Reaching the marginalized: EFA global monitoring report, 2010; 2010

REACHING THE MARGINALIZEDLevelling the playing fieldBox 3.21: Recent legal challenges to educational marginalization in the United StatesEducation groups in the United States have takento the courts to address a wide range of concerns.The results have been mixed.In Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v. State of New York,plaintiffs claimed the state’s school finance systemunderfunded the New York City public schools, therebydenying students their constitutional right to theopportunity for a sound basic education. Evidence waspresented that areas with high poverty, learners withdisabilities and large numbers of students learningEnglish faced special problems. After ten years ofproceedings, the courts finally found in favour of theplaintiffs. In 2007, the New York State Legislatureenacted the Education Budget and Reform Act, increasingeducation funding by an unprecedented amount andestablishing transparency and accountability measuresfor the distribution of funds and school finance reform.Antoine et al. v. Winner School District. This case involveda class action lawsuit brought by the American CivilLiberties Union on behalf of Native American studentsin South Dakota. Among other issues, the suit chargedthat the school district disproportionately targeted NativeAmerican students for disciplinary action and maintainedan educational environment hostile to Native Americanfamilies. In 2007, a federal court approved a settlementrequiring the district to undertake institutional reforms,including hiring a full-time ombudsperson, nominated bythe Native American community, to serve as liaison withthe community and work with school officials, especiallyon disciplinary issues. Authorities also agreed to providetraining for teachers on ‘unconscious racial bias andeducational equity’, and to include Native Americanthemes in the curriculum.Other cases with less positive outcomes includeHorne v. Flores, in which the Supreme Court in June 2009reversed a federal court decision upholding minimumstandards and necessary resources for the educationof English-language learners in Arizona primary schools,which have a very large population of Latino students.Sources: Campaign for Fiscal Equity (2009); Child Rights InformationNetwork (2009); Orfield and Gándara (2009).estimates that 51 million births per year gounregistered (UNICEF, 2007c). The lack ofregistration means parents and children may nothave the documentation they need to claim a placein school, establish an entitlement to stipends orvotes, or seek legal redress. Failure to registerbirths can also mean the most marginalizedchildren are bypassed in national statistics,rendering them invisible to policy-makers.Several governments have demonstrated thatregistration gaps can be closed. In 2009, BurkinaFaso initiated a one-year programme aimed atregistering 5 million people, most of them womenand children, by providing free birth certificates(Integrated Regional Information Networks, 2009).Furnishing documentation does not have to beexpensive. Senegal’s drive to supply modern identitycards to all citizens over 15 is estimated to havecost just US$0.61 per recipient (Levine et al., 2008).Legal instruments can also make a differencefor the millions of young girls every year who facehaving their education disrupted or terminated byearly marriage. By one 2005 estimate, almost halfof South Asian females aged 15 to 24 were marriedbefore age 18. Poverty, tradition and unequal powerrelationships between men and women all playa part in early marriage (Levine et al., 2008).These issues have to be addressed on many fronts,but legal prohibition of early marriage, coupled withincentives to keep girls in school and campaigns tochange attitudes, can establish norms and a basisfor legal recourse.Wider political mobilization is importantLegal provisions cannot be considered in isolation.Brown v. Board of Education was the culminationof a decade-long struggle by African-Americansand sympathetic whites against segregation andother discriminatory laws. The legal principles thatthe Supreme Court laid down were a landmark.But it was the civil rights movement that made theruling such a powerful force for change. Politicalmobilization, involving the marginalized and widersocial movements, has been essential in reforminglaws and rules on education.Political mobilization against marginalization canbecome part of a wider movement. One strikingexample comes from Bolivia, whose educationsystem systematically reinforced subordination ofindigenous people. The 1994 Education Reform Lawhelped establish indigenous people’s right to learnin their own language and brought multiculturalisminto the curriculum. Education reform in turnplayed a role in political processes that broughtan indigenous political leader to power in 2005.Reforms have seen the strengthening of IndigenousEducation Councils, which held their own congressLegal instrumentscan make adifference forthe millions ofyoung girls everyyear who havetheir educationdisrupted by earlymarriage205