I 
111TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2451 
To provide for adequate and equitable educational opportunities for students 
in State public school systems, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 15, 2009 
Mr. FATTAH introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Education and Labor 
A BILL 
To provide for adequate and equitable educational opportuni-
ties for students in State public school systems, and 
for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Student Bill of 
Rights’’. 
SEC. 2. TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
The table of contents for this Act is as follows: 
Sec. 1. Short title. 
Sec. 2. Table of contents. 
Sec. 3. Findings and purposes. 
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TITLE I—EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY IN STATE PUBLIC 
SCHOOL SYSTEMS 
Subtitle A—Access to Educational Opportunity 
Sec. 111. Adequate and equitable State public school systems. 
Sec. 112. State educational adequacy and equity requirements. 
Sec. 113. State-established standards for opportunity to learn. 
Subtitle B—State Accountability 
Sec. 121. Determination of educationally adequate and inequitable State public 
school systems. 
Sec. 122. State accountability for improvement of educational opportunity. 
Sec. 123. Consequences of nonremediation. 
Subtitle C—Public Reporting and Remedy 
Sec. 131. Annual report by Secretary on adequacy and equity in State public 
school systems. 
Sec. 132. Civil action for enforcement. 
TITLE II—EFFECTS OF EDUCATIONAL DISPARITIES ON 
ECONOMIC GROWTH AND NATIONAL DEFENSE 
Sec. 201. Effects on economic growth and productivity. 
Sec. 202. Effects on national defense. 
TITLE III—GENERAL PROVISIONS 
Sec. 301. Definitions. 
Sec. 302. Notice and opportunity for hearing. 
Sec. 303. Rulemaking. 
Sec. 304. Rule of construction. 
SEC. 3. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES. 
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following: 
(1) A high-quality, highly competitive education 
for all students is imperative for the economic 
growth and productivity of the United States, for its 
effective national defense, and for achievement of 
the historical aspiration to be one Nation of equal 
citizens. It is therefore necessary and proper to over-
come the nationwide phenomenon of educationally 
inadequate or inequitable State public school sys-
tems, in which high-quality public schools serve 
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high-income communities and poor-quality schools 
serve low-income, urban, rural, and minority commu-
nities. 
(2) There exists in the States an ever-widening 
educational opportunity gap for low-income, urban, 
rural, and minority students characterized by the 
following: 
(A) Highly differential educational expend-
itures among local educational agencies within 
States. 
(B) Continuing disparities within the 
States in students’ access to the opportunity to 
learn indicators described in section 112(a). 
(C) 
Radically 
differential 
educational 
achievement among local educational agencies 
within the States, as measured by the following: 
(i) Achievement in mathematics, read-
ing or language arts, and science on State 
academic achievement tests and measures, 
including the academic assessments de-
scribed in section 113(b)(1). 
(ii) Advanced placement courses of-
fered and taken. 
(iii) Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) 
and ACT Assessment scores. 
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(iv) Dropout rates and graduation 
rates. 
(v) College-going and college-comple-
tion rates. 
(vi) Job placement and retention rates 
and indices of job quality. 
(3) As a consequence of this educational oppor-
tunity gap, the quality of a child’s education depends 
largely upon where the child’s family lives, and the 
detriments of lower quality public education are im-
posed particularly on— 
(A) children from low-income families; 
(B) children living in urban and rural 
areas; and 
(C) minority children. 
(4) Since 1785, the Congress of the United 
States, exercising the power to admit new States 
under article IV, section 3 of the Constitution (and 
previously, the Congress of the Confederation of 
States under the Articles of Confederation), has im-
posed upon every State, as a fundamental condition 
of the State’s admission, the following requirements: 
(A) One, and sometimes two, square-mile 
lots in every township were to be ‘‘granted and 
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. . . reserved for the maintenance and use of 
public schools’’. 
(B) ‘‘[S]chools and the means of education 
[are to] be forever encouraged’’. 
