Friday Snippets: 3/21/08 - If the Fed. Gov. breaks a law and no one cares ... does it make a sound?

An abbreviated version of the Snippets this week as I was mostly out of town:

The Arizona House votes to opt out of NCLB.

The CA Homeschooling case goes up on appeal.

Michigan anti-bullying bill stalls because of inclusion of anti-bullying protections in model state policy for homosexual students.

State constitutional issues are hot in NH (finance issue) and in Florida (pushing vouchers).

The Maine Legislature passed a fairly extensive school consolidation law, but it might be vetoed by the Governor.



Mark Yudof to UC
is official (for about $600,000 plus perks - kind of makes you want to
consider the administrative track in higher ed. doesn't it).



Kentucky doesn't have a lot of good options for dealing with the budget shortfall (NPR Audio) - Grrrreat (rolling eyes).



The other side of bullying litigation - private suits against individual bulliers. (ABA Journal)



Congress is giving record earmarks to higher ed. (I got a few things you can earmark for me if any of you Congressmen are interested).


And around the ed. law blogosphere:

Jim Gerl is soliciting thoughts and experiences on regular ed. teacher inclusion in the IEP team after the IDEA '04 Amendments.

Karl Romberger has a post on the new proposed FERPA regulations.

Mark also has a story up on the Supreme's grant of cert. to Pearson v. Callahan, a case on qualified immunity.



David Hoff's close reading finds that Condi is working for George W. because of NCLB.



Pamela Parker at Texas Teacher Law has some advice for teachers when there are overactive parents.

Mitchell Rubinstein has thoughts on the new anti-bullying workplace laws being proposed in some states, as well as thoughts on the new law school rankings (1) (2) (3)
(Mitchell thinks law students should look at additional factors -
personally, I think they shouldn't look at the rankings at all but
instead look at the data for themselves in the ABA-LSAC Guide to Approved Law Schools). 



Kevin Carey at The Quick and the Ed. makes a great point which I agree with: Technically, the Department of Ed. is breaking the law with the new 10 state pilot program. But, lucky for them, no one complains.



Alexander Russo, who was also at AERA, makes the point that the media are just not digesting education research and rightly says that both sides, the journalists and the researchers, need to do better and that blogs can play an important role
in the improvement of this relationship. (Perhaps I will try to
integrate more summaries of ed. law scholarly research into the blog in
the future).

I met John Becker from Ed. Insanity ... finally ... he an I sat in on a cool session on cyberbullying, which we both offered comments on, after which he saw cool people & NORM from Cheers (I am jealous, I didn't get to meet anyone famous, well, except Jon Becker).



And in tribute to my week in NY: New York, New York.

Google Document Link: Friday Snippets 3/28/08

Liveblogging AERA: Law and Education SIG Secretary/Treasurer

I have never exactly been that great with money. It is not a
coincidence that I married an accountant. But, for some reason, the Law and Education SIG of AERA has entrusted the money to me … starting … well,
yesterday. It is a great honor and I am looking forward to filling the
position.

Couple of notes from the AERA Law and Ed. Sig Meeting,
however. First, we did not give out an Emerging Scholar Award this year to the
best graduate student proposal. That is a shame. I won the award last year and
Joseph Oluwole, now at Montclair State, won the award the year before that. It is not only a nice
resume boost, but it is also a bit of cash and the appreciation and
acknowledgement from your future peers. I am really disappointed we were not
able to bestow that award on anyone this year and I hope that does not happen
again, ever! So, all you graduate students out there interested in legal issues
in education, please submit next year and put some time into your proposal.
Next year the award is going up to $300, and, as treasurer, I would really like
to write that check with your name on it.  

Next, there was some concern about proposal quality. While I
am not an expert, I can tell you that proposals for AERA presentations are
expected to be of the highest quality. Of all the conferences I present at, when
I propose to AERA I take the most time in writing the proposal. When submitting
to the law SIG, it is expected that your proposal will have footnotes in proper
Bluebook format (or APA), will have already completed at least some of the
literature review and may even report some preliminary results of the analysis.
Simply submitting an idea with no references and no literature to back it up is
not sufficient for AERA purposes.

I will write more about what we might do online in another
post at a later date, but there is a lot of potential development in this area.

Last, just a shameless plug for the AERA Law and Education
SIG. The SIG currently has 156 active members. Not so many years ago it had
only 30-ish. It is in a period of rapid growth and most of the law people that
are getting professorship jobs around the country right now are members. Just
this year, the SIG placed at least 3 of its young members into Assistant
Professor positions at very nice universities (including me). The Law SIG is
the entity that is producing the future scholars of educational law, probably
more than any other entity. If you are already a member of AERA, the dues are a
grand total of … wait for it … $5. Yep, that is all it costs to be a member of
the Law and Education SIG. So join. Come to the SIG meeting. Submit a proposal.
We are a really, REALLY welcoming group and a great group for young professors
to get started with. Even if you are currently a professor teaching educational
law, you should think about joining. For my money … the most cutting edge
scholarship in educational law right now is being produced by Law and Education
SIG members and I am proud to call myself a member and assume a leadership position in the SIG.

