Lawyers and Education

Couple of interesting notes in Legal Clips (brought to you
by the NSBA) this past week regarding lawyers and education.



First, the Seattle firm that represented the Parents Involved in Community
Schools pro bono is now seeking to recover attorney's fees from the school
district in the amount of 1.8 million. See the Seattle Times story on it.




Second, the Fulton County Daily Report has a story
stating that more and more districts are hiring in-house counsel. Here is a
snippet from the story:

Schools face an array of legal
issues that include negotiating contracts, firing teachers, expelling students,
following federal and state requirements, seeking restraining orders, possibly
even defending against suits by parents angry over cheerleading. As their legal
matters increase in frequency and complexity, a growing number of public school
systems around Atlanta have hired in-house counsel.

"I think more should,"
said Dorsey E. Hopson II, newly named general counsel for Clayton County Public
Schools. Although Hopson started his new job this week, he had been
representing the Clayton County Board of Education through his law firm,
Greenberg Traurig. Previously, he spent five years with the in-house legal
department of Atlanta Public Schools, including a year as interim general
counsel. He will be Clayton's first GC.

"The Clayton County school
system has a half billion dollar budget," Hopson said. "It's almost
scary when you think about any entity with that type of budget not having
in-house counsel."

In announcing the decision to create
the new position, the Clayton board cited growth, complexity of legal issues
and growing cost for outside counsel -- $552,000 in legal bills last year
alone.

Both stories are interesting in their own right, but what I find more
interesting is the deepening connection between education and law. Especially when
we are beginning to consider having attorneys on staff at many urban and
suburban districts. I think we will continue to see more and more districts
hiring in-house counsel in the near future. Also, I could see a single attorney
being hired for a co-op of districts, many of which presently exist for special
education, alternative education and school psychologist/counselor purposes
already.



All of this makes me think about the lack of attention education law gets as a
specific specialty. Education law does enjoy somewhat of specialty status
within the education community because of its place in the ISLLC standards for school administrators.
This has translated into most educational leadership preparation programs
offering a course in education law as one of the requirements. However, this
specialty status has never existed in law schools to the same degree (I will be
posting a report about it soon). However, we now live in an era where
educational lawyers are intimately involved in many aspects of schooling,
including being on staff. While I am not going to compare education and
schooling to healthcare, the premise underlying both specialties is very
similar, even if there still is not such a thing as educational
negligence/malpractice. Yet, healthcare is a specialty heralded by many (most?)
law schools these days? I can think of very few programs that specialize in
education law (if any now that Franklin Pierce seems to
have lessened its focus on education law, although this Public Interest Law Scholars program at Georgetown
seems to do a decent job).



I think it is time for law schools to more fully consider educational law as a
distinct specialization as clearly it is a legitimate specialization within the
legal community. It would serve both the educational institutions and the
lawyers they employ much better.

Plageriarism in Educational Leadership Doctoral Dissertations

This is a little off topic, but I have been following the story of Glenn Poshard's troubles at Southern Illinois
University regarding possible plagiarism in his doctoral dissertation. Just a
quick recap, the past Chancellor of Southern Illinois, Walter Wendler, faced plagiarism
charges for his future plans for the university, Southern at 150 (which looked
a lot like Texas A & M's Vision 2020), which eventually lead to him accepting a demotion. In the wake of that scandal, now, President Poshard himself faces plagiarism
charges for the dissertation he wrote for his Ed.D. in Higher Education
Administration in 1984. According to many, there is substantial plagiarism
within the document and many feel he should resign, including a recent call by the Chicago Tribune.



Anyway, I will not weigh in on the controversy, but it does serve as an
extremely good example of what can go wrong when inadequate dissertations are
approved by educational leadership departments. In my experience, even very
good educational leadership departments, of which I regard SIU as one, are
approving sub-par dissertations with little oversight (having edited a
dissertation that was approved at SIU, I know this to be the case personally).
Many departments are faced with a limited number of professors qualified to
serve or chair doctoral committees and a slew of students who need advisement.
The result is a lack of oversight on these dissertations leading to numerous
problems down the road, such as the one involving former Congressman Poshard.
As a result, some educational leadership departments are considering or have
already done away with the dissertation requirement for the Ed.D. I think
getting rid of the dissertation is worth considering, however, it needs to be
substituted with a requirement worthy of final project status for a doctoral
degree. It is something we need to be talking and thinking about as an
educational leadership field.





Here are some links in case anyone else is interested.



Poshard defends himself here.

Chronicle of Higher Education story
here.

Story regarding the Educational Leadership Department's refusal to review the dissertation.
The Capitol Fax Blog Comments Section here.

More NCLB Action

Well, since the house bill was introduced last week, there has been a flurry of activity in the House of Representatives regarding NCLB. As Education Week notes, much of that activity has been centered on introducing bills and amendments. One of the more interesting potential amendments comes from Senator Russ Feingold who plans to introduce measures that would allow local authorities to create student assessments, which, basically would take us back to pre-NCLB days where much of the assessment decisions were at the local level.  

