Moving the Edjurist & Beginning of Recode.School

About 13 years ago I was sitting in a library research class in law school and learned about this thing called a "blawg" from Frank Houdek, a professor at SIU law. He tasked us to find the blawg for our area of interest ... so I looked for education law. Yeah, didn't find one in 2003. So, I started one and after a couple of iterations, this blog, The Edjurist, was the result. 

It has been a fun ride. For several years, I was the only education law blog, especially after Scott McLeod merged "At the Schoolhouse Gate" into the Edjurist around 2008 when I came on board with CASTLE. After a while, a few more began to emerge and I'm proud that I helped to consult on several of their foundings such as Jim Gerl's outstanding blog on Special Education Law and Neal Hutchens HigherEducationLaw Blog. Later, serious mainstream P-12 education law blogs emerged such as Mark Walsh's at Education Week and Derek Blacks at LawProfsBlog. 

Meanwhile, I was busy trying to earn tenure at UK ... which thankfully I did. I brought on wonderful additional contributors, but we never managed to get the daily feed of content it takes to maintain a healthy blog. Blogging, still, is not a serious activity amongst tenure and promotion committees ... unfortunately. After tenure, instead of having more time for blogging ... I helped to start a new school. Anyway ... you know the story if we are still showing up in your feed. Thanks to those that played along during the decade in which I really kept it active. We broke new ground together into which others have followed ... and for that I'll always be thankful and proud. But ... time moves on.

For the Edjurist ... Kevin Brady (one of our contributors) will be taking the old content and bringing it into his new efforts at his UCEA Center for Leadership in Law and Education at the University of Arkansas. He will announce details about that soon.

For me, the work is changing gears. Please find me now blogging (regularly) at Recode.School. My work will still include law (and technology) but I'm focusing very tightly on recoding the structures underpinning our education system. The foundation of our education system has generally not change for about 100 years, so it is time to tackle an upgrade to our public education system. I hope to be helpful in that effort. So ... if you are reading this ... please be so kind as to pop over there and hopefully add it to your RSS feed.

Thanks again for all the great times and the memories. I loved blogging here and won't ever forget it.   

Auburn Looking for Education Law/Finance Expert

It is late in the typical job cycle for the year, but Auburn University has posted an assistant professor position in education leadership with a focus on education law and finance. The position is such that I think they would hire a new graduate potentially, depending on the pool.  

This would be a great job. I know some of the team members at Auburn and they are a strong program, at a strong university, and only a couple hours from the beach! 

ELA Submission Deadline: March 1

Just a heads up that the ELA submission deadline is this Saturday, March 1. 

Here are the details on the conference and here is the call for papers. 

ELA this year is in San Diego from Nov. 3-7. See you all there. 

School Law Position at Tennessee

For those interested. 

Love to have a great school law person as my southern neighbor. 

Sanity with Zero-Tolerance (Finally)

I hate zero-tolerance policies. Always have. They are just wholly unnecessary, legally silly, probably discriminatory, generally bad for kids and, on top of all that, don't even work. 

So, to my delight, finally zero-tolerance seems to have the worst of it in policy circles lately. Credit to Arne Duncan and the U.S. DOE for releasing new guidance last week that tries to put the brakes on mandatory suspensions and expulsions. I think the Secretary has intelligent things to say in this release video:   

The bottom line is that the law entrusts principals and other school leaders with the discretion to make appropriate decisions toward novel situations amongst kids. These disciplinary decisions can be incredibly difficult with intense lobbying on all sides. Many tears are shed and sleepless nights suffered over how to appropriately discipline kids. But, that is the job. It is a core function of a school leader and the manifestation of the trust provided to that position in our society. To attempt locally to shirk that responsibility through the use of hastily adopted zero-tolerance policies is cowardly. The policy position may appear tough, but it actually speaks to the weakness of the proposer. 

I am glad to see the light at the end of the dark, dark tunnel of zero-tolerance. 

Complying with Copyright Just Got Easier

One of the huge areas of potential copyright violations if you are a techy like me are around images. I post images to the blog, add them into my powerpoints, upload them to sites, ... so available images to use are important to me. All those same uses also apply to our kids and teachers in schools everyday.

On the web, only a few images are available to use without a direct copyright violation though. I usually try to find those images when producing documents, but it can be difficult. Compflight is a great tool and there are others such as the Creative Common search. These search engines take extra time to search and their search functions are not as powerful as core search giants like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. 

Well, Google has made this process easier by adding a licensure limitation on your image search directly on the search page (see image). Here is the procedure:

(1) run a search (such as "education law" below),

(2) go to "Images,"

(3) click "search tools," 

(4) use the "Usage Rights" drop down to select the licensure category. 

