Pledge of Allegiance - State Requirements

I was asked the other day about the different state requirements to say the Pledge of Allegiance across the United States. This First Amendment Center article has the status of different states as of mid-2006 and it is the best advice I can pass along at the moment. If someone has something newer, please let me know.

Texting Students: Not so Bad

Proof that texting in schools is not all bad: College and university officials are now utilizing text messages to relay various messages to students, including information about hazards on campus and snow days. This after using the texting system to alert students of school violence dangers in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. School officials have spent years trying to get the students to stop texting, but now it seems universities may be encouraging it. Just the latest example of schools using new technology to their advantage after thinking it was the end of the world (remember "the students can text each other exam answers scare?"). Next, I suppose schools will start instant messaging their students.

Chicago Military Academies

The Newshour had an interesting story on the use of military type academies in Chicago's public schools. While anyone who has had a class with me will know I am certainly a fan of discipline and hard work,  this may be a little too far. Most strikingly, these military academies are only based in low-income African American and Latino parts of the city and not based in White areas of the city, such as the suburbs. On the other hand, it is hard to argue with their results in terms of graduation and college placement. Of course, that is only one outcome measurement and I do wonder what other effects this type of schooling would have on students generally.

Newshour Video (Click on Streaming Video)

Also, below is a great clip of the Drill Championships at one of the military schools. It includes some interesting images and is worth a bit of reflection.

Vouchers Fail in Utah Referendum

The sweeping Utah Voucher plan is no more ... well at least not for a while. The plan that made headlines when it was passed was rejected by the voters Tuesday by a wide margin.

    Voters decisively rejected
the will of the Utah Legislature and governor Tuesday, defeating what
would have been the nation's most comprehensive education voucher
program in a referendum blowout.

    "Tonight, with the eyes of the nation upon us, Utah has
rejected this flawed voucher law," said Kim Campbell, president of the
Utah Education Association. "We believe this sends a clear message. It
sends a message that Utahns believe in, and support, public schools."

    More than 60 percent of voters were rejecting vouchers, with
about 95 percent of the precincts reporting, according to unofficial
results. The referendum failed in every county, including the
conservative bastion of Utah County.

Continue Reading ...

I will have to say I was a little surprised at the vote. It says a lot about the power that remains in the teachers unions, who were the chief opponents of the law. The Utah Education Association not only gathered the necessary signatures to force the referendum, but also took the lead in campaign advertising which totaled over 4 million, supplemented by teachers unions from other states. The result was a near landslide in the polls against the voucher law. Pretty impressive, and surprising, stuff.

Brave, But Not Crazy: A Lesson in Teacher Activism and the Power of the State over Curriculum

By now, you are probably aware of the David Wasserman story our of Madison, WI. In protest over the state mandated testing required by the No Child Left Behind Act, David chose to protest the administration of the test. He sat in the teachers' lounge while a colleague was in the classroom giving the test. This triggered a reprimand from the school and a threat of losing his job if he again failed to give the test. The next day, he did administer the test in an effort to keep his job. Here is local TV coverage of the incident (press play).

There are a couple of lessons we can take away from this incident.

1. The power of the state over local curriculum is absolute. If a state legislature chooses to mandate standardized testing, there will be standardized testing, whether or not the personnel administering the test agree. This is the same for all curricular matters. If the state does not mandate specific curriculum requirements, then it falls to the Board of Education to make curricular decisions. These decisions rarely, if ever, fall to teachers. The most that teachers can hope to influence is the manner of delivery of the state and board of education mandated curriculum. Certainly teachers can sit on planning committees and make recommendations to the board of education, but they cannot unilaterally decide to change the curriculum or fail to implement it. Thus, the action of this teacher in Wisconsin amounted to insubordination, an offense for which he could rightfully be fired.

2. In the end, he was not fired (at least it does not appear he will be) and he is still earning his $45,000 + health insurance.  But, he drew national attention to the fact that some teachers' are so upset with the No Child Left Behind testing provisions that they are willing to violate school rules. Given that NCLB is up for reauthorization and on the mind of presidential candidates, it was an especially potent statement. David Hoff at Education Week noted how much traction this story was getting and David Wasserman has quickly become beloved in the blogosphere. And just the other day, I saw Newsweek did a Q&A of this jeans and beads wearing guy (probably didn't hurt he taught in Madison - might have bought him that day whereas he might have been fired immediately in other districts). The point is that teachers can still have a voice in educational policy. Most of the time I recommend working within the system to make your voice is heard, but occasionally a teacher can even work outside the system to get a point across. Just remember, however, that in today's post Garcetti world, working outside the system and making public comments or engaging in public actions in opposition to a school's official position is increasingly dangerous to your continuing employment. 

What to do with Law Students and how to get them into Education?

The New York Times has an interesting article this morning on changing the law school curriculum toward a more practically oriented perspective.

Here are a couple of highlights.

