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. 

Lab Gab: My New Show

Well, amongst friends back here at the blog, I'm happy to release my new show, Lab Gab. Okay, yes, dorky title but seriously, got a better idea? (And, seriously, I actually am a dork.) It's hard coming up with the name of shows. At least it is more original than what I did here at the blog, EdjuristTV. 

Anyway, as some of you know, I have been devoting a lot of time lately to a new project here at the COE called P20. Actually, it's called the Kentucky P20 Innovation Lab: A Partnership for Next Generation Learning. You can read more about it here. I think my official title is the Director of the Technology Leadership Lab, but I can't be sure yet. Chances are pretty high this is going to get me fired (anyone need a school law guy with tech skills, keep me in mind!) but it's fun, I think it can help, and we only live once so I'm doing it. Hopefully the twins will be at least a couple years old before the whole thing officially fails and they run me out of Kentucky on a rail, so moving won't be so hard on them and they'll never know the shame their daddy had in the Commonwealth. (Kidding, of course, you Kentucky folks -- don't be so serious!). 

So, as part of P20 we are working with the Kentucky Department of Education on developing a new learning platform using the iTunes U format. Lot's of universities have developed this kind of platform, but P12 is just starting to get into it and Kentucky will be a leader on this front. But, the new platform is going to need a content stream and I had been thinking of starting a new show lately anyway, so I thought I would take advantage of this fortuitous happenstance. I did include a legal component (called "Let's get Legal with It"

So, without further ado .... I present Episode 1 of Lab Gab. 

Risking even further embarrassment, I'd be interested in your thoughts. Good, bad, otherwise. It'll be a weekly thing, so you'll have to endure more of it at least until I generate a substantial audience of it's own.

If you are really weird and happen to like it, you can subscribe to the show via iTunes, miro, channels, or just simple old rss (show page) or rss (Lab Gab blog and comments).  

Aren't we living in fun times? When a professor can thoroughly embarrass himself to the whole world so cheaply?

Case law and Article Searches on Google Scholar

The good news of the week for my education school professor colleagues, and for practitioners in the field who do not have unlimited access to Westlaw or Lexis, is that Google Scholar now allows you to search for both case law (federal and state) and articles through the familiar Google interface.

I tried it out by doing a search with the terms, "school finance" (no connectors).  Sure enough, all of the familar cases (state and federal) came up, beginning with Rodriguez and including Serrano, Rose, and the rest.  If you click on an opinion, the interface allows you to read it as a web document, but unlike other web documents, which frustratingly do not include page numbers (big problem when you are using the Bluebook), the Google Scholar version has the correct pagination for the regional reporters in which the cases appear. 

I doubt that I will shift all of my legal research from Westlaw to this search engine, as Westlaw still affords many advantages over the broader Google search interface, but this will be a great tool to universalize access to the law and save many people huge amounts of time. 

Some Catching Up: Rose Event Details & New Website

I want to do a little catching up today. I had an extremely busy, but productive, summer. But, lately that has left little time for blogging as I have been traveling around the state and my college coordinating projects. And, I want to make some of those public:

First, I am coordinating an event in conjunction with the Education Law Association in Louisville, Kentucky on October 21 in the evening. The event is tentatively called "Rose at 20: The Past and Future of School Finance Litigation" and will be held in the Brown Hotel's Gallery Ballroom in Louisville. More details will follow, but I'll leak a little secret on the blog that a very high ranking Kentucky official is planning to be in attendance and speak at the event. We also have a lot of other dignitaries on board as well as several experts on school finance both in Kentucky and around the nation (Kern Alexander, Craig Wood, William Thro, Bill Koski, to name a few). The Kentucky Law Journal is doing a special issue for the occasion. And, Scott and our new colleague Neal Hutchens (who I hope to have another announcement about coming soon) have been helping out on the event. Anyway, you'll hear lots more about it in the near future, but thanks to Richard Day for helping to publicize it already.

