Public education is a pillar of democracy
Aug. 19 marks the beginning of the 2026–27 school year for about 4,600 students enrolled in one of the 11 public schools or two special high-school programs of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District.
The start of a new school year is exciting. For kindergartners it’s the launch of their 13-year public-education journey, a life-transforming process that we provide as a community and from which we all benefit. We can all be proud that this opportunity is available to all children, without exception.
It will be the 101st year that high school students have attended classes at the corner of Cedar and Lee roads and more than 115 years since students began matriculating at an elementary school on the site of today’s Boulevard School. Public education is an established part of life in our community and every community. It is the backbone of our democracy.
The school district’s mission statement spells out its civic and democratic purposes: “Our schools provide a challenging and engaging education to prepare all our students to become responsible citizens and succeed in college and career.” The district’s list of values—excellence, equity, integrity, trust and respect—gives more texture to the nature of this public institution, this government body. Public education is a big and important idea—the basis of our way of life—and it’s in trouble.
Constitutional scholar Derek Black explains in a forthcoming Georgetown Law Journal article that the founders “believed that our national experiment in democracy would fail without educated voters.” He ranks public education with voting, separation of powers and an independent judiciary as critical pieces of democratic governance. Public education is the holy grail when it comes to preparing voters to participate in self-governance. The founders understood a public system was the only way to ensure that everyone had an equal shot at education.