               

Anyway, the next couple of weeks should be very instructive about whether a reauthorization is possible this year. If it can happen, it needs to happen very quickly and somewhat under the radar. Given the increasing attention to the Iraq issue this September, that could provide the political cover to Congressional leaders working on NCLB. So, there is a window. However, as we are seeing emerge, there are still a variety of opinions about what to do with education and there will be a plethora of bills and amendments to debate over the coming weeks. Given the tight time frame, the sheer mass of amendments and debate may prohibit anything from passing.

I am still feeling this reauthorization is not possible within this timeframe, but it certainly appears that George Miller and Ted Kennedy are going to make every effort to get it through. If it is going to pass, a lot needs to happen within the next couple of weeks.

More on House Bill

Just thought I would post some of the initial analysis that is coming out on the House bill to reauthorize NCLB (check back, this post will be updated as more analysis becomes available):

David Hoff at Education Week as a Cheat Sheet for the Bill.

Andrew Rotherham at Eduwonk has early word that teachers unions are displeased and Ed Trust is not pleased with the accountability provisions.

Here is the Education Trust Statement on the Draft.

Bob Wise at the Alliance for Excellent Education likes it.

Sherman Dorn is not happy about the short discussion timeline (and he has a legitimate point).

Jim Horn thinks we should email the Congressmen to scrap the whole law.

Joanne Jacobs explains a little about the law and tells you where to send comments.

Secretary Spellings does a Q&A with USA Today on NCLB Issues.

The Cato Institute has a very 70's-esque disco ball analysis of NCLB and wants to expose the Federal Government's poor, at least in their opinion, job of running education.

More to come ...

Whatever you have to say about NCLB and this draft in particular, now is the time to let your voice be heard. Whether you like it or dislike it and especially if you have specific suggestions, your Congressional Representative would love to hear about it. This may be shaping up to be an extremely important time for education in the United States, so everyone has to do their part. For most of us, this means reading the bill (or at least the summary) and making your voice heard. The more input Congress gets on this bill (especially from educators) the more accurately the bill will reflect your everyday realities. So, SPEAK UP! NOW IS THE TIME.

Upcoming Movement on NCLB in the House: Initial Draft of Bill Released

The U.S. House of Representatives today released a first draft of the NCLB reauthorization bill, which lawmakers hope to formally introduce next month. Technically a "staff discussion draft," the release is meant to spur discussion regarding the topics it includes and prepare Washington for the coming debate.

The draft features (based on a preliminary reading):

1. More indicators for calculation of AYP,
2. The integration of "growth models" into the AYP definition, to account for student progress, even if below the AYP line,
3. Attempting to close to statistical loopholes regarding "n" size (subgroups too small to count) and confidence interval regulation to 95%,
   
4. Some changes and more flexibility regarding ELL students,
5. Some limited additional flexibility regarding special education students,
   
6. In regard to sanctions, much of the current system would seem to be scrapped. Instead, there would be 2 classifications, "Priority Schools" and "High Priority Schools." Each would be subject to similar sanctions, but the "Priority Schools" would be subject to fewer sanctions,
   
7. Leaves the Highly Qualified Teacher provisions largely unchanged,
8. Puts more of a priority on graduation rates.
   

You can find the full version of the draft here. (435 pages)
For those with less time to spare, you can find the 11 page summary here.

Edjurist Snippets: Can Teaching a Language Advocate Religion?

There is an interesting religion question shaping up in Florida. The Broward County Superintendent has ordered a charter school within the district to stop teaching the Hebrew language over concerns that in teaching it the teacher may be advocating the Jewish religion. This same school is named after a Jewish priest and is directed by a Rabbi. Here is a story on the issue. This would make a very interesting court case, by the way, so don't be surprised if we have not heard the last from this story.

There are more religion concerns in Texas, where the state legislature this year passed the Schoolchildren's Religious Liberties Act (quite the interesting read by the way). Largely the new law just codifies court rulings regarding the religious freedoms that students are afforded. But, administrators are now reporting some confusion about how to implement the law and increased devisiveness regarding religious issues in schools. There is especially concern about the model school policy contained in the law, which some complained did not match well with the law itself. This led the Texas Association of School Boards to create a different model policy, putting school boards in the difficult position of having to choose between the two. Still other districts are relying on their own attorneys to create school policies that comply with the law, but also meet the specific needs of the particular district. Needless to say, you should expect more litigation on this law and subsequent policies in the very near future.

Third, a study in Seattle found that school defibrillators may not be worth the cost as they are used very infrequently, and when they are used it is most frequently by adults. Also, schools are already highly trained in CPR. For more information on this issue, you may want to check out Andrew R. Roszak's presentation at the Education Law and Policy Forum, titled The Legalities of Legislatively Mandated Automated External Defibrillators in Educational Settings. (Always nice to give props to my alma mater, SIU Law School, and its students).