Second, if you have been following my twitter feed, you'll know I have been working on a new University of Kentucky, College of Education website. It is in public beta right now (and we have said to be careful about releasing it to the public for the next month - but I think I earned the privilege of announcing it here), so there are still some tweaks that need to be made. Anyway, leading that effort was a challenging and rewarding experience, but it took a ton of time this summer. The biggest website I have built to this point was the one you are looking at, so the COE site was a couple magnitudes of scale bigger. But, I do a lot of talking about technology leadership, so I thought I should do some for my own college. I am starting a new blog for our department that is going to serve as sort of news and events source, so for those followers in Kentucky, that may be worth putting in your feed. 

Otherwise, things have been consistently busy. I taught special education law for the first time this summer and it was a blast. I tried out some complicated simulations of IEP, MD and Due Process hearings and the students seemed to enjoy it (although they were probably too competitive). This semester I am back to teaching my regular education law course to a new cohort of principal candidates, so I am glad to be back to my comfort zone. I am debating whether to put my course up on iTunes, so if I do, I'll pass that along as well.

And, all of that above is sort of my excuse for not paying as much attention to this space as I normally do. But, I plan to remedy that immediately. I am going to bring on new contributors, new content, new features, new EdjuristTV episodes ... just to basically be your online source for information on law and education.      

AERA Deadline this Wednesday

The AERA deadline for proposals is this Wednesday, July 15. AERA is in Denver next year, which should be fun. Please submit to the Law and Education Special Interest Group.

My Favorite Holiday

Just wishing everyone a spectacular July 4. It's pouring down rain right now here in Illinois, but it doesn't spoil my enthusiasm at all. I got a little fishing planned for later today and fireworks tonight.

On this July 4, everyone should remember our founding fathers and present day soldiers, but give a little time to contemplate over our educational founding fathers as well and the events that shaped our particularly American system of education. Spend a minute to research education in your state or in your own school. For all its faults, we have built a beautiful and revolutionary education system here in the United States and that took the labor and dedication of millions of our fore fathers who believed in the same dream as those that signed our Declaration of Independence.

Do Students Dislike Education Law Classes? Evidence from Twitter

Playing around with Twitter tonight. Signed up even (you can follow me at edjurist and/or if you are reading this I should probably be following you, so please tell me you handle in way or another).

Anyway, ran a search for "education law" and "school law" and this is what I got (representative).

I sort of like Twitter because of the personal and honest nature of the posts. But, if this is what people honestly have to say about school law courses, it is a little concerning.

I really don't get why school law courses have to be boring. That is certainly their reputation, and perhaps it is deserved, but it is totally unnecessary. There are so many cool things out there related to education law. Yes, there are stuffy cases ... but the stuffy cases are about strip searches and the like. There are YouTube videos to watch (or make), lots of fun activities, lots of interesting news clippings ... there is just a lot of interesting stuff that, if presented properly, simply cannot lead to boredom.

So, that's one of the reasons I joined twitter. I come across interesting school law related stuff all the time, but most of it is not post worthy on this increasingly scholarly oriented blog. But, that stuff is perfect for Twitter. So, hopefully we can get some other school law profs tweeting and we can collectively take the edge off a little.

Board Certification for Education Lawyers in Florida

Yesterday, I received the following message from the Florida Bar (of which I am a member).  It announces the approval of board certification procedures for education law and adoption law.  For those unfamiliar, board certification is a designation that a lawyer may achieve only after several years of successful and ethical practice in the field.  It is a highly rigorous process that designates a lawyer as a bona fide expert in the field of certification.  I am not sure how many other states have decided to offer this designation in education law, but it is quite encouraging that our field of practice and scholarship is being recognized as distinct enough from other practice areas to justify board certification.  I look forward to seeing who earns the designation.  Here is the announcement:

On June 11, 2009, the Supreme Court of Florida adopted rules regarding two new areas of board certification– educationlaw and adoptionlaw– to Chapter 6 of the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar. In re: Amendments to the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar– Rules 6-27 and 6-28, SC08-1981, effective June 11, 2009.

Florida attorneys will be able to apply later this year for certification in adoption law and education law.

For more information, go to: http://www.floridabar.org/certification or contact spiland@flabar.org (adoption law) and jcoiro@flabar.org (education law).

Applicants are also being sought for the adoption law and education law certification committees.