Liveblogging AERA: Educational Evidence

Went to an interesting presentation yesterday morning by Arthur Recesso
that examined the types of evidence used to make educational decisions about
teachers. He used the law as a backdrop for talking about evidence and even
referenced the Federal Rules of Evidence. It was a fun presentation and got me
thinking about evidence and education. Is there a [Your State Here] Rules of
Educational Evidence? Should there be? When school administrators make
decisions about teachers based on hearsay evidence (perhaps even hearsay
evidence from kids) should that be enough to take negative employment actions? Do
we ever talk about making judgments about evidence in any of our ed. leader
prep. classes?

On top of that, the thing that we need to think more about
is the system of ensuring the validity of evidence used to make decisions in
schools. In law, the adversarial nature of all proceedings is (at least theoretically)
the thing we use to ensure validity in evidence used to make legal decisions.
Presumably, if some evidence is not valid, the opposing party, using the Federal Rules of Evidence, will point that out which will either eliminate that
evidence or at least devalue it. Is there a corresponding mechanism in
education? What’s there to ensure validity in evidence used to make educational
decisions? The knowledge and goodwill of the administrator? There are
adversarial remedies (think union grievance), but this typically occurs after a
decision has been made at which point irreparable damage may have already been done.

Anyway, some fun evidentiary issues in education to
consider.

Liveblogging AERA: Reigning in the Confusion over Parents Involved in Community Schools

Earlier this week I posted on the developing confusion among some scholars concerning the decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools
(apparently we are going to call it PICS, but with only 1 i, even though the
real groups calls itself piics, as in piics.org). Well, that was before I hit
the legal presentations, where there may be frustration, but there is more
clarity. Perhaps it is just the more short term minded nature of the legal
scholars who are typically concerned with the “here and now” and not the “might
be someday,” but the legal scholars that presented on PICS had more clarity as
to where the disputes now turn … to classifications that implicate race, but
may not be race itself. These scholars found clear evidence in Justice Kennedy’s opinion that if schools can come up with measures that are not race, but
achieve the same goal, the courts will give deference to the schools.

I can see multiple factors being employed to get as close to
race-based admissions decisions without specifically saying “White,” “Black,” “Latino”
… you get the picture. All of these factors, even in combination may achieve
exactly the same purpose but would be provided deference (and approved) because
of the schools’ effort to avoid the 14^th Amendment and the Civil
Rights acts altogether. Even if these have a disparate impact against Whites,
such policies will probably be upheld.

So, the race is on to find a multitude of factors that move
the same children into the same places as before, only using a combination of
other factors. The litigation will now turn to just how close can we get to
race without actually touching it. Obviously SES is everyone’s first thought,
but what about parental education level? What about privileging some locations
within districts as an “economic incentive?”  And on and on. It is going to force us to
figure out what exactly makes the minority experience unique in America and
then privileging every one of those unique factors in combination to
essentially use race as an admissions characteristic without actually using it.
That is the current challenge laid out for legal scholars. Should be fun.

Liveblogging AERA: Law Oriented Assistant Professor Position

Wanted to pass along a law oriented Assistant Professor position at George Washington University that their chair, Virginia Roach, passed along to me. I am a big fan of Dr. Roach and her work which is closely tied to educational policy, and to have her as the chair of your department would be a great starting place for a young legal researcher. Also, you would be in D.C., so you would get a lot of opportunities to involve yourself in federal happenings and perhaps even sit in on oral argument at the Supreme Court from time to time. Anyway, this is a great job for any of you young educational law scholars out there and I encourage all of you to apply.

I am going to try to keep up with the educational law faculty openings as much as I can and post them here, so if there are any educational law faculty openings you want to advertise, either in education or in law, please feel free to contact me and let me know. Not only will I post them to the blog, but I know a lot of young educational law scholars and I will perhaps be able to point someone in the right direction. I will also advertise other educational law oriented positions if asked, but remember there is already a job board for school law attorneys at the NSBA, Council of School Attorneys.

Liveblogging AERA: Questioning Brown?

Back to liveblogging. Just got out of a very interesting session on the fallout of Parents Involved in Community Schools (PIICS). I found it really interesting that the presentations were not devoted as much as to what PICS got wrong, as they were to why Brown was wrong for allowing the space for PIICS to come about. Some of the researchers claimed that Brown provided the space for these types of rulings and that PICS was only the natural result of the opinion in Brown which proclaimed a color-blind type society. Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings seems to think that it was only a matter of time before the courts turned against affirmative action and desegregation type policies and that when they did it would be the color-blind language in Brown that would provide the impetus. In fact, scholars pointed out the language in Justice Roberts majority opinion where he relied heavily on the reasoning in Brown, a fact which Justice Breyer in dissent took umbrage to. Dr. Ladson-Billings's conclusion is that the Court (all courts) are no longer the friend of the Black & minority communities and that they instead need to turn their focus toward the legislatures. Anyway, I find it interesting that while the research community is largely upset with the ruling in PIICS, they seem to be directing their anger at earlier decisions, including Brown, which is frequently held up as sacred. Overall, there seems to be a lot of confusion in some scholarly circles as to where to turn next, with some pushing a continuing focus on school outcomes, some pushing a continuing focus on school imputs (school finance), some pushing for moves toward the legislature ... I just feel the rapid conservative turn of the Court following Justice O'Conner's departure has really left the scholarly community in a state of confusion and frustration.