The answers to the questions to Representatives George Miller and Howard McKeon from the PBS series on Reauthorizing NCLB are posted here (click on question for responses). Also, the questions and answers to the three teacher of the year recipients are posted here. Remember you can read my take on the whole series here.

On a issue of more personal interest, universities are now beginning to outsource e-mail to Microsoft and Google. Well, what the heck took so long? Not only do the corporate e-mails offer more space and features, but they also do a better job of protecting users from spam and viruses, according to this U.S. News article. Although I am often critical of  public school and business partnerships, this is one example of how they can both benefit each other, as well as the users of the system.

Finally, the NY Times had an interesting article regarding some of the numbers of schooling. I thought I would paste their image with some of the interesting numbers below. And, if you are really looking to waste time, you can watch CBS News', " What New at School 1972 Edition."

  

'Public Advocates' Group Suing Over NCLB Teacher Loopholes & Lack of Enforcement

Public Advocates, a group that has sued the federal government before over NCLB, is suing over NCLB again. This time over having a "highly qualified teachers" mandate, but allowing loopholes in the regulatory scheme that does not mandate that a highly qualified teacher is actually in every room. Here is the SF Chron story on the suit which was filed in the Federal District Court in San Francisco.

Sometimes it is easy to forget the Department of Education has to take flack from both sides. Here is a good example. Ask any teacher or administrator out there and they would attack NCLB and its Highly Qualified Teacher requirement for being unreasonably harsh, but there are those out there that will always attack for being not tough enough.

This is also an example of political language causing problems. Who doesn't want a "highly qualified" teacher in their child's classroom? But, just because a teacher has yet to meet the HQT demand does not mean that person is a bad or unqualified teacher. If schools could easily comply, this language would not be a problem. However, when the requirement is a difficult to achieve goal which will take years to comply with, such as HQT, the language causes schools problems when they physically cannot meet it, despite their best efforts. But, because of the language, groups like Public Advocates can garner press attention and play on the emotions of parents. That seems to be a big part of what is happening with this lawsuit.

On a related note, there was a really interesting article in the NY Times (registration required) about teacher turnover with the retirement of the babyboomers and the high dropout rate of young teachers.

And, just to show you this is a not just a New York and LA problem:

In Kansas, Alexa Posny, the state’s education commissioner, said
the schools had been working to fill “the largest number of vacancies”
the state had ever faced. This is partly because of baby boomer
retirements and partly because districts in Texas and elsewhere were
offering recruitment bonuses and housing allowances, luring Kansas
teachers away.

“This is an acute problem that is becoming a crisis,” Ms. Posny said.

The turnover rates are pretty astounding:

“The problem is not mainly with retirement,” said Thomas G.
Carroll, the president of the National Commission on Teaching and
America’s Future. “Our teacher preparation system can accommodate the
retirement rate. The problem is that our schools are like a bucket with
holes in the bottom, and we keep pouring in teachers.”

The commission has calculated that these days nearly a third of all new
teachers leave the profession after just three years, and that after
five years almost half are gone — a higher turnover rate than in the
past.

All the coming and going of young teachers is tremendously
disruptive, especially to schools in poor neighborhoods where teacher
turnover is highest and students’ needs are greatest.

According to the most recent Department of Education statistics
available, about 269,000 of the nation’s 3.2 million public school
teachers, or 8.4 percent, quit the field in the 2003-4 school year.
Thirty percent of them retired, and 56 percent said they left to pursue
another career or because they were dissatisfied.

The federal
No Child Left Behind law requires schools and districts to put a
qualified teacher in every classroom. The law has led districts to
focus more seriously on staffing its low-performing schools, educators
said, but it does not appear to have helped persuade veteran teachers
to continue their service in them.

Tim Daly, president of the
New Teacher Project, a group that helps urban districts recruit
teachers, said attrition often resulted from chaotic hiring practices,
because novice teachers are often assigned at the last moment to
positions for which they have not even interviewed. Later, overwhelmed
by classroom stress, many leave the field.

It would be great to put a "highly qualified" teacher in every classroom, but first perhaps we better put our effort to just putting a teacher in every classroom.

Education Law Snippets

Well, educators, can you feel it? Yes, it is that time of year again and already this week there is a good deal of education law related news to tell you about in the snippets.

First, schools, such as this one in White Plains, are beginning to question their racial balancing plans that seems to have been working for years. This in reaction to the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Parents Involved in Community Schools (Louisville and Seattle) case. The White Plains plan gave parents some limited choice about where to send their children and required schools to achieve a racial balance (similar proportions of Black, Hispanic, and Other groups within 5%). However, under the ruling, such plans are likely unconstitutional. But, interestingly, already some lawyers for the White Plains district have encouraged the school to use socio-economic status (determined by free and reduced lunch) as a proxy for race to achieve the same results. I would imagine we will see a lot more of SES as an admissions factor in the near future.