The rules can be found on the Florida Bar’s web site: http://www.floridabar.org/divexe/rrtfb.nsf/WContents?OpenView

The court opinion can be found on the Court’s web site: http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/opinions.shtml

Crazy, Alright.

I hate columns like this. Hate them. 

When the top of your blog says "Business" ... maybe you should stick to writing about business. We got a name for this nonsense, it's called telling tales out of school. Pity, I really like The Atlantic otherwise, but if you got a "food" correspondent maybe you should have an education correspondent too. 

Law Professor? Want to Blog on Education?

Paul Caron wants to talk to you about the Law Profs Blog Network (in fact he has wanted to talk to you for a year now). 

Couple points ... we are extremely privledged to have Scott Bauries, a law professor, on board here. Here are his excellent posts. So, we are already filling that space a little, and #2 - Mitchell Rubinstein is filling that space a little already as well.

But, big point, why in God's name is there no one jumping on that? There are hundreds of law professors blogging. Just on profs blog alone there are bloggers on Native American law, food law, reproductive rights law, unincorporated businesses law, aviation law ... hello! There are nearly 350 students for every aircraft in the U.S.  (small, big, passenger, or otherwise). There are 75 million students in this country in 130,000 schools with 8 million teachers. Education is nearly 10% of our GNP and is nearly a trillion dollar industry.

WAKE UP, Law Schools - we need you to pay attention and help us.  

Credit Cards for 2 Year Olds

There is a lot of national talk about the credit industry right now, including talk of more highly regulating credit cards. Well, yesterday my 2 year old got a credit card application in the mail. He can't even read (nor has he mastered going on the potty) yet Regions Bank was apparently willing to extend him a thousand dollar line of credit. What scares me about this nonsense is that someone may mess with it and mess up his credit score or something. Obviously, something is wrong with the credit industry when this kind of stuff is happening.

AERA 09 Wrap

Yeah, didn't get a chance to blog nearly as much as I had planned. I just got back to Lexington, so let me write up a few thoughts before I forget them and I will try to return to several of them in the next couple weeks:

1. Went to a wonderful session with Bill Koski, Kevin Welner, Mike Rebell and Anne Newman. Take away (which I hope to come back to in more detail) ... we may be a couple of years away from a pretty substantial push for due process hearing officers for all education law disputes (like the ones we have in special education).
2. I am not really sure yet of the whole empirical legal scholarship stuff. I know that Scott B. is a big fan and Mario Torres is doing a lot in this area related to education as well as Michael Heise (see this blog), but I still have some reservations. Maybe I will do more on this later.
3. I got the chance to meet William Trent and some of his students doing work at the University of Illinois. Impressive stuff. 
4. Nothing is private in my field of education leadership. Nothing. It is too small a group and rumors spread like wildfire. Everything is either impressive as hell or the end of the world. There is too much overreaction to the yearly ups and downs of programs.
5. The UCEA Taskforce on Evaluating Leadership Preparation Programs is showing some promising signs. Hope to have more details on that upcoming. 
6. That said, the use of longitudinal data sets to tie school leadership to students, or alternatively their preparation programs, is still a long, long way away. Maybe more on that later too.
7. Prezi is a cool new tool. Check it out. Here is the one I used for the presentation off the paper I did with Jon Becker & Scott McLeod. Jon had the great idea to use it.

Overall, this was a great conference. I enjoyed Scott B.'s company (and may have even convinced him to come along again). There is a lot of room for good legal scholars related to education issues still (the proposal deadline is very early is you are interested). I am still very early in my career, so I am hopeful that by the end of my career we will see a lot more development in this critical area for education reform.

AERA: Day 2

My Internet access is somewhat limited here, so sorry the blogging has been light. A few reflections on the day:

1. The Law and Education SIG is so enjoyable. It really is my favorite professional group and for you fellow edjurists out there, I highly recommend that you consider it.
2. The numbers are substantially down this year. You can notice it not just in the number of folks in our SIG and whatnot, but just in the number of people in town and at restaurants. 
3. It is becoming harder and harder for me to live in 2 worlds. I have traditionally done a lot with the law group and a lot with the principalship preparation group. It is tougher and tougher to continue in both and be effective at either.
4. San Diego was cold today. Not Minnesota cold, but sort of unpleasant. Based on my first 2 days in San Diego, I thought it was pleasant here all the time.
5. AERA is quite the bureaucracy. I have had quite the time getting a simple check cut and finally was told ... it was not going to be cut at all.