Liveblogging AERA: Initial Thoughts

Well, I am at AERA and I have checked in. There was a 40 min. wait to check in, so that was not the best. The hotels are not really close to one another and the hotel we are staying at is about 3 subway stops away. I think there are 4-5 hotels AERA is using this time and the 2 main ones are about 8 blocks apart. Not that far, but not close either. Also, one other criticism, the hotels do not have a lot of space for lounging and passing a little time, which is a necessary component at these conferences.

Times Square is nice. Got myself a little NY Pizza for lunch. CBS has free Internet access at Times Square, so that is helpful for liveblogging. I overheard some AERA members here in the lounge talking about going to the Law SIG presentation this afternoon on discriminations issues. It always amazes me how attractive the legal presentations are at conferences like these. Educators and educational researchers really are interested in the legal presentations and they always get a great turnout. Now, if we only had more members of the AERA Law and Education SIG to give presentations. Our problem is not getting outside people to attend sessions, it is having enough people to give sessions for people to attend. The supply of educational law information at conferences like these is far outstripped by the demand.

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts. Check back later after I have given my 4pm presentation on faculty in educational leadership preparation programs.

Upset with Schools? Run for Governor!

I always like these stories. Two teachers in Montana have filed papers to run for Governor and Lt. Governor. Here is their campaign website. The candidate for Governor, Don Progreba, runs an educational blog at Intelligent Discontent and publishes under the name Pogie (this should help is Technorati rating if nothing else).

Now, I am not too familiar with Montana Democratic politics (I would make some remark here about the nonexistent Democratic party in Montana, but that is simply not the case anymore with a sitting Democratic governor and two Democratic Senators) so I don't know their chance of success, but from the stories out there on it, their chances of victory in the Democratic primary seem pretty small as they are facing off against the sitting Democratic governor, who is seeking reelection.  But, even with slim chances, there is something to be said for the pulpit that a campaign can generate. Not only can these guys shed some light on educational issues they think are important, but they can force their rivals to also speak about education. In fact, that seems to be the main purpose:

Pogreba and Neiffer, who teach at Helena High School and Capital High
School respectively, have said they are running to ensure a substantive
discussion takes place in the Democratic Party about education.

They are not, after all, taking off from their educational careers. Their campaign website says this:

Remember, we cannot answer e-mails or work on any campaign issues
between 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. most weekdays. We will return your call or
e-mail as soon as possible, though.

But, just by running, they can make education a central issue in this campaign. Even if they lose to the sitting Democratic governor in the primary, their run will force the Governor to generate educational talking points, talking points which are likely to carry over into the general and even into his 2nd term. This has real value. There may be no better way for educators (who don't have a lot of money or influence) to catch the ear of a governor than to challenge that governor in a primary. No matter how slim these teachers' chances are, the current Schweitzer administration is going to listen to what they have to say - and listen closely.

So, bravo Mr. Don Pogreba and Mr. Jason Neiffer and best wishes (and have fun). You may not win, but you are going to help the schools in your state either way ... and who knows ... you just never know when a scandal is going to hit ... I think a couple other sitting (well used to be sitting) Democratic governors can testify to that.

Friday Snippets: 3/21/08 - Tough Week for Teachers

Here are your Friday Snippets for another week:

A teacher forced a Florida boy to go in a lunchbox ... in the back of the room ... with everyone watching. (shaking head)

Teachers also ... please don't bite students.

Or wake students up that are sleeping in class with loud noises. (Quizlaw doesn't buy it).

Or throw punches at each other in front of students (not the best week for teachers!).



Or call a student a terrorist.




States may be given a little more leeway when it comes to sanctions for schools that don't meet AYP (read my policy brief of NCLB Sanctions here).

Dr. Spellings is asking us all to give NCLB another chance as some provisions are eased.

Also, the Department of Education is accused of partisan photo-ops such as in Minnesota where they stopped to take pictures with Norm Coleman, who has a significant and expensive fight with Al Franken coming up for U.S. Senate. (Not to fear, Al Franken was on Letterman this week ... and talked NCLB policy).

Fingerprint scanning in schools? Stateline has a great analysis and shows how it works. Also, a concerned parent that is keeping an eye on it.

Illinois' controversial moment of silence law is going to the courts and a judge basically allowed everyone in the state to join in as a party in what is now a class-action suit.