(C) ‘‘State conventions [were to] provide, 
by ordinances irrevocable without the consent of 
the United States and the people of said States 
. . . that provision . . . be made for the estab-
lishment and maintenance of systems of public 
schools which shall be open to all children of 
said States’’. 
(See Ordinances of May 20, 1785, and July 13, 
1787; Act of March 3, 1845, 28th Cong. 2d Sess., 
5 Stat. 789, Chap. 76 (admitting Iowa and Florida); 
Act of February 22, 1889, 50th Cong., 2d Sess., 
Chap. 180 (admitting States created from the Da-
kota Territories); and the Acts of Congress per-
taining to the admission of each of the States.) 
(5) Over the years since the landmark ruling in 
Brown v. Board of Education, when a unanimous 
United States Supreme Court held that ‘‘the oppor-
tunity of an education . . . , where the state has un-
dertaken to provide it, is a right which must be 
made available to all on equal terms’’, courts in 44 
of the States have heard challenges to the establish-
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ment, maintenance, and operation of educationally 
inadequate or inequitable State public school sys-
tems. (347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954)). 
(6) In 1970, the Presidential Commission on 
School Finance found that significant disparities in 
the distribution of educational resources existed 
among local educational agencies within States be-
cause the States relied too significantly on local dis-
trict financing for educational revenues, and that re-
forms in systems of school financing would increase 
the Nation’s ability to serve the educational needs of 
all children. 
(7) In 1999, the National Research Council of 
the National Academy of Sciences published a report 
entitled ‘‘Making Money Matter, Financing Amer-
ica’s Schools’’, which found that the concept of fund-
ing adequacy, which moves beyond the more tradi-
tional concepts of finance equity to focus attention 
on the sufficiency of funding for desired educational 
outcomes, is an important step in developing a fair 
and productive educational system. 
(8) In 2001, the Executive order establishing 
the President’s Commission on Educational Re-
source Equity declared, ‘‘A quality education is es-
sential to the success of every child in the 21st cen-
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tury and to the continued strength and prosperity of 
our Nation. . . . [L]ong-standing gaps in access to 
educational resources exist, including disparities 
based on race and ethnicity.’’ (Executive Order 
13190, § 1 (January 15, 2001); 66 Fed. Reg. 5424.) 
(9) According to the Secretary of Education, as 
stated in a letter (with enclosures) dated January 
19, 2002, from the Secretary to States— 
(A) racial and ethnic minorities continue to 
suffer from lack of access to educational re-
sources, including ‘‘experienced and qualified 
teachers, adequate facilities, and instructional 
programs and support, including technology, as 
well as . . . the funding necessary to secure 
these resources’’; and 
(B) these inadequacies are ‘‘particularly 
acute in high-poverty schools, including urban 
schools, where many students of color are iso-
lated and where the effect of the resource gaps 
may be cumulative. In other words, students 
who need the most may often receive the least, 
and these students often are students of color’’. 
(10) The Elementary and Secondary Education 
Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 6301 et seq.), as amended 
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by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Public 
Law 107–110), provides that— 
(A) States must establish standards and 
assessments in mathematics, reading or lan-
guage arts, and science; 
(B) elementary schools and secondary 
schools must ensure that all students are pro-
ficient in such subjects within 12 years after 
the end of the 2001–2002 school year; and 
(C) elementary schools and secondary 
schools will be held accountable for the stu-
dents’ progress. 
(11) The standards and accountability move-
ment will succeed only if, in addition to standards 
and accountability, all schools have access to the 
educational resources necessary to enable students to 
achieve. 
(12) Raising standards without ensuring ade-
quate and equitable access to educational resources 
may, in fact, exacerbate achievement gaps and set 
children up for failure. 
(13) According to the World Economic Forum’s 
Global Competitiveness Report 2001–2002, the 
United States ranks last among developed countries 
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