In Seattle, The Network for Excellence in Washington Schools is challenging the Washington State system of funding public schools under the Washington Constitution. Apparently, education is the "the" paramount duty in the State of Washington. The group would like for the State to pay 100% of education funding so that no dollars come from local sources. Should be another interesting school finance case.

One in Four adults read no books last year. The typical person claimed to have read 4 books. Anyone else think those numbers regarding book readers are actually too high? Where I am from in Southern Illinois, I would put the number closer to one in 10. But, perhaps in the population centers, the cities, more people read books. (Just as an aside, the best book I read this year is Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. Second place, Ishmeal Beah's A Long Way Gone - although it is very violent).

They are apparently partying in Morgantown. Congrats? Also, the latest US News Rankings are out. Although more and more schools are opting out.

They are thinking about doing driver's education courses online in Missouri. When I see Missouri license plates, I already get a little concerned, this is not going to help that any... just joking ...

Finally, school nutrition and PE were on the mind of Florida Governor Charlie Crist the other day. And this story gives us the quote of the day:

Many schools have been reducing or cutting out physical education to
provide more time for academics including preparation for high-stakes
standardized tests that can determine whether principals, teachers and
other staffers are rewarded or punished.

Crist was stunned,
though, when Ellen Smith, a physical education teacher at Gove
Elementary School in Belle Glade, told him one school was counting the
time it takes students to walk to the cafeteria for lunch as part of
the physical education requirement.

''Some principals are like good lawyers,'' Smith said. ``They find loopholes.''

Even though it was not intended, I will take that as a compliment.

Bring Your Own Paper and Pencils: Not in West Virginia

The West Virginia State Board of Education has made it official policy that schools provide everything that is essential to education, which includes items traditionally left to parents to provide such as pencils and paper.

State Superintendent of Schools Steve Paine said any textbooks, paper,
writing utensils and other materials that are an “integral, fundamental
part of the elementary and secondary education” must be provided free.

Link to Charleston Gazette

When people work in a business office or other industry, they are not expected to provide their own supplies, so why should we demand that students provide their own supplies? I like this move on the part of West Virginia. Sure, it will cost a little more, but there is something wrong about all the policies that require students to bring their own materials or to pay textbook fees or lab fees, etc. The things that are essential to education should be provided at the expense of the public, it is that simple. Nice job West Virginia. Let's hope other states notice.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Education the Great Civil Rights Issue of Our Time for Romney

Mitt Romney, one of the bevy of candidates running for president, was quoted as saying, "The failure of inner city schools, in my view, is the great civil rights issue of our time." Here is the story.

Well, to all presidential candidates concerned about education as a civil rights issue, I want to be clear. If they truly believe that and if they want to actually do something about it, it is a relatively easy solution. Make Education a Fundamental Right. Until such time as education is a fundamental right, you will continue to see vast disparities in the educations provided to different classes of citizens. I need not remind you that Title VII, which made race, gender, national origin, etc ... protected classes, is the most important legal tool that improved race, gender, national origin relations. This occurred because of the heightened judicial review standard, a compelling interest. Presently, the government need only prove a "rational basis" for funding education differently, for providing different services and opportunities. Move that standard to a "compelling interest" and you will see a dramatic improvement in the equality of education. It is all that simple, but that is the necessary first step.

So, if Mitt Romney and other presidential candidates are serious about education as a civil rights issue, they need to go a step further and support education as a fundamental right. Until then, they are just paying lip service to the disparities that exist in education.

John Merrow & PBS: Three Part Examination of No Child Left Behind

PBS Newshour Correspondent John Merrow has a three part series this week on No Child Left Behind. Yesterday (Monday) dealt with NCLB Loopholes. Today dealt with NCLB sanctions and charter schools. The series will wrap up tomorrow (and I will update the post then). Anyway, I will post all the links and my thoughts on each segment when they become available. Today, Part I.

Part I: NCLB Loopholes (for video, click "Streaming Video") (13:27)

Commentators:
Kevin Carey, Education Sector: His blog - The Quick and the Ed
Chester Finn, Fordham Foundation - Commentary in the Weekly Bulletin The Education Gadfly

MY THOUGHTS:

1. First, wasn't odd that Merrow seemed to be attacking Margaret Spellings and the Department of Education from the right? At one point she actually said, "John, I am as hawkish as any person in this country is on
   closing the achievement gap and on accountability, and I have a record
   that would suggest that, absolutely. But, you know, are we on an
   accountability journey ..." Spellings was actually defending NCLB for not being strong enough! From being around educators all the time, this seems a very odd position indeed. Sometimes I wonder how much time John Merrow spends around educators because his questions often seem to come from a position alien to the position of most educators.
   
2. Is it any surprise that they were bringing up statistical issues, including confidence intervals? When you rely on only test scores for AYP measurements (yes, I know attendance is included) you are going to have to rely heavily on statistics. On the issue of subgroup size, is it a surprise that schools do not count students groups with fewer than 40 or so students? It shouldn't be, if it is. Statistics don't work when you are dealing with so few students. So the reliance on statistics (based on test scores) ... is actually leaving students behind. On the confidence levels, again, statistics are a flawed measurement instrument that are not precise in many cases. Now, schools that are using 20 + or - confidence intervals are clearly taking advantage of this. But, it is not the schools that are the essential problem, it is the reliance solely on statistics. If there were a multitude of factors used in judging schools, the statistical issues would not create such problems.
   