Illinois and the Fed. seemed to have agreed on testing plan for children of immigrants ... but that doesn't mean folks are happy about it.

Some in NY are trying to preempt test score based employment decisions (merit pay).

Michigan's Affirmative Action ban was found to be constitutional.

A new front is opening in the Utah voucher battle (more).

Following up from last week ... Gov. Crist in Florida opposes the Baggy Pants Bill.

ABC News has a story (video) saying the more sex ed ... the fewer teen pregnancies.

Also ABC has a look back
(video) at news reports on school busing limitations during the Nixon
Administration. (we have come so far in some ways ... and in others are
still fighting the same battles).



And, finally, you can't hit on the highlights of this week without mentioning Barack Obama's speech, A More Perfect Union
(video, check out the number of hits!), which talked a good deal about
education and race and inequality. I don't mind saying that I was
highly impressed with this speech. It is nice to talk about it again
... in public ... without blame ... without fear ... without barriers.
It was one of those things that when you watch it and you know the
context ... you can just feel America changing. We are going to talk
about race differently after this week, which is nice.

Around the Ed. Law Blogosphere ...

Mark Walsh has some on the recent Supreme Court cases and finds that the 6th Circuit is considering rehearing the Pontiac v. Spellings case en banc, which the NEA opposes (no kidding).

Karl Romberger at Fox Rothschild has great primer on religious exemptions and the ADA.

Mitchell Rubenstein and Jim Gerl got into a mini debate about rural special education and Jim follows up with 2 additional posts to make his case: Yes it is different - Yes I am really not kidding here people it is different. (These conversations are why I love the ed. law blogosphere).

Mitchell also has an interesting post on a 2nd Grade boy going to school as a girl and the school accommodating her(him?) (Second Grade? Really?).

And a somewhat technical difference between privilege and immunity in a superintendent giving out a reference.



And a posting linking to several school law resources
(basically NSBA and a couple primary source links -- god the online
educational law infrastructure is horrid  -- look for an upcoming
report on this from myself and a colleague).



Higher Ed Law Prof Blog found one of our own Mark Yudof is the top candidate to take over the Presidency of the University of California system. (Good luck Mark).



David Hoff has an interesting post on Randi Weingarten's, the UFT president, new accountability proposal which relies on additional factors (is this caving a little on the part of the union?)

David also thinks we may be moving to fundamental changes in federal K-12 policy, instead of just tweaking NCLB.





And, for your weekly time waster ... I give you Google Sky - The Universe on your Laptop (its pretty cool, but um, well, it might just be too big for even Google).

That is, if you are not already consumed with watching the NCAA tournament on your computer, as Jonathan Becker is.

Google Document Link: Friday Snippets 3/21/2008

AERA Law and Education SIG - 2008 Presentations

Next week, I will be in New York for AERA, the largest educational research conference in the world. It is a yearly pilgrimage for educational scholars ... however undesirable (it is really too big for my tastes and is always in the largest and costliest cities). Anyway, for those of you going, below are the Law and Education Special Interest Group presentations. For those of you not going, you can get a sense of what is important or hot in educational law by what gets presented at these conferences.

##	Title	Action
1.	Academic Decisions and the Law: Where Has the First Amendment Taken Higher Education?   Session type: Symposium   Time: Tue, Mar 25 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place: Hilton New York, Holland Suite, 4th Floor   Descriptors: Law/Legal, Policy, Higher Education   Audio Taping: Yes	view
2.	Law and Modernity: Current and Emerging Dilemmas   Session type: Paper Session   Time: Mon, Mar 24 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place: Hilton New York, Green Room, 4th Floor   Audio Taping: No	view
3.	Legal, Policy, and Practical Challenges to Providing Education Quality   Session type: Paper Discussion (formerly known as Roundtables)   Time: Tue, Mar 25 - 2:15pm - 2:55pm Place: Hilton New York, Trianon Ballroom/Petit Trianon, 3rd floor   Audio Taping: No	view
4.	SIG - Law and Education SIG Business Meeting/Symposium on Legal Literacy   Session type: Business Meeting   Time: Tue, Mar 25 - 6:15pm - 8:15pm Place: New York Marriott Marquis Times Square, Lyceum Complex, Booth/Edison Rooms, 5th Floor   Audio Taping: No	view
5.	The Legal Complexity of Race-Based Policy and Students' Rights   Session type: Paper Discussion (formerly known as Roundtables)   Time: Wed, Mar 26 - 3:05pm - 3:45pm Place: Hilton New York, Trianon Ballroom/Petit Trianon, 3rd floor   Audio Taping: No	view
6.	The Reach of Law Into Cyberspace: Implications for Administrative Discretion, Safety, and Student Civil Liberties   Session type: Paper Session   Time: Wed, Mar 26 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Hilton New York, Concourse F, Concourse Level   Audio Taping: No	view
7.	Where Do We Go From Here? Analysis of the 2007 Supreme Court Rulings   Session type: Symposium   Time: Thu, Mar 27 - 8:15am - 10:15am Place: Hilton New York, Nassau Suite A, 2nd Floor   Descriptors: Desegregation, Diversity, Law/Legal   Audio Taping: Yes	view

I will be blogging as much as possible, but it might be a little lighter next week depending on Internet Access. I am doing a lot with the Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership SIG, so I am not sure if I will be able to catch all the Law and Education SIG presentations, but I will liveblog as many as I can. It will be my first time in New York, so I am sort of looking forward to it and sort of apprehensive. I do hope that I get to ride in the Cash Cab.

