An Education Amendment

Abstract

The chapter is focused on Jefferson’s 1806 State of the Union proposal that the nation should adopt an amendment to the US Constitution for a “public establishment of education.” The discussion centers on the multiple ambiguities that surround Jefferson’s education amendment. Special attention is devoted to the funding mechanisms that Jefferson suggests and how they may illuminate today’s problem of public school funding. A Jeffersonian interpretation of the privatization movement is offered as a means for exposing its moral bankruptcy. To counter this and other neoliberal trends in education, a case is made that the so-called “guarantee clause” of the US Constitution (Article 4, Section 4) should be utilized to protect the republican, civic integrity of public education.