Now, this is not a fool proof method in that Google is not guaranteeing the license.  To be safe you need to independently check the license, but it is a great time saver and a really good step by Google during this Copyright Week to make the world a slightly more functional place (even if this doesn't address the core issue of the broken copyright system). 

Finance Conference RFP Deadline Tomorrow

Just a heads up that the deadline for submissions to the National Education Finance Conference is tomorrow, Jan. 15. The conference this next year is in Louisville, which of course is awesome for me. I've thus proposed a retelling of Bruce Baker and my brief on virtual school finance. 

Anyway, if you are interested in education finance, particularly from a legal perspective, it is can't miss conference. 

Copyright Week

Today is the start of Copyright Week, as sponsored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a host of other digitally interested organizations such as Creative Commons and Wikimedia, as well as other organizations interested in more open information such as the American Library Association. Here is a press release on the start of it. 

Whether or not you follow along this week, you should be aware that even as the Internet has made information more openly available than ever before in human history, many interests, specifically Hollywood, are pushing to make information increasingly protected behind copyright law. Congress has a tendency to want to listen more to Hollywood than well, common sense, so copyright law is only becoming more strict. Schools are sort of left in the middle of this and the result is that many teachers and students are technically criminals for copyright violations.  

If you want a basic introduction to copyright and education, here is a short article I did last year on it from T.H.E. Journal. 

SnapChat is Sending Images to the Government

Our kids really need to know that. Like now. Our younger teachers do as well. In your next legal training on anything related to social media, you should mention this. I teach a pre-service law course starting next week; I am definitely going to mention this in there. 

I'm not a user of snapchat myself, but I know that many of our students are heavy users somewhat on the premise that whatever they send will go away quickly. Well, no so much. 

Details here. H/T: Bethany Smith

Ed. Law Scholar Assumes Deanship of Harvard Graduate School of Education

James Ryan officially began his duties as the new Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education a few days ago. You can see the release naming him the new Dean here. His podcast upon starting the job is here. 

I am really excited to see his promotion and wish him the best of luck (frankly I am sort of happy to see HGSE finally employ a full-time law scholar). He is just the next in a long line of education law scholars assuming very high level leadership positions within the field of education in the United States ... and I think that is a very positive thing for all of us. Hopefully James will provide leadership not only to HGSE but to education colleges broadly who frequently look to Harvard for precedence. 

Cone of Shame

This happened last year and I somehow missed it: teacher permits "cone of shame" on students -- which is essentially a dog collar with a cone attached when the students misbehaved. Brought to my attention again by @sjciske. 

 Apparently, she was just transferred and not fired. Being a science teacher saved her. 

By the way, I'm not sure what is happening in Pasco County, FL, but they certainly seem to make the education law news a lot. 

New Education Law Blog

It is not that often that I get to announce a GREAT new outlet for education law news and resources, but today I do in the form of the Education Law Prof Blog. The blog is part of the Law Prof Blog network and is written primarily by Derek Black of the University of South Carolina Law School and LaJuana Davis of Samford University with occassional posts by Areto Imoukhuede of Nova Southeastern Law School. You absolutely must add it to your readers (and, remember, Google Reader is going away soon, so please switch to Feedly). 

I feel like this blog was the exact blog that I expected to exist way back in 2004 when I first searched googled "education law blog" and found nothing (and this started this one). I am glad that we finally have a presence at that law professor level (besides with this blog) and I hope that education law continues to be taken more seriously by those in the legal academy. 

A Nice Video on Overcoming Bullying

I am a sucker for this kind of stuff. Passion. Art. Poetry. Combined into a beautiful message for kids that are facing challenges. There should be more of this. 

h/t Jayson Richardson

We Need Fewer Guns

Today, I was moved by the testimony of former Representative Giffords, "Too many children are dying. Too many children." You owe it to this country to at least listen to that video (click the link). 

I am a hunter. I grew up with guns, I still enjoy shooting, and I personally own a shotgun for that purpose. My own child went deer hunting just two weeks ago and I was proud of him. Most of my family and friends are gunowners and hunters as well, so they are likely to disagree with what I am about to say. So be it. 

We need fewer guns. Because "too many children are dying."

That's the long and short of this. Too many children are dying. We must respond and there is only one reasonable path. We need fewer guns.

Guns beget guns beget guns and a society with more guns is not safer, it is more dangerous.  

Not only are children dying from random acts of insanity at schools like those in Connecticut, Colorado, Kentucky, Virginia, and just about everywhere else ... but too many kids are killing themselves as well. There is too much unnecessary death and the always present tool seems to be the gun. 

I work with schools. I am deeply saddened by what I have seen these last ten years. Now, armed police roam the halls between our classrooms. Children not only learn to read these days, they learn to live in environments constantly patrolled by gun barrels. They learn to live in fear. That should be embarassing to us as a country. Children are in the presence of guns more frequently in the United States than in any third world country. It is compulsory in the United States for kids to spend their days watched by guns. I am embarassed at that reality.  