Unconstitutionally Low Graduation Rates?

Here is a new tact. The ACLU is suing a Florida School District for unconstitutionally low graduation rates (Press Release). The ACLU claims that the low graduation rates, especially given their racial breakdown, violate the high quality provision of the Florida Constitution. As you can see, the Florida Constitution is does not equivocate on the term "high quality."

The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the
State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to
make adequate provision for the education of all children residing
within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a
uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free
public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education
and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions
of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs
of the people may require. To assure that children attending public
schools obtain a high quality education, the legislature shall make
adequate provision to ensure that ...

Frankly, I like this lawsuit. It is very creative. It challenges Florida's public schools to live up to their mandate. The Constitution demands high quality and it is hard to argue that failing to graduate 1/2 of your students from high school is high quality. Now, the likelihood of a Florida judge interpreting "high quality" to mean everyone graduates is pretty slim. It is just a vague enough term to not really mean anything legally (which I am sure is why they used it in the first place). But, it is a good idea nonetheless and it may even force some schools to get even more serious about improving their graduation rate.

Hat tip: ABA Journal

The California Crunch

In case you haven't heard, there is a major budget crunch going on in California this year. Gov. Schwarzenegger has asked for a 4.4 billion dollar reduction in education spending. This is hitting schools hard, causing uncertainty and layoffs, which has left young teachers scrambling searching for new jobs in a tight market.

The San Diego Unified School District, the second-largest in the state,
has sent pink slips to roughly one in 10 of its certificated base. More
than 900 employees – mostly teachers hired after September 2002 – face
unemployment. Source.

And Statewide ...

More than 10,100 teachers will
see pink slips in their mailboxes over the next few days as districts
up and down California meet a Saturday deadline to warn staff of
anticipated layoffs due to the state's budget crisis. Source.

The proposed cuts have already caused some to hit the streets and march in protest. Meanwhile, the Gov. has also backed a new report that calls
for teacher incentive pay, universal preschool, and a governor
controlled Department of Education - all of which costs an additional
10.5 billion in new programs. The union, of course, hates the merit pay plan. And Democrats in the state are gearing up for a battle. Democrats have proposed a tax increase and are planning a statewide campaign to gain public support for additional funding for schools. Finally, the Governor has a new budget proposal where money would be saved in good times so that less fluxuation would occur in bad times.

These education budget cuts almost seemed to be designed to show just how bad fluxuations can be ... thus lending ideological support to his new budget proposal. But, the real affect of these political games on teachers and schools is devastating. Not only are schools facing budget uncertainty, but teachers are not just going to stand by while the politics works itself out. Teachers will probably flock to other states seeking employment and California, who has already faced teacher shortages, is only going to exacerbate the problem. Not only is this going to harm lots of lives of individual teachers and students, but the loss of young teachers statewide is also going to be really harmful.  

Anyway, keep an eye on California in the next few months. It is going to get worse before it gets better and the fight will probably intensify over the summer. It is going to be a real rollercoaster ride for our educator friends in California.

UPDATE: And the California Senate Democrats have posted a series of YouTubes of a recent event protesting the budget cuts.

Friday Snippets: 3/14/08 - Drug Testing and Deer Urine

Here are the Friday Snippets for March 14 - 2008:

The outrage against the California ruling against Homeschoolers begins ... and continues .. (this is not going away any time soon folks) ... and the California Department of Education reassures them nothing is going to change.

Kentucky is moving forward on anti-bullying legislation. (See my video on Indiana's Anti-Bulling Policy at Edjurist Media)

According to this article, a 1/4 of all foundation spending goes to education. (Really?)

Ahh ... parent-teacher conferences ... I remember them ... fondly? (One of my least favorite things about teaching. The format is all wrong.)

Apparently putting deer urine in air vents makes students sick (yes I am one of those that has intentionally put deer urine on myself in the past, it is accepted behavior in some parts of the country, believe it or not).

The election is filtering into high schools.

Some Florida State Senators are tired of kids wearing baggy pants.

Illinois likes charters in Chicago and wants more ... at the expense of "downstate" (as a native Southern Illinoisan, that is the most insulting term).

A Judge in New Orleans hears a controversial desegregation case.   

Strickland and Zelman go at it in Ohio.

Texas considers second chance ... vouchers?

And ... George Carlin riffs on Education in this video (and pensions and power and ... well, its George Carlin) (warning - explicit).

