Education in North America

Most obvious to these critics was the existence of a multitiered system of schooling, in which minority and immigrant groups were channeled by the education they received into low-paying jobs and subservient positions in society while whites, including, to a lesser extent, white women, were provided an education that created opportunity for mobility and access to political power. In the United States, from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision declaring separate schools for black children unconstitutional, to state-by-state decisions to equalize school finance and school resources, to the 2002 national No Child Left Behind act, policy-makers have worked to create a system that is not just universal, but that provides equal opportunities to all. Such a system of education would go well beyond the original social control arguments in favor of publicly supported schooling. Instead, such a system would preserve liberal democracy in the United States and Canada by bringing to life the noblest aspirations of the liberal democratic ideals upon which the nation-states of North America ultimately rest.