3. So states are "backloading" the NCLB passage demand until 2010-2014. Well, duh. Merrow says states are lowering the hurdles to make the race easier. My question? Who wouldn't lower the hurdle bar in a track meet race if they could. To expect states to embarrass themselves by keeping the bar high when they have the power to lower it is foolish, unless the intent of the law was to do just that, embarrass states.
   
4. 100% proficiency by 2014: Finn's response "There's not an educator in the country that thinks that
   it's real or can happen, not one. Unfortunately, it breeds cynicism
   among educators. They say, "Well, why shouldn't we take advantage of
   every angle we can take advantage of so we don't look bad in the
   process of not achieving that goal?" I absolutely agree and it is good to hear it from Finn. It was a silly, silly provision which has caused a backlash with educators against the whole law. If NCLB did not includes some of these silly provisions, educators might have actually goy on board with it.
   
5. Notice Margaret Spellings reauthorization timeline at the end? Don't worry, I caught it for you: "Well, we passed the very best law we could five years ago,
   when about half of the states had no annual measurement systems, so
   we're making progress. Should we make improvements to the law as we
   reauthorize it this year? Heck yes." Optimistic?
   

         
          Comments, Thoughts? Agree, Disagree? Post them in the comments section below.

Part II: Failing San Deigo Schools Work to Meet Standards (for Video, click "Streaming Video") (11:54)

My Thoughts:

1. Charter schools pose a variety of opportunities and problems. These charter schools seem to be functioning well in San Diego. That is good. However, there are plenty of other examples of charters around the country that are not functioning as well. But, this segment did point out a problem of traditional schools viewing charter schools with hostility and vice versa. Why? It is still a public school. Charters can be centers of innovation and that innovation can translate into the traditional public schools. On the other hand, charters are dependent on traditional structures for most of their operations. And charters are still reliant on traditional publics to serve a majority of the population. Charters serve a unique niche and they are doing a pretty good job of fulfilling that niche. However, charters are not really a threat to traditional public schools. If a majority of publics were converted to charters, it would be an administrative nightmare not to mention that charters would then lose their most important asset, the innovation that is possible by serving only small populations. So, while I agree charters are causing traditional publics to adopt new innovations they may be reluctant to adopt, charters are not a significant threat to public education in this country. Thus, the hostility is unwarranted.
   
2. Correspondingly, I actually see just as much of the hostility in this situation coming from the charter side. The former superintendent Alan Bernstein was high on competition,
   saying that was "the point of charter schools." I would have to disagree. In fact, it is opinions like this that are at the heart of the hostility. It is not a competition! Competitions imply and generate hostility. And, to be frank, if charters want to make this a competition, well, they would disappear quickly because for the most part it is the traditional public school system that even allows the charter to exist in the first place. If this was the kind of hostile leadership the superintendent was providing, it should be no surprise there is a lot of hostility between the traditionals and the charters. Seems like there was a failure of leadership ... and, thus, perhaps the firing was appropriate.
   
3. Was anyone surprised that the Union did not waive its rights when asked by SDUSD? If the union did waive its bargained for rights without getting something in return from the district, then they would not be doing their job. The union is in place to give rights to teachers. I don't think we can blame the union when it does its job and protects the teachers' rights.
4. Finally, almost as an aside, I did like that leaders of the charter school looked like professionals and wore suits. Like it or not when people dress professionally, they generate additional respect. In a system that depends so heavily on respect, it doesn't hurt to look nice.
   

          Comments, Thoughts? Agree, Disagree? Post them in the comments section below.

Part III: Teachers Grapple with Attaining Education Law's Goals (For Video, Click "Streaming Video") (12:10)

My Thoughts:

1. Well, first, let me apologize, at least in part, for comment #1 from Part #1 above about John Merrow not being in touch with the education community. This segment was all about listening to what classroom teachers have to say. Why those kinds of questions were not asked earlier, I don't know, but at least the teacher's voices were heard in one of the three segments.
   
2. Doesn't it make sense when you are going to write a large, national education law to ask educators what they think? Isn't that like policy-making 101 for dummies? I am not going to sit here and say that we have all good teachers. But to exclude all teachers from the national conversation is narrowminded at best. To think that a Washington policy wonk with no practical experience in education can come in and craft a law that would magically "leave no child behind" was arrogant and harmful to the education system. We did not have a panacea for an education system before this law, but at least there was trust in the system. Trust that teachers were out for the best interest of children, trust between administrators and teachers, trust that your local public school was a good school. Now, much, if not all, of that trust has been eliminated in the name of accountability. It is no longer simply enough to see with your own eyes that your local public school is doing a good job, now you need to see a number in the newspaper. I am not sure we can ever get that kind of trust back. The loss of trust in the system might be the most harmful and long-lasting effect of NCLB.
   