And in the Ed. Law Blogosphere:

First, Mark Walsh has the scoop on the big news out of Washington State where the Supreme Court has ruled against random drug testing of student athletes ... something the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed.

And Mark has also been doing a great job following Louisville's reconstituted racial diversity plan, which won a legal challenge this week.

Jim Castagnera at the Higher Ed Law Prof Blog has a series on Harassment and Hazing. #1, #2, #3, #4

The Butt-Artist case has settled, Jonathan Becker reports at the Gate.

Jon also has a cool look at the digital horse race between states.

You thought national standards were bad, well David Hoff reports that some folks are murmuring about International Standards. (and see AfterEd News second story on the issue).

Mitchell Rubinstein criticizes another IDEA ruling
that fails to award money damages to the special education students and
parents ... even when the school openly admits they are wrong.

Michelle McNeil reports that Sen. McCain may finally be getting a little more help on education - which he desperately needs (check out his autism statements at Education Election.)

And
finally ... sorry ... I am going to waste a lot of your time here, but
I was excited about it ... so ... Full Episodes of the Office (and
other NBC programs) are now available online. Now I will never get the
dissertation done!

Google Document Link: Friday Snippets 3/14/08

The Educational Law YouTube Assignment

As my regular readers know, I teach educational law courses here at Indiana University (soon I will be moving - check out my hat). But, I take pride in teaching not just educational law but other topics as well that school personnel need to have an idea about. We talk about globalization, curriculum decisions and other cool stuff, but one feature that I have made central to my courses is educational technology. It is something that sort of gets overlooked in most schools of education and especially in most educational leadership programs, so we try to do some ed. tech. stuff in my classes to compensate ... plus, I just think it is fun (yes, I am a geek).

Anyway, that all lead to me developing, in conjunction with my colleagues here at IU, a YouTube assignment for our pre-service educational law course. We have had great success with it and I get asked frequently about it, so I thought I would post the details up here on the blog. Here is the idea in short - the students use Web 2.0 tools to express their knowledge of educational law. It is not that much different than any other activity (say a skit in class), but it just uses cool tools. The learn a little educational law and a lot of technology and have a lot of fun in the process. That has turned out to be a pretty good combination.

Now that you are sort of scratching your head about this, let me tell you the options students have. Option 1, do a YouTube video as a group, or, option 2, do an alternative assignment by yourself. Just for now, let me tell you that the alternative assignments (here is the handout we use) involve students doing a podcast, blog entry, wiki entry, or YouTube comment.

Now, back to the YouTube clip. We tell the students to limit the YouTube to 3-4 min. This is already an extensive project and we don't want to make it much worse. We also award bonus points for the best videos and on the last night of class we talk about future directions and watch the best videos and give small awards (magnet to right using cafepress) to the winners. Anyway, we try to give them plenty of help, including an instructional video on how to do it all (below - if you want to understand this all more, watch the video). The students then submit their videos (most of them don't actually upload to YouTube - it is not required that they do) and we give a small grade for it, which most students do very well on.

The whole thing seems pretty complicated and daunting, but we have been amazed at the response of the students. We certainly challenged them, but they were more than up to the challenge. The videos and blogs and podcasts have been amazing. Really. Some of it is better than what I could have done. In fact, the thing we value the most perhaps, is that we found a way to reach the students we were not otherwise reaching. Most of the students that do the best, most creative videos are not the A students in the class. It has been a great assignment for us that melds together law, technology, collaboration ... and fun, and I recommend trying it with your classes as well. Challenge the kids (and yourself) ... you'll be amazed at what they can do when they are allowed to show off their 21st Century talents.

Instructional Video for Project: 

Damn those Skittles

A kid in Connecticut was suspended and stripped of his title of class vice president ... for having a bag of Skittles in school. He has since been cleared (see him talk about it), but I wonder what that superintendent would have done to me ... I pass out skittles in my class, so all of my students would have bags of skittles.

The Rise of Educational Law Associations in Law Schools

I had planned to write a post in response to BoardBuzz's interesting post today about law schools changing their curriculum to be more practitioner oriented and whether that would affect schools (probably not was my conclusion). Also, I wanted to send a thank you to Andrew Paulson for calling school law: "a new and exciting field" (which obviously I agree with and appreciate). But, instead of a extended essay about how lawyers enter educational law later in their careers, I stumbled on something much cooler to post on.

Check this out. Okay, so I wanted to show how school law is not promoted at law schools, so I cruised around a few of the top law schools to show that they have student organizations for just about everything ... except educational law. Well ... um ... turns out my assumption was wrong. Now, that was not totally an assumption on my part. While in law school at Southern Illinois I researched starting an educational law society, but I didn't find much and it seemed a fruitless endeavor at the time, so I didn't pursue it. Well, only 4-5 short years later, I was shocked to see not just one, but SEVERAL educational law associations at major law schools. Here are a few for instance: Advocates 4 Education (Harvard); Project for Law and Education at Yale; Duke Education Law and Policy Society; Youth and Education Advocates of Stanford; Youth and Education Law Society (Cal); Georgetown Organization for Educational Law; I could go on (and may in a later post).

