ABOUT US
World Partners
Preamble
We have adopted this from the UN Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform This Agenda is our plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. We recognize that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan. We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets demonstrate the scale and ambition of this new universal Agenda. They seek to realize the human rights of all and to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. They are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental. The Goals and targets will stimulate action over the next fifteen years in areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet: People We are determined to end poverty and hunger, in all their forms and dimensions, and to ensure that all human beings can fulfill their potential in dignity and equality and in a healthy environment. Partnership We are determined to mobilize the means required to implement this Agenda through a revitalized Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, based on a spirit of strengthened global solidarity, focused in particular on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable and with the participation of all countries, all stakeholders and all people. The inter-linkages and integrated nature of the Sustainable Development Goals are of crucial importance in ensuring that the purpose of the new Agenda is realized. If we realize our ambitions across the full extent of the Agenda, the lives of all will be profoundly improved and our world will be transformed for the better. |
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PURPOSE
Our Goal:
We commit to assist in providing inclusive, equitable, quality educational and literacy support at all levels – early childhood, primary, secondary, tertiary, technical and vocational training. All people, irrespective of sex, age, race, ethnicity, and persons with disabilities, migrants, indigenous peoples, children and youth, especially those in vulnerable situations, should have access to life-long learning opportunities that help them acquire the knowledge and skills needed to exploit opportunities and to participate fully in society. We will strive to provide children and youth with support, tools and a nurturing environment for the full realization of their rights and capabilities, helping our countries to reap the demographic dividend including through well-equipped, safe schools and cohesive communities and families.
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BLOG
Students Argue Literacy Is A Right In Lawsuit
Heard on NPR's Morning Edition
A group of students from Detroit filed a lawsuit in 2016 against the state of Michigan, claiming bad schools prevented them from learning to read. Noel King talks with their lawyer Mark Rosenbaum.
NOEL KING, HOST:
The U.S. Constitution guarantees us many rights, but does it guarantee us the right to literacy? A group of students from Detroit sued the state of Michigan in 2016. They claimed bad schools which they were attending were, quote, "functionally incapable of delivering access to literacy." Now, the state argued that literacy is not a fundamental right, and a federal judge agreed and dismissed the case. But today lawyers for those students will start the appeals process. Mark Rosenbaum is one of the lawyers. I talked to him about the case and why he brought it.
MARK ROSENBAUM: Well, more than 60 years ago, the Supreme Court, in the Brown v. Board of Education case, said that where the state chooses to provide education, it has to do so on equal terms. The students we represent, those students are sitting maybe five miles away from campuses where students are given every opportunity to learn and to reach their full potential. And our argument is a pretty basic one, and that is zip codes should not determine destiny and that all children in Michigan should have the same opportunity to reach their potential. Really, that's what the case is about.
KING: These kids are essentially saying, we have the right to know how to read. It's guaranteed by the Constitution, and our schools failed us. I've got to ask you, does the Constitution actually say anything about literacy?
ROSENBAUM: The word literacy doesn't appear in the Constitution itself, but built into the notions of liberty, built into the notions of being able to participate in our democracy and built into our notions of equality is the idea that when children are compelled to go to a building that is designated as a school, they have to find inside that building teachers and books and core curricular subjects - conditions that make learning possible - and that the exercise of liberty interests cannot be vindicated where their counterparts a few miles away are on campuses that could be mistaken for the University of Michigan.
KING: Let me ask you. You're appealing the judge's decision on what grounds?
ROSENBAUM: The court tragically got it wrong when, as in a quality matter, he compared the children of Detroit to children in other schools where the proficiency rates hover around zero as opposed to what is the norm in Michigan. And we also say that the court got it wrong, tragically wrong, when it did not consider the fact that these children are being compelled by the state, by state law, to go to these schools, and then at the end of the day there's nothing in terms of education that's being delivered there.
KING: You are dealing in this lawsuit with children, with people under the age of 18. How are they feeling about this? Do they feel dismayed? Do they feel like they have a future?
ROSENBAUM: That's an extraordinarily important question. These kids and their families recognize that the struggle to get schools where they have an opportunity to learn is a historic one. I mean, they are very conscious of the fact that access to literacy has been a means to subordinate groups historically. They are aware they are not getting the same sorts of opportunities as their counterparts.
KING: That was Mark Rosenbaum with the public interest law firm Public Counsel. He and lawyers from the firm Sidley Austin are representing the students in this case.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
A group of students from Detroit filed a lawsuit in 2016 against the state of Michigan, claiming bad schools prevented them from learning to read. Noel King talks with their lawyer Mark Rosenbaum.
NOEL KING, HOST:
The U.S. Constitution guarantees us many rights, but does it guarantee us the right to literacy? A group of students from Detroit sued the state of Michigan in 2016. They claimed bad schools which they were attending were, quote, "functionally incapable of delivering access to literacy." Now, the state argued that literacy is not a fundamental right, and a federal judge agreed and dismissed the case. But today lawyers for those students will start the appeals process. Mark Rosenbaum is one of the lawyers. I talked to him about the case and why he brought it.
MARK ROSENBAUM: Well, more than 60 years ago, the Supreme Court, in the Brown v. Board of Education case, said that where the state chooses to provide education, it has to do so on equal terms. The students we represent, those students are sitting maybe five miles away from campuses where students are given every opportunity to learn and to reach their full potential. And our argument is a pretty basic one, and that is zip codes should not determine destiny and that all children in Michigan should have the same opportunity to reach their potential. Really, that's what the case is about.
KING: These kids are essentially saying, we have the right to know how to read. It's guaranteed by the Constitution, and our schools failed us. I've got to ask you, does the Constitution actually say anything about literacy?
ROSENBAUM: The word literacy doesn't appear in the Constitution itself, but built into the notions of liberty, built into the notions of being able to participate in our democracy and built into our notions of equality is the idea that when children are compelled to go to a building that is designated as a school, they have to find inside that building teachers and books and core curricular subjects - conditions that make learning possible - and that the exercise of liberty interests cannot be vindicated where their counterparts a few miles away are on campuses that could be mistaken for the University of Michigan.
KING: Let me ask you. You're appealing the judge's decision on what grounds?
ROSENBAUM: The court tragically got it wrong when, as in a quality matter, he compared the children of Detroit to children in other schools where the proficiency rates hover around zero as opposed to what is the norm in Michigan. And we also say that the court got it wrong, tragically wrong, when it did not consider the fact that these children are being compelled by the state, by state law, to go to these schools, and then at the end of the day there's nothing in terms of education that's being delivered there.
KING: You are dealing in this lawsuit with children, with people under the age of 18. How are they feeling about this? Do they feel dismayed? Do they feel like they have a future?
ROSENBAUM: That's an extraordinarily important question. These kids and their families recognize that the struggle to get schools where they have an opportunity to learn is a historic one. I mean, they are very conscious of the fact that access to literacy has been a means to subordinate groups historically. They are aware they are not getting the same sorts of opportunities as their counterparts.
KING: That was Mark Rosenbaum with the public interest law firm Public Counsel. He and lawyers from the firm Sidley Austin are representing the students in this case.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.