Education Is Not A Right

670 Words3 Pages
Education is NOT a right. I repeat; education is NOT a right. After reading “What is a Right of the People?” by Bruce Herschensohn, it confirmed my already strong belief that education is not a right, but rather a worthy pursuit. Herschensohn talks about the rights of the constitution, education not being one mentioned, but it does say in Protocol 1, Article 2 that “No person shall be denied a right to an education.” However, this law is commonly misunderstood. What it really means is that no one can deny someone from the pursuit of education. It does not say that education is an actual right itself. Herschensohn also explains that rights are “things that do not cost another person anything”. This is so true. Education demands money that comes from the American peoples’ tax dollars. Now if education was a right, it would not take away from another person. For example, Herschensohn sums it up best when he says, “As a citizen you have the right to practice your religion, but the people aren’t obligated to pay for your church or synagogue or shrine.” I completely agree with this example and others like it. Now I do believe there are cases in which hard working students coming from underprivileged homes should get financial help with going to school, but at the same time there are the opposite; kids who come from very well off families and they ease through school and are able to pay for university education. Even so, this argument has little to do with the matter at hand: that education is not a right, but a worthy pursuit. The final point is that education is something that can be taken away by the government. Compare that to the rights of the people in the Constitution; speech, press, religion, and others, which absolutely cannot be prohibited or removed by the government. As you can see, education has little similarities with the rights of the constitution. Now
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