Education, equality, and national citizenship.

Yale Law Journal, November, 2006 by Liu, Goodwin

For disadvantaged children in substandard schools, the recent success of educational adequacy lawsuits in state courts is a welcome development. But the potential of this legal strategy to advance a national goal of equal educational opportunity is limited by a sobering and largely neglected fact: the most significant component of educational inequality across the nation is not within states but between states. Despite the persistence of this inequality and its disparate impact on poor and minority students, the problem draws little policy attention and has evaded our constitutional radar. This Article argues that the Fourteenth Amendment authorizes and obligates Congress to ensure a meaningful floor of educational opportunity throughout the nation. The argument focuses on the...

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