Lawyers representing Detroit schoolchildren filed a lawsuit last week against Gov. Rick Snyder and other state officials in what they’re calling the country’s first federal case that pushes for literacy as a right under the U.S. Constitution.
The complaint contends that Michigan has denied Detroit students access to literacy—the most basic building block of education—through decades of “disinvestment ... and deliberate indifference.”
It makes broad requests for remedies, such as the implementation of evidence-based literacy programs, universal screening for literacy problems, and a statewide accountability system in which the state “monitors conditions that deny access to literacy” and intervenes.
