Barrette, C.

Elizabeth, Video 1 Reflection: MaldonadoSamuelEducationalOrganization

DOES EQUAL AND OPPORTUNITY EQUAL THE SAME THING?
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Spring Video 1: Beginning of Education Rights Movement
(Textbook Chapter 1: The History and Goals of Public Schooling)
EDUC 5303 Cultural Foundations
Dr. Samuel Maldonado
C. Elizabeth Barrette
September 6, 2015
I am fortunate enough to be in a family of generous means1; my Fall 2015 $500
UST textbook bill seemed high yet I knew we would cover it without undue
family financial stress. But a friend in class had a similar UST book bill and it
greatly impacted his family; his father is a day laborer earning a limited, much
lower income. My friends textbook investment was a significant financial
family sacrifice. How is this equal educational opportunity?
Michael W., Sophomore Business student
University of Saint Thomas, Houston, Texas

There is [currently] no equal educational opportunity

Joel H. Spring, Ph.D. (Educational Policy Studies)
Professor of Education, Queens College, City University of New York
In a live address recorded by McGraw-Hill Higher Education Company (2004)

In the above-cited address, Dr. Joel H. Spring, Professor of Education and staunch
advocate for equitable educational globalization, believes our nation has far to go before
achieving true equal educational opportunity. His Uppsala University colleague, Ylva
Bergstrm, agrees:
The right to education is what is known as a second-generation rightIt was when social
rights became prominent in the second half of the nineteenth century that the right to
education was includedin international declarations and conventions: the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the European Convention on Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms (1953), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (1966), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) (Bergstrm, 168).

In the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 26), the first internationally agreed
definition of the right to education was detailed. The first of the three fundamental rights
1 Authors note: This family is indeed generous with said means, donating significant sums each year to
the causes of higher education, social justice, and faith formation.

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outlined therein notes, All have the right to education with technical/professional education
being made generally available and higher education equally accessible to all on the basis of
merit (Bergstrm, 168).
Though the Declaration of Human Rights maintains all have an inherent right to an equal
education, the opportunity for it is not a foregone guarantee. Equal and opportunity are not
synonymous. Indeed, Spring reflects on author J. R. Poles thesis that promoting equality of
opportunity was Americas way of balancing the idea of equality with a society riddled with
inequality2 (Spring, American education, 58). Springs timeline and descriptions of the U.S.
Founding Fathers varied motives for establishing an educational system in the newly-minted
United States underscore the economic and societal disparities that existed in our countrys
earliest years (Spring, American education, 11).
This essay opened with a telling observation made to the author by one of her tutoring
clients. His question (sincerely, not sarcastically posed), echoes the dilemma at core of the
equality of educational opportunity ideal. Had Dr. Spring been present with us, he might have
responded to us as he did in his benchmark textbook: Equality of opportunity can be thought of
as a contestTo provide everyone with an equal chance in the competition, all participants must
begin at the same starting lineIn this concept, it is the role of the school to insure everyone
begins the race for riches on an equal footing (Spring, American education, 58). As a society,
we are governed by laws that ideally assure all are created equally and thereby equally entitled to
all available educational opportunities. This would seem an inalienable right, a first cousin to the
inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness3. In practice, however, we fall far
2 Discussed by Pole in his work, The Pursuit of Equality in American History (2nd edition).
3 U.S. Declaration of Independence, Paragraph 2 (1776)

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short of the ideal. As a society, we strive to be governed with an abiding sense of legal equality.
Spring maintains we, too, should work for greater moral equality, striving to live by a spiritual
compass calibrated to an equality-of-all based standard. Along with my student, I concur.

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REFERENCES
Bergstrm, Y. (2009). The universal right to education: freedom, equality and fraternity. Studies
in Philosophy and Education Stud Philos Educ, 29(2), 167-182. doi:10.1007/s11217-0099174-y.
Pole, J. R. (1993). The pursuit of equality in American history (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Spring, J. H. (2014). American education (16th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Spring, J. H. (2004). Joel Spring Live. Retrieved September 06, 2015, from
http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0072558849/student_view0/joel_spring_live.html.
U.S.Cong. (1776). U.S. declaration of independence (T. Jefferson, Author) [Cong. Doc. from 1st
Cong.]. Philadelphia, PA: Continental Congress.
W., M. (2015, September 02). Tutorial reflections [Personal interview].