WaPo’s headline says it wrong: Do children have a right to literacy? Attorneys are testing that question.
The judge plunges into the same quicksand, but sticks a hand up to get the right answer just as he’s about to sink into error:
When Jamarria Hall strode into Osborn High in Detroit his freshman year, the signs of decay were everywhere: buckets in the hallways to catch leaking water, rotting ceiling tiles, vermin that crisscrossed classrooms.
In the neglected school, students never got textbooks to take home, and Hall and his classmates went long stretches — sometimes months — with substitute teachers who did little more than supervise students.
“It doesn’t seem like a high school,” said Hall, who graduated in 2017. “It seems like a state prison.”
Hall was part of a class of Detroit Public Schools students who sued state officials in federal court, arguing that the state had violated their constitutional right to learn to read by providing inadequate resources.
A federal judge agreed this summer that the circumstances at Hall’s school shocked the conscience. But what is shocking, he concluded, is not necessarily illegal — even if some graduates of Detroit’s schools struggle to complete a job application.
“The conditions and outcomes of Plaintiffs’ schools, as alleged, are nothing short of devastating. When a child who could be taught to read goes untaught, the child suffers a lasting injury — and so does society,” Judge Stephen J. Murphy III wrote.
By making this a question of individual rights, they put the burden on the student to make the case that their rights have been violated.
But think about it – will our society be successful if our citizens are NOT literate? This ain’t the 18th century, where one could learn a trade and get by without knowing how to read; no, no, this is the 21st and if you can’t read, you’ll never get anywhere, and you’ll be a burden on society, either through welfare or crime. Oh, sure, we can always find exceptions to that statement – but this is not a case where an exception proves anything but that there are extraordinary, or extraordinarily lucky, individuals who do well without being literate – but they’re exceedingly rare.
A society that banks on luck is a society on the way out.
I think we need to turn around these questions about rights – some of them rather questionable when viewed through that particular prism – and ask ourselves how society benefits, or doesn’t, from the application of that “right.” I’ve done this before here with regards to fast food workers’ pay, but this is different.
The results of these two approaches may not, in the end, differ greatly, but it’s worth keeping in mind that societal benefits must entail societal investment – that is, TANSTAAFL (to quote the old libertarian/Heinlein-esque saying of There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, but a libertarian might cry out of context!). Thus, the existence of public schools – our shared belief that educated people make invaluable contributions to society, while those who could have been educated, but weren’t, are a drag. And that drag doesn’t just slow us down, in a world of competitors, it endangers us.
The article does go on to discuss the benefits to society of the literate, and the converse – but there’s no real attempt to connect that to the true alternative viewpoint which I am attempting to embrace here. From this viewpoint, it seems to me that each school would be evaluated for the environment it provides to the students, the teachers provided, & etc., and properly outrage and corrective action taken any element fails, with citations not to the harm to befall the students – but society.
It does come to much the same thing?
You’d think so. It does seem so to me – until I remember some previous discussions I’ve had on education. I wish I could find it, but I’m pressed for time – it’ll be somewhere in Sectors of Society. Suffice it to say, education is not a hammer, nor is it waitering at a restaurant. Why does this matter? A right, tangible or not, is binary – you have it or not. Education is not binary. It can’t be, strictly speaking, given to you. The mentally challenged, the unwilling or rebellious, these are all examples of those who, in the best of environments, will not gain their “right” of literacy no matter how hard it is thrust at them. Conversely, auto-didacts may learn how to read on their own, and in general do learn on their own, from extensive reading and experience.
Clearly, literacy is not a right. I suggest it’s a requirement of being a citizen, a critical interest of the government. Any government refusing to provide it should be ousted. But it’s hard to see it as a “right,” as rights are far too binary, far too easily granted to withheld, for literacy to be subject to such. The best one can say is that a right to the process of education is a requirement.
And I wonder if that’s what a lot of statutes in this area already say. Perhaps this is an ode to more precision in newspaper articles.