Now, serious people all over the country talk of arming principals or teachers. We should be disgraced at the thought. Anyone that advocates for giving educators guns but won't consider limiting assault rifles has a serious detachment problem from sanity. 

Guns beget guns beget guns. There is no solution to more guns except for more guns. Someone did actually define that cycle as insanty, once. So, our current national policy toward guns and kids is definitionally insane.  

Our poor schools do not know how to respond, except only to join in and try to stay ahead in this vicious cycle. I work with school leaders. I know what a difficult position they are in. So difficult, in fact, that reasonable school leaders have even started purchasing their own assault rifles for their office, so that in a shootout they will not be outgunned, I suppose. Where does this end? Metal detectors, surveillance cameras, police controlling our school hallways ... we have already given up so much that we cannot get back and for what? The children keep dying. Some cry out liberty and freedom in this debate, but where is our children's liberty? We have deprived them of their liberty, even of their lives, in our disillusionment that owning an AK makes us free. 

I don't care whether guns kill people or people kill people or whatever nonsense cliche you want to throw around to avoid the painful truth. Dead kids lie in graves that should be playing in schoolyards. Far, far too many of them. 

"Too many children are dying." We need fewer guns. 

Texas: Legal to Force Students to Wear RFID Chip at School

A district court judge in San Antonio upheld the expulsion of a student at a magnet school for refusing to wear a RFID chip (radio frequency identification: the technology that allows for geographic tracking at all times, like the thing you can have implanted in your dog). Not surprisingly, the ACLU jumped into the case on the part of the student, arguing that this violated the students privacy and is an unacceptable step toward a surveillance society. 

The school argued that this is all harmless and that the chips were only used to locate students that are not in the classroom, but still in the school building (they said it cannot work outside the school building and would not be given to third parties). The district was convinced they were losing over a million dollars a year in state revenue because students were in hallways and not in classrooms. Further, as a magnet program, the student can return to their home school if she did not like the policy. 

A lively discussion already developed on twitter, but let's continue the conversation (with longer arguments) in the comments. I will put my thoughts in the comments also. 

So, pick a side. Are you okay with this policy and this ruling? 

H/T: This came from Jon Becker's twitter feed with the hashtag #SchoolLawWTF attached. Appropriate. 

Ed. Law Blog Highlight: Education Law Insights

Here is another option for you consumers of education law blogs: Education Law Insights. It is written by Jackie Wernz and Brian Crowley of Franczek Radelet, a firm based in and serving clients throughout Illinois. 

You can also follow along with Jackie's twitter feed at @EdLawInsights

They have been blogging for a few months now and are producing some really informative posts, relevant to those beyond Illinois as well. It is certainly worth adding to your RSS reader. 

Thanks for putting out this information and keep up the great work! 

National Education Finance Conference Deadline

The National Education Finance Conference has just extended their deadline for session proposals until January 31.

I went to this conference two years ago and it was quite enjoyable and the topics were extremely relevant to scholars studying anything impacted by education finance. It is in Indy so it should be driveable for many folks. 

Political Donations on State Owned Devices

As the political season heats up, now is a good time to remind folks that making political donations on school or university owned devices is a bad idea ... for what I hope are obvious reasons (remember who paid for that computer). Even though I think this is obvious, I'm doubting that too many public employees will consider it before they enter their credit card info.  

As Sherman Dorn notes on Twitter, it is probably a good idea to make such donations on your phones (less likely to be state owned). My wife even adds that apparently you can now even make donations by texting to some political campaigns.

(oddly, making a donation to a super-pac might be more palatable ... but then public employees don't have that kind of money). 

Anyway, please exercise your right to make your financial voices heard ... just not on a device you didn't pay for yourself.   

Just Don't Ban It (Again)

So, schools adopting social media policies is becoming very fashionable these days (ridiculously so, and lots of smart folks can tell you why, but whatever). New York City Schools is the latest to apparently be considering it. 

Here's the thing. I do not care all that much legally what you put in that policy, with one exception ... just don't ban anything. You cannot ban Facebook. You cannot ban Twitter. You cannot ban teachers from talking to kids outside of school. If the First Amendment says anything, it is that you can share your ideas without governmental interference when they have no legitimate reason to regulate. That a person is a teacher is not a legitimate reason to regulate all their speech, all the time. It isn't. Trust me. 

To show you, let's get conservative just because that is how our current Court leans. Let's say a school board wanted to ban a teacher from religious speech (participating in this prayer social website, for instance). Would that fly with the current court? No freaking way. None. Facebook is not different. Why? Well, look at this site - the Hawaii Catholic Youth and Adult Ministry Facebook Group. Can we ban teachers from talking to students on that site? No, we can't. They have both an expression and free exercise right to do so. Thus, we cannot ban Facebook. We also cannot ban teachers from talking to students on Facebook. Bans do not work in this space. There is just far, far too much constitutional history on the other side of that argument and way, way too many different scenarios that would be banned all in one fell swoop. 

