Our Education

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Our Education
A Million Voices, One Right
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The Need For Better Schools

• Ways we fail our children
• 1) Dropout rates
• 1 student drops out every 30 seconds in America
• More than a million drop outs per year
• Drop out rate near 50 in large cities like NY
  Chicago

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The Need For Better Schools

• Ways we fail our children
• 2) Basic Skills like Reading
• Two thirds of American students cannot read at
  grade level proficiency

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The Need For Better Schools

• Ways we fail our children
• 3.) Inequality
• Students from poorest 20 of families are seven
  times less likely to get college degrees than
  students from richest 20
• The average 17-year-old Latino or black student
  reads and does math at the same rate as the
  average 13-year-old white student
• These stats are a function of unequal educational
  opportunities not of student ability! ALL
  children can achieve at high levels.

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The Need For Better Schools

• Ways we fail our children
• 4) Falling behind in the 21st Century
• US students finished 24th out of 29 developed
  countries in math and problem solving in 2003

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So, Why Our Educations Petition for an American
right to high quality education?

• The US Constitution does not mention education a
  single time.
• The US Supreme Court in San Antonio v. Rodriguez
  (1973)
• Education, of course, is not among the rights
  afforded explicit protection under our Federal
  Constitution. Nor do we find any basis for saying
  it is implicitly so protected.

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So, Why Our Educations Petition for an American
right to high quality education?

• Without an American right to high quality
  education, the result is that the most important
  factor in the kind of education a child will have
  is where they happen to be born. Each of the 50
  states and 15,000 school districts provides
  children with dramatically different quality
  schools.

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What will happen if I sign the petition?

• If you and hundreds of thousands or even
  millions of us and our peers across the nation
  sign the petition, we can show our leaders that
  we demand to be treated fairly because WE are the
  nations future

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What Can I do to Help?

• Sign the petition
• Volunteer to help run an Our Education Petition
  Drive in your school to get the word out about
  this important campaign!
• Visit www.OurEd.org for more info!