What Matters Even More: Codifying the Public Purpose of Education to Meet the Education Reform Challenges of the New Millenium

Abstract

With the U.S. Constitution silent on the matter and local governments allowed to designate funds to fulfill various purposes of education, citizens and policymakers are left adrift in determining which educational reform initiatives will provide a quality education. Therefore a clear public purpose of education must be codified at the federal and state level through constitutional amendment and legislative enactments to avoid this current situation. This article explores philosophies, court opinions, and state constitutions to develop and propose a universal public purpose of education suitable for codification. The codification of a public purpose of education will assist the education community in promoting and funding educational reform initiatives, such as the National Board Certification of teachers offered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, that have proven widely successful in increasing student achievement though, as of yet, have not garnered extensive federal and state government support.