How cool is that, right? What a great sign!!!  It really made my evening (which otherwise was devoted to t-tests, so it didn't take much).

However, as of yet, these groups are still largely unorganized nationally. There is no central organization behind these efforts that could provide technical assistance and even dollars to these students and law professors that are breaking new ground. Now that there seems to be a critical mass of educational law entities at law schools, it only makes sense that there should be some national organizational structure to allow these groups to communicate and collaborate. The Education Law Association should be actively marketing to the leaders of these groups and assisting them in their organizations. I think that membership in a Law School-based education law student organization should be enough to grant the members of that organization free membership in the Education Law Association. Further, I think the leaders of these groups should have free admittance to the Education Law Association conference each year ... and given a session and some meeting space so that they can talk and work on the issues they are having.

Young lawyers in education are a good thing, period. Education does not suffer from too many lawyers, we suffer from too few. I know my administrator and teacher readers are rolling their eyes as they read this, but believe me, a crop of young lawyers would be great for education. It is not that these young people are any more passionate than other young people presently in education, or that they would fight any harder ... it is that they would fight smarter for change (they are trained to change things and resolve problems). Fighting for change in courtrooms, boardrooms, and committee rooms is a lot different than fighting for change in university classrooms. Both are necessary, but right now education really lacks an advocate in many important locations.

On top of that, instead of mid-career lawyers switching to education (which I would argue accounts for the largest percentage of our school attorneys) young lawyers would be more apt to take leadership roles in educationally based professional organizations, would be more apt to cross boundaries, would be more apt to work with local universities, would be more apt to do professional development ... there is a whole range of positive effects that a younger generation of lawyers may have on education. Not that our present crop of school attorneys are bad, not by any means. It is just their priorities are pretty set by the time they approach partner status in law firms and those priorities might not include some of these additional activities that could really benefit education.

Anyway, to close what turned out to be a rather lengthy and fun post, yes education law is a "new and exciting field" but we still have a long, long way to go before we develop a consistent crop of young lawyers. However, we are making exciting progress. And the best part is that it is grassroots progress. Law students are seeing a need and answering the call. Sort of warms my heart.

NSBA's Council of School Attorney's: Is a Career in School Law Right for You.

The Integration Report at the Civil Rights Project

By far one of the best things going in educational law is the Civil Rights Project, now based at UCLA. They have a new feature I want to pass along called The Integration Report. It is sort of a blog and sort of a newsletter and sort of a journal article all in one nice little, bi-weekly package. In this episode, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley explores the feasibility of using SES as a proxy for race in affirmative action integration policies. She concludes (and uses scholarly research to make her case - very nice) that SES is not a good proxy for race and while it may have benefits it does not directly serve the purpose of racial integration.

In conclusion, while SES integration may produce academic and social
gains distinct from the documented benefits of racial diversity,
research suggests that income-based student assignment does not
necessarily create or maintain racially integrated schools. In our
ongoing examination of the various plans being developed around the
country, we have highlighted many districts currently in the process of
adopting some measure of SES as part of their revised plans. Using SES
as a basis for student assignment without also considering some measure
of race or ethnicity will not guarantee continued racial integration.

The full (page long or so) article is well worth the read and kudos to the folks at CRP for putting this out - I am looking forward to the next issue. Also, they have an extensive list of news links related to desegregation and diversity issues in the post that may also be worth your time. You can read the Integration Report at their blog site, or RSS it (see my earlier post on the Edjurist Aggregator) or you can subscribe to CRP's mailing list. I subscribe and it is not too intrusive, only an e-mail or two a month.

Edjurist NetVibes Aggregator

Ever wonder how I do it? How do I have time to read blogs and newspapers across the country everyday? Well, I have help. There are a lot of cool tools on the web that make the process of finding educational law news easier. Today, I will share one of my secrets so that you can use it too. Thanks to a new feature, I have made parts of my NetVibes RSS Aggregator public. Here is the link (it would be easy to bookmark, if you use those):

http://www.netvibes.com/edjurist

That's it. Netvibes.com/edjurist. Once there, you will see there are 4 different tabs available. My general tab, the Educational Law Blogs tab, the State Educational Law Blogs tab, and the Education News tab.

The cool part of this is that you can also take one or all of my tabs and start your own NetVibes page. Instead of having to input all the educational law RSS feeds into your own aggregator, you can just let me do the work for you and use mine. Then you can personalize it. For instance, in my private aggregator I have links to legal blawgs, education policy blogs, education technology blogs, education leadership blogs, political news feeds, professor blogs ... you get the point. It is a one stop shopping place for all the webpages you regularly visit. I also let widgets inside NetVibes page constantly run searches for me. My aggregator is constantly searching the Net for all the latest postings and news related to various educational law topics. Also, I am running video searches so that if someone posts something related to education law, I might catch it. I also have my aggregator checking my e-mail for me and giving me weather reports. Anyway, you see the point. Web 2.0 is about bringing to Net to you, not about you going out to get what you want from the Net. I have set up my aggregator to bring the Net to me and you can too. But, a good place to get started is with my tabs on educational law. Enjoy.  