AERA: San Diego Blogging

San Diego is beautiful. Let's just start there. The hotels, the places to eat, the convention center, and the beach ... the beach is fabulous.

Over the next couple days I will be blogging in a live way (although not live-blogging technically) several sessions and events at AERA. I am an officer in the Law and Education Special Interest Group, so I will certainly be attending all those sessions if you want to track me down. I hope to get some videos and pictures so that folks can get a sense of what goes on here and may at some point consider joining the Law and Education SIG.

Coaches, Calipari Edition

So, yes, we hired Jon Calipari. For 2.9 million a year, plus a slew of benefits (cars, tickets, country club membership, camp profits, etc). Here is his employment contract, it is one of the more interesting I have ever read (who gets 3 million for wearing the right pair of shoes?). 

So, lots of people around the campus asked me what I thought about it (and why I had not posted yet - the blog is becoming more popular around here!), and my response is that I am mixed.

I like winning. My wife can tell you that I really get into the games and I am quickly becoming one of those crazed Kentucky fans that everyone talks about. On the other hand, as I have said earlier, I have serious legal reservations about schools being responsible for sports. And, on top of all that, I have concerns about money and priorities at the place that writes my checks. 

So, first, I don't have a problem with the money. Any academic department here would love to put that to good use, but the fact is that sports here at UK pays for itself and has money to spare, which winds up benefiting academics. The SEC and ESPN have a 2.25 billion dollar TV deal. Forbes ranked us #2 (to the Tar Heels) in the value of our basketball team and it said we have an operating income of 16 million dollars. Given our likely investment in a new arena, even that number is going to balloon in the coming years. So, it is not a money issue. Sports for UK is a financially profitable enterprise and that doesn't even count the value of having millions of kids in Kentucky and the nation wearing UK gear and helping us advertise our school. Sports benefit UK and winning helps in that regard. So, pay the man that runs the show (and it is a show ... pure entertainment ... UK basketball IS Kentucky's professional franchise). 

I also don't have a liability problem with this. Kids that get into big time college basketball know what they are doing and they know the risks. Also, although students do get hurt playing sports at UK, we have plenty of money to cover those risks.  

However, I do have a slight problem with the attention we pay to sports, though. We at the College of Ed. are in a Dean search right now (I am excited about our candidates) and the President of the University doesn't play much of a role as it is mostly handled out of the Provost's office. The Law School was also in a Dean search this year. The Dean of the College of Law and the College of Education at the flagship institution are incredibly important positions to the Commonwealth. These people are policymakers and their decisions affect everyone's future in the Commonwealth. We are literally educating governors in both of our Colleges (law)(education), yet these positions receive so much less attention. There are not reporters covering the candidate's front door to watch for someone to leave the house, for instance. And, it is not just that we pay less attention, it is also that we just flat pay less, period. The Dean of the College of Education oversees a 15 million dollar budget and the Dean of the College of Law oversees an 8 million dollar budget, yet these folks make only around $200,000 because there are no Nike contracts or ESPN deals. These people are just engaged in the hard work of actually preparing Kentucky's future and although there might not be television or corporate sponsors, one would think that our leadership would recognize this and commit to personally overseeing who fills those positions.   

This is sort of where I think we are missing the boat here.  What message are you sending teenagers in Kentucky right now? Our states #1 academic institution ... the best minds we got ... its #1 priority is sports. Talk about sending the wrong message to kids. Kentucky needs more doctors and lawyers and teachers and innovators and entrepenures, but the State just told all the kids in Kentucky that basketball is where it's at. 

Some more ed. law blogs

The Ed. Law Blogosphere continues to grow. That is not to say we haven't lost a few along the way, but nevertheless it is nice to continually see new folks around the country trying their hand. 

So, here are some I want to point out to you. All of them have existed for a while, but I wanted to be sure that I featured them as I add them to my blogroll. 

