Education Law

Video Cameras in Schools

Posted on May 15, 2008
Some notes on video cameras in schools. First, not only are they becoming more prevalent but as the digital technology improves the feeds from the cameras can be sent to an increasing number of places ... other than just the principal's office. The first step was sending a live feed to district headquarters...

Fordham Scholars Announced

Posted on May 14, 2008
Fordham has announced the winners of their Fordham Scholars program that is oriented toward educational law this year. Each of the winners will receive a $25,000 grant to investigate their topic and publish their results in peer-reviewed journals. Nora Gordon, an economist at UCSD, plans to look at how litigation has affected homeschooling legislation...

About Those Greener Pastures

Posted on May 14, 2008
It has been a year for changing jobs among some of the best teacher bloggers: Kilian Betlach (Teaching in the 408); Dan Meyer. Anyway, these high profile moves have spurred some discussion in the education blogosphere. Chris Lehmann thinks we need to treat early career teachers with more care...

Data and Respectability in Confusing Times

Posted on May 13, 2008
Lately I have been sitting at my computer day after endless day crunching numbers. Meanwhile, as I am wont to do, I keep up with politics. It is no surprise this has been an exciting year for politics and the mass confusion surrounding the democratic primary has kept things interesting...

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ECS and Web 2.0

Posted on May 12, 2008
One of the best but least known resources in the Education World are the StateNotes put out by the Education Commission of the States. Many fellow researchers are vaguely familiar with them and I see them referred to occasionally in scholarly writing, but the StateNotes and the ECS Issue Sites are rarely a education scholar's first stop when looking for information on a given topic (they are probably a first stop for policy folks and legislative aides)...

Suspended for Not Standing During Pledge

Posted on May 12, 2008
Three students were suspended in rural Minnesota for not standing during the pledge. The school has a policy that requires students to stand for the pledge, but does not require the students to actually recite the pledge. This is an interesting little case...

Friday Snippets: 5/9/08 - Not Quite the End of Vouchers

Posted on May 09, 2008
A pretty busy week here at the end of the school year: A big story this week was the San Diego State drug bust. The student's have now plead not guilty. Frankly, I am a little surprised this does not happen more often. I don't think it is all that difficult so it might be from a lack of trying...

Academic Freedom, Garcetti & Blogging

Posted on May 08, 2008
Jon Becker has an interesting discussion going on over at Educational Insanity on Blogging and Free Speech Rights. I encourage you to check it out and leave a comment.  (Also, Lisa Nielsen, Teacher 2.0)My take: Under Garcetti I wouldn't feel to comfortable about anything that you say on a blog being protected...

Hating Paper

Posted on May 08, 2008
So, I am dissertating right now (feeling on the downhill slope finally). God it is horrible. Anyway, I am really hating the strict format. I am so confined in what I can do with information. The medium is so static. I am not a person that likes to read data in black and white on a page...

Thoughts on Dr. Suellen Reed and Apolitical Education in Indiana

Posted on May 07, 2008
A few days ago we learned that Dr. Suellen Reed is stepping down from her long held (16 years) post of Superintendent of Public Instruction. (Michele McNeil sums up her time here). So, I just want to give a little reflection on her work and how it affected me...

Letting Parents into the Classroom Electronically

Posted on May 05, 2008
Here is an interesting story (video) from ABC on electronic notifications that allow parents to track students grades and attendance. The online software featured in the video is called ParentCONNECT, which is produced by Pearson Education. You can see a screenshot of the information it offers in the image to the right (right click- view image, to see larger version)...

School Finance Plaintiffs Win Appeal to Indiana Supreme Court

Posted on May 03, 2008
The Indiana Supreme Court has rendered a decision in the school finance case of Bonner v. Daniels. Short version: Students won a pretty major decision. Essentially this round was over standing and justiciability in court. What was not decided was the liability of the state in this case...

Friday Snippets 05/02/08 - Teachers and Bikinis and Keeping their Jobs

Posted on May 02, 2008
Little lighter this week as I was out of town. Evolution Update: Florida, Louisiana A little more Jena 6 fallout. Idaho's District Court is reconsidering what to do to force changes in Idaho's school funding system. Sometimes the school finance lawsuits pay off handsomely...

Law Day!!! - Really?

Posted on May 01, 2008
Today is Law Day ... so says the President. The theme of this year's Law Day, "The Rule of Law: Foundation for Communities of Opportunity and Equity," recognizes the fundamental role that the rule of law plays in preserving liberty in our Nation and in all free societies...

Teachers and the Web: A Recipe for Disaster

Posted on April 28, 2008
Teachers don't seem to get the fact that the Web is a public place. I don't really know why, but they just don't. Teachers would never do the kind of dumb things they do on the Web in their classroom or even a public park. The Web is just as public, if not more public, than these places yet they seem to think they can just post whatever they want and no one will know...