1. Schools are moving to include a course on interpreting statutes and regulations in the first year. Personally having aided in the design of just such a course at Southern Illinois University Law School, I can't tell you how pleased I am to see this catching on across the country. At least in education law, most of the legal content governing schools are from statutes, yet most of the scholarly productivity is on cases. It is time to change our focus a bit.

2. Law schools are making it easier to take courses in other graduate programs in the university. As a product of a joint-degree program, again, I am pleased to see this trend. Further, working here at IU, there is an increasingly productive relationship between the School of Educationin which I teach and the IU Law School. The relationship is really helping to produce some great individuals in education law who will have a big impact on schools in the future.

3. Law schools are expanding their clinical offerings. In a sort of unofficial study I did of law school offerings, I was surprised how many law schools offered a clinical program in special education law. Special education is an underserved field within the legal community and I am extremely pleased to see law schools picking up some of the slack. I would encourage more law schools to consider a special education clinic as part of their practical education package.

As law schools begin to adapt their curriculum to a changing world, I hope they see the potential in educational law. Programs are offering more and more joint degrees in business, public administration, health and even philosophy, but to this point are still generally neglecting joint education degrees (heck my old law school has one - I know because I set it up while I was there - but fails to advertise it). At education schools with educational policy programs and educational lawyers on staff, efforts should be made to connect with the law school to provide options to young lawyers to enter education.

Principals in Power in New Orleans?

Even since Hurricane Katrina, the schools in New Orleans have been in a state of constant flux. Rules are being rewritten and there are more charter schools and other non-traditional education opportunities than ever before.

The latest is a proposal by Recovery Superintendent Paul Vallas (former Superintendent of Chicago and Philadelphia). He wants to give more governance authority to principals. This new authority would include the hiring and firing of teachers, a power typically reserved for central administration. Also, the new plan intends to give principals greater control over their budget.

Here is the article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune

While I understand the desire to give this decision-making authority to the people that work most closely with the teachers, I do have a few reservations. First, principals are already overworked. Putting personnel and budget authority also in their hands will only exacerbate the problem. Principals are supposed to be the curriculum leaders for schools. Already most principals find little time for directing the curriculum with all the disciplinary, supervision, and evaluation responsibilities. My second concern is regarding the relationship between principals and teachers. When decisions are made by central office staff (based on principal evaluations and recommendations) principals are free to develop closer relationships with teachers. But, when a principal knows they may have to fire a teacher they are less likely to develop those intimate relationships that help the school function. Also, teachers will likely become more vocal about personnel decisions. A board, superintendent and central administration is hard to fight, but a local principal is much easier to get removed with a little public outcry. With the new configuration, I would expect teachers to complain more publicly in attempts to remove unfavorable principals.

Anyway, those are just a few reservations that strike me immediately about this possible governance change. I do not think I am 100% opposed to it, but it will carry implications that will probably make local schools more cold and hostile places.

Interesting Article on Saint Louis Public School's Longtime Lawyer

                                                 

Really interesting read tonight about Saint Louis Public Schools and the longtime legal counsel they employed. You can read the full article here, but I wanted to pull out some of the more interesting quotes:

In the last four years alone, records show that the St. Louis Public
Schools have spent almost $11 million on legal services, a figure that
works out, on average, to $75 per student a year. Most of that went to
Brostron and his law firm. That per-student average is twice, or even 10 times, what legal fees cost taxpayers in school districts across the country.

So is it twice or 10 times? That is a pretty big difference. If anyone out there has solid numbers of what we are paying per child in legal fees, please comment and direct me to them.

As in many urban districts, the lawyers became the institutional memory
in a district that chewed up board members and administrators every
year, leaders and experts said.

But that also caused controversy.

"The most powerful person sitting at the table is legal counsel," said
Robert Archibald, president of the Missouri Historical Society and a
former board member. "And that's probably not appropriate. No, not
probably — that's not appropriate."

This certainly raises an interesting question/issue about the institutional memory of school district lawyers. Part of me thinks keeping the institutional record is sort of what we pay them to do ... but the question of appropriateness is a legitimate one given they are not publically elected nor directly overseen by a school board. Which brings us to how Saint Louis Public Schools intend to address this issue...

Now Brostron's time is done. With little fanfare, the Special
Administrative Board overseeing the district replaced Lashly & Baer
last week with an in-house general counsel who will be paid a flat fee
of $100,000 a year to dispense day-to-day legal advice.

Again, we see another district moving to in-house counsel (this seems to be a rapidly developing phenomena and one worthy of some research to determine just how quickly schools across the country are moving to in-house counsels).

In December, even as the elected School Board bickered over the
prospect of state intervention, an advisory committee reviewed the
district's checkbook.

The district, it said, had overspent by $96 million over five years and was at that point $30 million in the hole.

Legal fees can hardly be blamed for the deficit. Last year, Lashly
& Baer's bills didn't even represent 1 percent of the district's
$350 million budget.

But they didn't help.

In three of the last four years, the district has blown its legal
services budget by several thousand dollars. Last year, the district
set aside $1.8 million for lawyers. It spent $2.8 million on legal fees.