I have been enjoying a great conversation with Nancy Willard and Mike Tully the last couple of days (which should eventually be posted in the blogosphere somewhere), so I want to point out their blogs: 

Substantial Disruption is Mike Tully's blog. Mike cut his blogging teeth on the old At the Schoolhouse Gate, the previous CASTLE ed. law blog. - Mike links to a lot of good articles on various speech and bullying issues.  

Nancy Willard's Weblog, from the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use. Nancy's posts are usually lengthier posts that examine an issue in depth and correspond with her consulting work around the country. 

Also, the state specific ed. law blogosphere continues to expand. The latest entrant, and one I am sort of excited about, is the Northwest Education Law Blog, which is published by a team from the Williams Kastner law firm that serves Portland, Seattle and surrounding markets. I am excited to have an ed. law blog representing the Northwest because quite a few good cases come out of there. 

And finally, we have Jeff Marcus, who is blogging on N.Y. related special education law issues at Developments in Special Education Law. He pulls largely from special education hearing officer decisions, which is sort of an untapped area of education law in general. 

As always, if I have left anyone out, just let me know here at the blog or you can contact me. My searching of the blogosphere is not what it used to be, so don't feel bad pointing out your work to me. 

A Little Justice O'Connor with Lunch

I have been eating more in my office lately, so I enjoyed a little Justice O'Connor over lunch and I thought you might too. Head's up ... she doesn't remember her decisive vote in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.

IndecisionAn Indecision Exclusive!

Sandra Day O'Connor Pt. 1

Funny Political Video
Political Games

Joe Biden Jokes
Barack Obama Jokes

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Sandra Day O'Connor Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Slate's Education Cartoons Are Back

More than once I have spent twenty-minutes clicking through these. They are a great resource for education teachers generally, but especially so for education law teachers. 

AERA Law and Education SIG Presentations

Below is a table with a list of the AERA Law and Education SIG presentations for the upcoming AERA meeting in April. The meeting is in San Antonio and the SIG activities are grouped around Monday and Tuesday the 13th and 14th, so if you are thinking of coming, it might be possible to make it a short(er) trip. 

Click on the links for more information on the session.

1.	Affirmative Action Case Law and Critical Race Theory   Unit:SIG-Law and Education   Session type:Paper Session   Time:Tue, Apr 14 - 12:25pm - 1:55pm Place:San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina, Point Loma	view
2.	Law and Education SIG Business Meeting   Unit:SIG-Law and Education   Session type:Business Meeting   Time:Tue, Apr 14 - 6:15pm - 7:45pm Place:San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina, Solana	view
3.	Law and Education SIG Paper Discussion: Current Issues in School Law   Unit:SIG-Law and Education   Session type:Paper Discussion (formerly known as Roundtables)   Time:Mon, Apr 13 - 4:05pm - 4:45pm Place:San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina, Marriott Hall Salon 4   Audio Taping:No	view
4.	Schools, Universities, and the First Amendment   Unit:SIG-Law and Education   Session type:Paper Session   Time:Tue, Apr 14 - 8:15am - 9:45am Place:San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina, Solana   Audio Taping:No	view
5.	Special Topics in School Law   Unit:SIG-Law and Education   Session type:Paper Session   Time:Mon, Apr 13 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place:San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina, San Diego Ballroom Salon C   Audio Taping:No	view

The Whitehouse is Liveblogging?

The Whitehouse liveblogged the President's event in Florida today. Yeah, not kidding. Liveblogging from the Whitehouse. Not some reporter at the Whitehouse. The Whitehouse itself. The Government. Your Government is liveblogging now. Go ahead. Check it out. The very top link at the Whitehouse.gov site is "The Blog." By the way, it's worth your time to check out this blog post that includes a video getting to know Arne Duncan.

I've been hesitant to say much about the new administration, especially since education wound up on the floor of the Stimulus paring down session. But, talk about fundamental change. Can you even imagine previous presidents using the term liveblog, let along actually doing it on the Whitehouse homepage. Check out George W. Bush's whitehouse page. Check out Clinton's! Wow, we have come a long way. 

There is something to be said for this type of leadership for the Obama Administration. And it is leadership. They are the pinnacle governmental entity. What they do is an example for every other governmental entity in the entire U.S. -- including schools. Can't wait to see a those school board meeting liveblogs!