Friday Snippets: 03/07/08 - Douche Bag Soldiers & Jury Duty

Well, we are going to try a new feature here at The Edjurist Accord. I
am beginning to get more than my standard 5-6 stories a week that I
want to post to the blog with commentary, so I have decided to put
links to all the additional stories I find in one post on Fridays
(something to help you and me pass the time until the weekend). While I
am at it, I will also sum up the week in the Education Law Blogosphere,
in case you missed any of the important stories my fellow bloggers
posted. If you think I missed anything in educational law news or in
the blogosphere, let me and your fellow readers know in the comments
section.

Snippets:

Martha Neil continues to report on the school lawyer investigation in New York. It has now expanded across the state, to 700+ districts. (Did I call that or what? I told you to be worried about that one. Next thing, look for it to expand to other states).



A settlement allows Bible Classes (or Classes on the Bible) to continue as a public high school elective in Odessa, Texas.

U.S. News has an inside look at Teach for America.



A New York Charter School wants to pay teachers $125,000/year (where do I sign?).



Some (ridiculous) schools have separate lines for the free and reduced lunch kids, so some kids are going hungry rather than face the stigma.



Chief Justice Roberts visited a high school in Bethesda, Maryland
(where he lives) to teach about the Supreme Court (hope someone got
that on tape - would be great to use across the country and in my own
classes).



Chicago and the Feds had a bit of a spat (what else is new) over testing bilingual students in their native language. Feds win - State Caves.



The L.A. Times (quickly becoming one of my favorite newspapers) has a story on the new tactics schools are using to combat bullying.



The Washington State High School Mock Trial Competition seems cool.



ABC News Video on depression in schools and Section 504. (video)

Also around the Ed. Law Blogosphere this week:

The big story was a story on Internet speech where a student called
members of the administration "douchebags" and was then prohibited from
being class secretary. Mark Walsh has the story. Mitchell H. Rubinstein has the legal analysis. And Mike Tully has the criticism.

Board Buzz is buzzing over new interest among states to opt out of NCLB.

Jon Becker At the Schoolhouse Gate found an interesting North of the Border story on expelling a student for forming a Facebook study group.

Jim Gerl is continuing his examination of procedural due process issues in special education.

Mark Walsh also has a case that has homeschoolers upset and a bit on loyalty oaths in American Education.

Michelle Laubin has several Connecticut Legislative Updates: Overview; Asthma Inhalers; Residency Fibs; Military Recruitment Limitations.

And Jim Walsh got called to jury duty for a jaywalking case ... but was upset to be passed over - Sorry Jim. 

Google Document Link: Friday Snippets: 03/07/08 - Douche Bag Soldiers & Jury Duty

School Shooting ... Drills?

Police in Chicago are recommending that schools start putting their students through school shooting drills.

Just as they hold fire drills to help prepare students on how to
survive a blaze, schools should schedule regular training exercises on
what to do when a gunman walks into a classroom, one law enforcement
official said Monday.

"We have outgrown the area where fire is the biggest threat to our
students," said Detective Robert Carroll of the Cook County Sheriff's
Department. "You are far less likely as a student to die as a victim of
fire than you are of violence."

Continue Reading ...

Not sure how I feel about this one. The lawyer in me says that prepping for all scenarios is a good idea, but the teacher in me is thinking this is a really, really bad idea. Isn't there an implicit acknowledgment that we don't trust our students when we start expecting that they will shoot their peers?  It is one thing to prepare for events that we can't control such as fires/tornadoes/earthquakes and even preparing for terrorist attacks from outside individuals, but to expect the students (perhaps we should call them inmates) to seek to murder their own peers? ... wow. Now, I am not naive on this issue. Do teenagers murder other teenagers? Unfortunately, yes. Does it sometimes happen at school, unfortunately, yes. But what kind of message are we sending our students? Are the feelings and psyche of the 99.9% of students that will never be subject to such an attack going to be seriously damaged? Will they be more fearful of coming to school? What are they going to do, seriously, dress a kid up in black and give him a fake gun and let him run around the school? And this is going to happen in all schools across the country? Kindergarteners? I don't think so.

I have serious questions and reservations about drilling kids for school shootings. From a law enforcement standpoint, I can understand their position that the more prepared students are for such an incident, the more likely some are to survive it. But, there is a reason the police run prisons and not schools. There is still something innocent and safe about schools. Schools are still a place some kids are happy to go. A place they feel protected. I am not sure implicitly telling them their lives are in danger is a particularly good idea. Maybe at some schools with older students in high risk areas, but this is not something I think we need to institute nationally in every school.