Now, you can choose to block these things on your school Internet, that's fine. You can encourage responsibility. You can institute discipline measures for disruptions. You can, well ... be creative. But, banning teachers from using social media in anyway is a step to far, constitutionally speaking. 

New Education Law Text Takes a Different Approach

It is not often I review textbooks on the blog. In fact, I am not sure I ever have before. Mostly that is just because I am so firmly entrenched with this one, as it was the one I learned with and even helped a bit on an edition or two ago. Now, I use that one for my principal classes, but do not use a textbook for my teacher leader or undergraduate classes.  

But, recently I was made aware of a new textbook on education law that takes a different approach to publishing, namely, no publisher. John Dayton's new book, Education Law: Principles, Policy & Practice, has taken a self-publishing approach. It is a very comprehensive (480 pages) look at education law. It is also not a casebook, meaning John actually wrote all of the text. There is also a Kindle version coming soon. I have just briefly scanned the book and find it to be very well constructed and particularly strong on constitutional issues. It was clearly a labor of love and I recommend you at least give it a look on Amazon. To those folks teaching law out there, I'm sure if you contacted John he could get you part of the book to review even.

What is really interesting to me about the book, though, is that it signals a new potential path for publishing that changes the game. How, you ask?

(1) First, this type of publishing keeps costs much lower. So much of the price of a textbook is wrapped up in the publisher's overhead costs and not in the actual printing of the book. Pearson, all of those teaching in universities know, has an enormous staff. I have a personal Pearson representative that stops in my office about every three months. That is a salary John Dayton does not have to pay, nor does Amazon, nor does the start-up partner CreateSpace, and most importantly nor do any customers. In essence, all the cost of this book entails is the compensation for the time John spent writing it, the very small amount he paid CreateSpace to help with the process, and the cut Amazon takes. The author, usually the professor, is not in this for the money. There is some money, don't get me wrong, but ask your standard textbook author whether they care about the royalties and I bet they do not. There are so many other, and better, reasons to do it anyway (although I'm not sure vita-boost counts as better). Nevertheless, very few professors are motivated by the royalty money. Bottom line? 

Most popular text in education law: $172.30
Second most popular and one I favor: $110.99
This new textbook: $35.99 

Ask your students out there which one they favor. 

(2) Copyright. As an author, when you work with a standard publisher you lose the copyright to your work. The publisher holds and controls the rights to the future use of the book. This is a bad thing for everyone but the publisher. When a book runs initially, I do not mind the publisher recouping their costs even with a little extra added on for profit. What I do mind is the publisher keeping the rights of that book under lock and key long after their investment as been paid off and the book is marketable. Standard copyright these days is around 100 years. Thus, any traditional book (or journal article for that matter) is useful only while marketable and only to those capable and willing to pay the price (see #1, above).

Take away this traditional copyright game, however, and a whole new world opens up. An author has so many more options both in the near term and in the long term. The author can share the book with whomever he/she pleases. Can choose to use it in their own classes free of charge. Can partner with professional organizations to make snippets public. Can create websites that do so many different things. Can put the text out in ePUB, so it is digital and interactive. Can update the text whenever. And on and on. The long-term, though, is even more interesting to me. Once an author recoups the initial costs, why not release the text to the public with a Creative Commons license? Let the world share and remix and build from the text? Why not? So many awesome possibilities ... that are not behind a 100 year firewall.  

(3) Flexibility - When I write my textbook, I am going to put YouTube videos in it. No, not as some add on CD or some outside website with a crappy URL ... I mean seriously right in the text, sometimes in place of the text, right there seamlessly in the book. Why try to describe Savana Redding's case when she can describe it for herself? Seriously? When the few (and believe me, still few) publishers that have solicited me to write for them hear this, their eyes get really big and they cock their head a bit in confusion and look for an exit. But, I am serious. Traditional publishers ... are traditional. Print offers very little flexibility. Black, white, 8 1/2 x 11 ... that's about it. Digital text is different.

Ultimately, why I wanted to write this post is just to let you know it is okay to think differently about publishing. To have different expectations of authors, publishers, booksellers, and consumers. The inertia in the traditional publishing model is deep and long-lasting. We are going to be printing books in publishing houses for a great while longer. But, it is not the only model now. In niche fields like ours, it may not even be the best model. Certainly this book is a test case and we shall see in a few years the results. But, whether or not this effort is successful, it will not be the last effort (yes, that is a personal promise). Information is different now and it needs to be treated differently. This was one bold step forward along that path.

Bravo, Professor Dayton. Thank you for being a leader.