No Drug Dogs in Canadian Schools

Posted on April 28, 2008
Continuing with our "America is Different" theme ...The Canadian Supreme Court has ruled that random searches by drug sniffing dogs are illegal under their Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Mark Walsh has the details. Here is some of the relevant language:The dog sniff amounts to a search within s...

American Teachers Don't Know How to Strike

Posted on April 27, 2008
When teachers strike in other countries ... they really strike. The latest, a nationwide teachers strike in the UK. 9,000 schools closed in whole or part affecting nearly 3 million kids. BBC News Video. More: (1) Union answers questions (2) Government Response...

Friday Snippets - 4/25/08 - Chasing Bananas

Posted on April 25, 2008
On we roll another week. The big news of the week is the NCLB regulatory changes. Summary. Full Changes. H/T David Hoff. (I will offer thoughts when I have more time to parse through it). 10 students ran around school dressed as bananas. 1, dressed as a gorilla, chased them...

Specialty License Plates for Schools

Posted on April 24, 2008
So, I was checking out my new hometown newspaper today and I find that an anti-porn group is seeking to have its own license plates. The plate would carry the motto "In God We Trust" and the proceeds from the sale of the plate would go to combat pornography and other vices in the eyes of the Christian group that is promoting it...

There Needs to be More Clinical Work Like This Going On

Posted on April 23, 2008
Great story in today's USA Today about students at Yale Law School taking a school adequacy lawsuit to Connecticut's Supreme Court (also the Yale Daily News). The lead attorneys (law students) on the case are Neil Weare and David Noah who did oral argument today...

Maybe There Are Worse Things You Can Do As A Teacher ...

Posted on April 22, 2008
But not many ...Packing heat in the classroom.

Educational Entrapment?

Posted on April 21, 2008
Educational Entrapment? Why not? Okay, I hear you lawyers out there crying foul and you may be right. Typically, entrapment is a legal defense whose application is limited only to instances where law enforcement officials trick a person into committing a criminal act who otherwise would not have committed it...

The Price of Budget Politics

Posted on April 20, 2008
There is always a price to be paid for playing politics with money ... and it is no different for education. A month ago I wrote that the massive amount of pink slips was going to cost California its young teachers, as a result of enormous proposed budget cuts from Gov...

Judge thinks Harry Potter is "Extremely Complex" - That Worry Anyone Else?

Posted on April 19, 2008
In a copyright case that really has very little to do with education (the defendant was a former school librarian that is wanting to make a book about Harry Potter that J.K. Rowling wants to block) I found this interesting ... District Judge Robert Patterson Jr said that he had read the first half of the first Harry Potter novel to his grandchildren, but found the ?magical world hard to follow, filled with strange names and words that would be gibberish in any other context...

Friday Snippets: 4/18/08 - There is Just Something about Coaches and Religion

Posted on April 18, 2008
Your Friday Snippets for Another Week. Here we go again with Ken Starr. This time he has agreed to take the long running (as in going on 2 decades) Flores v. Arizona case to the Supreme Court. The case, for those not familiar, concerns the State of Arizona's implementation of their English Language Learner program...

Putting the Brakes on Drivers Ed.

Posted on April 17, 2008
Not that long ago my cousin, who was 17, had not went to the driver's facility to get his license even though he had passed driver's ed. and everything else that was necessary to get the license. He just didn't want it - he didn't need it he would say...

What's That on the Lawn? Eww ... Gross.

Posted on April 15, 2008
Here is a little story that caught my attention ... human waste purposefully spread on and around an elementary school play area by the EPA. No, I am not kidding. KMOX original story (click audio)KMOX follow up finding that local residents knew of the plan...

Students Attacking Teachers - Teachers Running to the Media

Posted on April 14, 2008
Here is an odd story out of Baltimore. A teacher was attacked by a student in the classroom. It was a fairly brutal fight and students stood around and did nothing to intervene. One student, though, did pull out the old cellphone camera and recorded it on video, which later made its way to Youtube...

Friday Snippets: 4/11/08 - Cuomo's School Lawyer Net Starting to Catch Fish

Posted on April 11, 2008
Here are the snippets for another week:At AERA, Kevin Brady, said that his review of the education psychology literature found the highest rates of bullying in middle school girls. I believe it. 2 stories this week: 14 year old is beaten up by 2 older girls & Teenage girls gang up on another student...

SES and Choice Participation Still Lagging

Posted on April 11, 2008
SES and Choice were abuzz in the education blogosphere this week. Here are the relevant numbers and here is the DOE report that started it all. Quick summary: It's not good. 17% participation in SES and 1% participation in choice. That does represent a small rise in SES participation but little to no increase in choice...

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