3. Comment from Lynn Riggs, a good teacher in Virginia: "I think that multiple-choice, bubble-in tests are the
   easiest kind of tests to give. Why are we spending all of this time
   training kids to give us the right answer when we should be training
   them to think?" Good question Lynn. If someone has an answer to that, I would like to know it.
4. Let me highlight a flaw in the reasoning of Sec. Spellings and why we need educators and not politicians running the system. After being asked why the test is narrowing curriculum and causing children to engage in multiple choice drills instead of analytical learning, Sec. Spellings replied, "Well, I mean, I guess what my question is, is that person
   advocating that we go back to not finding out how poorly or how well
   our students are being served, that we eliminate measurement of kids?" Luckily, I was not the only one to notice this flaw: Here is the follow-up exchange: John Merrow: "But Bailey's teachers don't believe that one test is an accurate measure of student progress."   BETSY
   WALTER: "As a teacher, I'm continually assessing my students. And I
   believe that they're much more authentic assessments than a
   standardized test. I don't come in every day and baby sit. I am a
   teacher. We have significant learning that goes on every day. It just
   might not be shown on that test that someone developed at the testing
   place." This was the exact right response. To say that before NCLB there was no "measurement" of children is just downright dishonest. Not only were there the standard measurements we could refer to such as grades (oh, yeah, remember those), but there was measurement by the community, by administrators, by teachers... It is not like education was just some free for all where everyone did as they pleased and no one was held accountable. While Secretary Spellings has not shown she has mastered the task of running the nations education system, there does seem to be one thing she has down pat: political speak. I guess that is to be expected of someone with a degree in politics and not education. 

          Comments, Thoughts? Agree, Disagree? Post them in the comments section below.

Overall Thoughts:

Overall, I still believe that John Merrow is one of the best media advocates for education issues today, if not the best. While I would have liked to see some different and harder questions asked of the people that wrote NCLB, a lot of NCLB's problems came through in the three part series. There is no doubt that as we reauthorize (or at least wait for reauthorization) there are a lot of things we need to think about. Can we continue to disenfranchise teachers? How can we better measure learning? Is there a way we can get away from statistical issues? What role should Charters play? These types of questions need to be on the national agenda. Judging from the emerging literature and recommendations from various sources about the NCLB reauthorization, I am not sure we are there yet. Hopefully, segments like this and reporters like John Merrow can call attention to the national charade that currently exists surrounding educational policy and we can start getting some real ideas from real educators on the table.

                                      

PBS is taking questions for Representatives George Miller and Howard McKeon, the leaders of the House Education Committee which will hear much of the testimony on this law and will probably be the first to produce a reauthorization bill that hits the floor of Congress. You can submit your question or comments here (I already submitted mine on SES). Additionally, PBS has gathered three Teacher of the Year recipients to take public questions and comments. You can submit your question or comment here. The responses to the questions and comments from both forums will be available August 23.

View other John Merrow Reports at his Podcasting Blog.

End of Summer Cartoon Fun

Apoligies for the lack of posts this past week. I was setting up a new home office so my computer access was hit or miss. It may continue to be a issue for a couple of more days, but hopefully I will have podcasting capability when it is all done. Also, look for a new blog design in the next few days as my provider is forcing me to make changes.

However, this is a good opportunity to post a link to a site that educational law professors might find useful.

Slate.com does an excellent job of tracking editorial cartoons and one of their classifications is education cartoons. Not all are relevant to educational law so you sort of have to click through several to find ones that can be used in classes. Recent hot topics for educational editorial cartoons include the abstinence education debate and the student loan scandal.

Here are a few of my favorites (I'll try to post some from time to time):

    

    

    

Hopefully that is enough to whet your appetite for more. Check it out, it is a lot of fun.

Questions Surrounding Educational Leadership Preparation

While it is not directly the subject of this blog, I know many of our readers teach in educational leadership programs (as do the authors of this blog). So, I wanted to call your attention to a post by Scott McLeod (who always seems to be posting something interesting) on questions that are arising about educational leadership preparation. The post is here. I urge you to read it carefully if you are affiliated with educational leadership preparation.

I just happen to be closely involved with this issue as I was an author of a report in Indiana that will be published soon looking at building-level leadership preparation. Also, I have listen to and spoke with Arthur Levine, Terry Orr, and Joe Murphy whom Scott refers to on this issue. The concerns are real and educational leadership is presently undergoing massive changes. Not only are new programs coming online, but, in addition, traditional programs are actively looking at making massive changes to their preparation. This is not something I am speculating about because I have seen it in real life in the data we gathered in Indiana.

