundamental right is not created by law. It's recognized by people of law. If we speak of a right as fundamental, we should not think it a creature of law, yet the very thing being referenced is a creature of law. Had the doctrine labeled such legal rights "natural rights," the ambiguity problem would persist but under a different name.

 

[Copernicus]

It seems to me that the government has "implied powers" guaranteed by the Constitution. I think that that also ought to extend to "implied rights" for citizens. Education is certainly a right, if the law makes education mandatory for children.

Well, the allegation here is "access to literacy" is a fundamental right. Based on the legal test for determining fundamental rights, the District Court ruling is not unreasonable and does follow the existing case law.

Actually, I'm not so sure that that is the case being made by the plaintiffs here. They aren't arguing for a "fundamental right" under the US Constitution, but for a right to literacy under the constitution of the state of Michigan, which mandates that the state provide for an education. The point is that the state assumed control of the district when it decided to appoint the heads of the local district. Otherwise, Derec's argument would make more sense--that the district should be sued rather than the state.