At the same time, the district bought just $236,000 worth of library books.

That is never good publicity. I do wonder, however, about a couple of things. First, even at $250/hour, it takes a heck of a lot of hours to total $2.8 million. Now that the city schools have dropped their law firm, do they really expect 1 person being paid $100,000 can accomplish the same amount of work? Second, the 1% of the $350 million dollar budget that was going to lawyers seems like a small percentage. But, I would wonder how much of that $350 million was going to administrators? If we did a better job of training administrators to deal with the day to day legal issues, we could save significantly on legal costs as much of the $2.8 million was generated dealing with administrator phone calls...

Sullivan hopes having a lawyer in-house will save the schools money.

Lashly & Baer billing statements show that district leaders called
the firm time and again for advice on meeting agendas, hiring
practices, filing paperwork, board officer elections and the effects of
pending legislation.

When board members wanted advice, they called the firm. When board
business became contentious, members called Brostron. And if they just
wanted to sideline board business for awhile, they could refer it to
Lashly & Baer.

For instance, in the winter of 2006, then-board president Veronica
O'Brien said, the elected school board was so deeply divided that she
contacted Brostron on nearly every issue.

"I talk to him all the time, 24 hours a day," O'Brien said then. "I use him for everything."

Over a three-day period in November, her name appears six times on the
billing statements, connected to more than $6,500 in charges, including
one listing for "multiple telephone conferences with Ms. O'Brien
regarding records."

Very interesting stuff there. Raises a lot of questions about schools and their lawyers that need further investigation.

Here is a link to Saint Louis Public Schools and their former Legal Counsel, Lashly and Baer.

Dr. John Jackson Lecture - Advocacy and Education

I just got back from a lecture by Dr. John Jackson, the current President of the Schott Foundation for Public Education. The speech was sponsored by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, so thanks to them.

Just a few reflections to share:

1. Dr. Jackson spoke of making education a fundamental right, as a legal matter (Dr. Jackson is also a J.D. from U. of Illinois). I really feel the movement to make education a fundamental right is growing. He is not the first person I heard speak about this lately and don't be surprised if in a few years there is serious progress toward that goal. (Also see my earlier post about the Great Civil Rights Issue of Our Time).
   
2. Dr. Jackson also addressed the way we define "drop-out" or "graduation rate" within NCLB and the need to establish a federal definition of those terms. Presently, these terms are addressed state-by-state, so the definitions tend to vary. This variance is hiding drop-outs in many cases. He offered the possible definition of measuring drop-outs by the number of kids that enter as freshmen in high school and the number that graduate after 4 (or 5) years. Seems reasonable, right? Well, although any definition would have to be more complicated to account for various issues such as transfers, etc., the fundamental principle of counting how many kids are leaving the system is a valid one, and one I would hope would be included in this round of NCLB. Perhaps the federal governmental could adopt some different language (other than the politically charged "drop-out" or "graduation rate" language) to achieve the same goal.
   
3. The next two points are related. First, Dr. Jackson made "advocacy" a central theme of his presentation. That everyone has their place to advocate within this system and that it is part of their role as educators or educational leaders. I cannot stress how much I agree with this point. The educational system is built upon democratic systems. Democratic systems, in their very nature, rely on voices of the people (without the people and their voices, there would be no government - that is the point). If the people's voices are not heard, the system ceases to function effectively. Will many competing voices cause conflicts? Of course, but conflict is encouraged within democratic systems. If advocacy was encouraged more and made a central function of the job of educators, education would be much better off.
   
4. There is a reason I agree with Dr. Jackson on point 3, above. It is because we have similar backgrounds in law and education. If you have not had the pleasure of law school (avoid at all costs), it is hard to know what goes on there. But, let me just say this - there is no way you can make it through law school without a deep understanding (although, perhaps, still be unable to articulate it) of how power works in a capitalist-based democracy. A few days working with the education system and even a young lawyer will quickly realize why there is so little power in the system. For the most part, educators don't even know there is a game, let alone the rules of the game, and very, very few educators actually play the game in any meaningful way. Legislators, lobbyists, CEO's and others with power in the system are free to ignore the education system, and, especially educators, who are not even on the sidelines watching the game (take a poll of the educators in your local school tomorrow to see how many know NCLB Reauthorization Hearings are going on right now). So, wanna know how to play the game? Advocacy.
   

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.

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.

Interesting First Amendment Debate at Volokh Conspiracy on Cancelling Elections

There is an interesting First Amendment issue being debated at the Volokh Conspiracy, my favorite constitutional blog. The case, Husain v. Springer, is getting quite a bit of play around the blogosphere. It concerns a recent Second Circuit ruling concerning student run newspapers, student elections and a university president's power to cancel the election -- and, oh yeah, and the First Amendment. It is quite a "chilling" decision. Especially interesting is the dissent in which the Chief Justice of the Second Circuit admitted "I have not read [the majority opinion ... because] this case is about nothing." More on the dissent at the TaxProf Blog.