At present, educational leadership preparation is largely being driven by market mechanisms ... i.e. there is a race to the bottom ... and the public is rightly beginning to be concerned. Educational leadership, in whatever form it takes, has to prove to the public that they are a valuable component of the education system. There are efforts underway to do that including efforts on the part of UCEA and AERA. Specifically I have been working with the joint UCEA/AERA Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership SIG Taskforce on Evaluating Educational Leadership Preparation. Progress is being made in evaluating educational leadership preparation, but it might not be coming rapidly enough as more and more programs enter the field without the kind of quality commitment that is necessary.

If you are involved in educational leadership preparation, this issue is becoming harder and harder to ignore.

Everyone Repeat After Me: Charter Schools Must Obey State Laws

For some reason, people are under the false impression that charter schools are somehow immune from the law. I don't know how many times I have repeated it, but that is simply not the case. In the latest example, a court in Arizona has struck down an attempt by charter schools to get out of the state's social studies curriculum mandates. An attorney associated with the charter schools said "we definitely plan to fight this regulatory incursion." Here is the full Arizona Republic story.

Charter schools are public schools. The public manifests its intentions in regard to public education through state law and local policy. Charters manage to get around some of that local policy, but it is much tougher for charter schools to avoid state laws. States that have charter schools typically have a separate section of their school code for laws specifically regarding the charters, however, if there is not an exception provided in that law specifically related to charter schools, then the assumption is the charter school has to follow the state law that applies to the rest of the public schools. This seemed to be the case in Arizona. However, the #1 question I get in this regard is related to special education. Yes, IDEA applies to charter schools and charter schools must comply with its procedural requirements unless the district has otherwise provided.

Really, it is not that difficult. Just keep repeating ... charter schools must obey state laws, charter schools must obey state laws, charter schools must ...

Odds and Ins: Oliver Hill in Memoriam

Well, the slow news days continue regarding educational law, but there are a few odds and ins worth noting.

First, we were all sad to learn of the passing of Oliver Hill. AP Story.

                                     
                                        (Library of Congress - Oliver Hill on Right)

You can watch and listen to him tell his own story in his later years at this Virginia Commonwealth site here (click on picture - I learned a lot from that interview). It is a fantastic way to spend a half hour and honor the legacy of Oliver Hill, who graduated second in his law school class at Howard University behind only Thurgood Marshall. Quite the impressive individual whose work had a profound impact on the country.

...

In other news, first check out this blog entry at Board Buzz. It has a lot of great links about why education has not been a central issue in the presidential primary. Also, a Boston Globe story says Clinton and Obama are speaking softly on school reform to court union voters.

Second, while I was in Chicago, the conference committee for the America Competes Act reached an agreement which could send the bill to the President's desk soon. Summary of the Senate version of the bill here. This is yet another signal that Math and Science are the top priorities for Congress.

Also, Colorado may be making a huge new reform effort -- or they may be making just another political stunt by appointing a panel to review its P-20 system. We will have to wait and see whether the panel's recommendations are taken seriously as these panels are usually used for the good press they generate and little more.

And, finally, although not law related I just found this very interesting as the owner of several Baby Einstein videos for my kid. The LA Times is reporting a study that infants that watch Baby Einstein videos actually know fewer words than their peers that do not watch the videos. While the study seems to need to be replicated, it does make you think a little.

George Miller Making NCLB Waves

While I was away at the annual conference of the National Conference of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA), or more accurately sitting in traffic around Chicago, George Miller was busy making NCLB waves. The Adjunct Law Prof Blog has more on it here. And here is an additional link to a Washington Post story on it. Apparently, he supports broadening the factors upon which school accountability is determined, which is not sitting well with some other Republicans.

In response Secretary Spellings said:

“While we all hope to see action on reauthorization soon, a
comprehensive bill that has bipartisan support and holds firm to the
goal of every child reading and doing math on grade level by 2014 is
worth the wait.”

So, the prolonging of the fight over NCLB seems more certain than ever. By next spring, both parties will have nominees and any serious debate over education will be as far back on the backburner as the parties can put it. Seems as though schools will have to live without any changes for a while longer - but, as Secretary Spellings so accurately puts it, in the end, for schools, if a different administration is in power it may be worth the wait.

NCLB on Backburner

It appears that NCLB will be put on the backburner, at least that is Alexander Russo's opinion. It is no surprise that the Higher Education Act consumed the majority of the legislative window that was available for NCLB. Now that the presidential campaign is going to take center stage, it is likely the Congress will avoid potentially controversial issues. On top of that, with the Iraq war reports and debate that will happen in September you can pretty much guarantee that education will not be on the floors of Congress this year. So, we will wait on NCLB. How long? Well, the NSBA wants to get education on the agenda yet this year so that "schools do not have to endure another 2-3 years under a flawed law." Don't bet on it.

Senate Investigation into Supreme Court Testimony

Interesting story today in the Politico. Apparently, former Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter plans to review the testimony of Justices Roberts and Alito to glean whether their recent actions in deciding cases matched with their testimony before Senate committees. Remember that review in the Senate before appointment is the only opportunity for the Legislative branch to influence the Supreme Court as appointments are for life. Thus, this review means nothing to either Justice Roberts or Justice Alito as they are now lifetime members of the Court. They can either serve until death, like Justice Rhenquist, or retire like Justice O'Conner.

Squarely in the background of these political maneuvers are the Affirmative Action decisions and the failure of the Supreme Court to uphold the recent precedent set in the Grutter and Gratz decisions. Both Roberts and Alito voted to eliminate affirmative action from schools in Parents Involved in Community Schools, although a concurrence by Justice Kennedy may have saved the policy from total elimination.

Personally, how can the Senate or Senator Specter be surprised at these decisions? If anything, I am surprised at Alito's opinion in Frederick, where he seemed to lean toward protecting students rights. The precedent in Grutter and Gratz was not that strong. In fact, because of the variety of opinions in the two cases, when the cases were published in 2003 everyone was confused about the meaning of the decisions. Thus, it was not like the Court in Parents Involved in Community Schools was overruling a 100 year old precedent and clearly violating stare decisis.  I do not think anyone should be surprised at their decisions. They were conservative appointees of a conservative administration. For the Senate to now act like they were somehow caught off guard by the recent decisions is a bit specious.  

For more on the recent Supreme Court's use of precedence, check out this post today by Mitchell Rubinstein at the Adjunct Law Prof Blog.

No More Chicago Teacher Strikes? Governor's meet on Online Predators. Democratic You Tube Debate Questions

The state of Illinois is apparently considering limiting the ability of the Chicago Teacher's Unions to strike. Illinois is one of several states that, after a bevy of procedural matters are overcome, allows their teachers to go on strike. Here is the Sun Times story which claims a strike might be imminent this year.

Governors yesterday at the National Governor's Assocation meeting in Michigan, met on the issue of online predators (CBS story). While not directly related to school legal responsibilities, much of the talk center about the need for prevention education and parents monitoring their children. This story is worthy of inclusion in the Edjurist because it struck me as one of those issues that could easily wind up becoming a school legal responsibility. One could easily foresee a state curriculum mandate to include training in "Internet safety" from online predators. Below is a picture of Governor Rell of Connecticut and Governor Henry of Oklahoma at the meeting.

Finally, the education questions came in the debate tonight (none of the ones I identified as my favorites by the way). There were some good moments in the questions, although I would have liked for the questions to have been a little more substantive to force the candidates to respond substantively. Of the questions from an education law standpoint, the second question, on NCLB, was probably the best. There was certainly a difference between Governor Bill Richardson (a
governor) and Senator Chris Dodd (a Senator that voted for NCLB the
first time around) - for Dodd's NCLB response you have to go to 2:50 in
the public or private (3rd) question below. Richardson said scrap it, but Dodd said fix it because the accountability provisions were important.

                                                            

First, who was your favorite teacher and why?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ6kH9uBjtQ

Second, a nicely done little music video on NCLB and whether the candidates would scrap it or revise it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VBur2clylg

Third, would you send your kid to public school or private school?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP0xi0vKxNE

Fourth, a question on sex education ... of their own children.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSCQgCe0uFg

Overall, I liked the You Tube debate and I am looking forward to the education questions to the Republican candidates in a couple of months. I will try to post those too so you can see the contrast in the candidates on education issues.

Paying for Video Surveillance; Vouchers Back in Florida?

I have often warned school personnel of the use of video surveillance in schools. Besides the possible FERPA violations if these videos were to be viewed, there is a fine line between what is acceptable to be videotaped and what is not. It all gets to a reasonable expectation of privacy. In a hallway, there is likely not a reasonable expectation of privacy. Perhaps there is not an expectation of privacy in a classroom, although it is a closer call. However, in an athletic locker room, there is probably an expectation of privacy, thus videos could be classified as a search on the part of the government.

                                              

Well, a jury in Tennessee has awarded a total of 1.28 million (divided between 32 students) for a school district's violation of student's privacy in an athletic locker room. Not only were the students taped at various stages of undress, but, in addition, the complaint claimed that the videos were viewed many times including in the evenings and over the Internet. While details are still forthcoming, this was a clear misuse of video surveillance in the school context and Overland County School District in Allon, TN (a small town) will pay a dear price for the violation. Here is the MSNBC Story and the Tennessean story on the recent decision and here is an earlier article on the story.

Secondly, Florida has rumblings on a couple of possible constitutional amendments that would affect education there. One may be a way to allow the Florida Legislature to authorize school vouchers (Boston Globe story). The Florida Supreme Court has ruled the previous voucher plan unconstitutional under the Florida Constitution (story, Bush v. Holmes case). Although still unlikely at this point, if the Florida constitutional issue could be resolved, a voucher system in Florida would probably be permitted because the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality (federal constitution) of vouchers in the case of Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. Something to keep an eye on, although it would be years away, at best.

And finally, the Senate got the Federal Student Loan overhaul through 78 to 18 (NY Times story, Wash. Post story).
The bill will now move to conference to resolve the differences before
it heads to the President's office, who has threatened a veto.