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. 

From Athletics to RFIDs: Have Schools Gone Too Far?

As I read the lively discussion related to the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) in a Texas magnet school I feel a need to stress one point that is possibly being overlooked. A vast majority of the reactions to the RFID synopsis center on the correctness of the practice from either a legal or ethical perspective. I feel there are inherit inequities embedded in the practice.

The US Supreme Court established the notion that not all students are equal when it handed down the Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton ruling in 1995. Part of the justification for allowing random urinalysis for interscholastic athletes recognized that these students had less expectation to privacy as a result of their participation in athletics. In the end, students who desired to use illicit drugs were not being denied access to an education, they were merely excluded from participation in interscholastic athletics.

My fear is that the concept of treating certain students different than other students, as a result of the choices they make, is being applied too broadly. I co-authored a paper that was presented at the Education Law Association’s 2009 conference and relates to the point I am trying to establish. The paper analyzed the actions of a Colorado charter school and its chartering school district toward a student who qualified for free lunch. The charter school lacked a sufficient kitchen to run a lunch program internally, so charter officials were required to contract with outside vendors to provide lunch services. One year the outside vendor informed the charter school that it would offer its lunches at both a regular price and a reduced price, for those who qualified, but not at the free rate. The one student attending this charter school who qualified for free lunch (that is another issue) was forced to chose to attend the charter school and receive a reduced lunch or attend the neighborhood traditional public school and receive a free lunch. In effect, the student was being denied access to a desired pedagogy due to his parents’ socioeconomic status. I think that sounds like discrimination…

The magnet school in Texas appears to be heading down a similar path related to the use of RFID. Students have an option – chose to use the RFID and attend the magnet school or refuse the RFID and obtain an education elsewhere. I see this either-or approach as dangerous and I fear it will result in denying students access to the magnet curriculum. I am not certain that students attending magnet schools are in the same boat as interscholastic athletes when it comes to a decreased expectation to privacy.

My final observation related to the use of RFID attempts to take the practice to the logical extreme. Let’s suppose the student refuse to comply with the RFID expectations and returns to the neighborhood school. What happens when the neighborhood school decides it, too, is losing money due to students missing classes during the school day and moves to implement the RFID practice? Will the student be forced to comply with the policy in order to remain in public education? Is that a desirable learning environment?

No public school, be it a charter or a magnet school, should ever be allowed to justify discrimination by arguing that if a student does not like the practice then he or she can go elsewhere to learn. Public schools are charged with serving all students and if some public schools are allowed to exclude certain students (by imposing RFID or counseling some students out) then the entire system is in jeopardy.

Troublesome student writing after Sandy Hook

I blogged shortly after the Sandy Hook tragedy in Newtown, CT about the potential impact such an event would have on student speech, and in particular, student writings. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were writers of a sort and after the fact, many questioned why English teachers, administrators, and friends couldn't dissect those writings to prevent the horrific event that occurred.  After Columbine in 1999, many of our nation's public school administrators responded in a very natural way - over reaction, fear, and intolerance - in particular to student writings that were dark, violence, or disturbing. This led to a number of student speech cases wherein courts referred to Columbine as an event that all school administrators are aware of and are attempting to prevent. While student speech rights faced some difficulties after Columbine, over time Hazelwood, Fraser, and Tinker (and eventually Morse) reemerged as the landmark cases we could all rely on.

Student writing is again on the forefront after Sandy Hook. In San Francisco, Courtni Webb, a 17-year-old charter school student, was suspended for the content of a poem she wrote in which she stated that she understood why Adam Lanza did what he did. She offered a brief commentary on the state of society as she saw it writing, “I know why he pulled the trigger. Why are we oppressed by a dysfunctional community of haters and blamers?” Webb made no threats of violence in her poem nor did she turn the poem in for class credit - a teacher found the poem and turned it over to administrators. Webb likened herself to a young Stephen King and noted that she often writes about sadness and other emotional topics. The school maintains a zero tolerance approach to threats of violence and apparently felt the student writing was just that although Webb maintains she has no disciplinary record to indicate she is a potential threat.

Violence in student writing is nothing new, but the issues will be renewed after Sandy Hook. Removing the charter school issue from Webb's scenario, the implications are still there for public schools - how do we best allow students to be creative, thoughtful, and provocative writers while still maintaining school safety? I argue in favor of writing - only because as a former English teacher I know how important meaningful and personal writing can be to adolescents. But I also know the difficulty of handing over a piece of student writing to a principal and asking "What if???" There are no easy answers here but as legal scholars and educators we must be vigilant of the issues that arise quickly within one day and ready to respond swiftly in a defensible fashion.

Any suggestions?

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. 

I Wasn’t Trained For This…

I have enjoyed perusing the various Edjurist blogs and, for that reason, I am slightly awed by my affiliation with such a prestigious group of legal scholars. However, I will do my best to add to the various micro and macro discussions on school law topics. 

I strive to keep channels of communication open between former students and myself, especially as they enter into formal leadership positions, since this conduit proves a valuable gauge of current legal issues. One student, currently in his first year as an administration – he was hired as a middle school principal, had questions surrounding his work with a struggling teacher. At the end of our conversation he mentioned, almost in passing, that he appreciated all that he learned in school law but nothing done in that course prepared him for the myriad of issues he has faced in the first few months as principal in the arena of family law.

I asked him to document these experiences and here is a brief synopsis of some of the challenges this first year principal has faced:

• There is a pending divorce between the parents of one student. The student is struggling with attendance issues, to the point that a judge has ordered her to return to school. Mother claims daughter is afraid of father and both parents request notification of any absences or early releases for the daughter.
• A student’s mother died a number of years ago in a car accident. Since that time the student has lived with his maternal grandparents. His biological father was completely absent so the custodians of this minor were only able to obtain temporary legal rights related to his care. The biological father has recently returned to the area. There is a pending custodial hearing, but the biological father took the student into his custody and transferred him to a different school.
• Two siblings are caught in the middle of grandparents fighting for custodial rights since the parents recently died. The attendance secretary is asked to testify in a custody hearing about the attendance patterns of the students when they stay with each set of grandparents.
• A mother and a stepmother, both of who have legal access to the educational information related to a student, have restraining orders against one another. The restraining orders dictate that the two are not to know the home address of the other person and, yet, the student lives with one of the two ladies.

I do not address family law issues directly when teaching school law, but perhaps I need to do so. However, at what expense? There is only so much time in a semester and school law is littered with essential topics. This conundrum is at the heart of Levine’s 2005 scathing commentary on the declining quality of educational leadership programs – do those engaged in preparing educational leaders structure programs that are financially viable (reduce the number of credits required for graduation and consolidate curricula) or create comprehensive educational experiences that genuinely empower graduates to become educational leaders? The answer for too many educational leadership programs is more along the lines of the former option.

I could justify my efforts in school law by stressing that a graduate of an educational leadership program qualifies for a principal license, which signifies nothing more than an entry-level skillset (Adams & Copland, 2007, p. 160). Clearly, the process of developing effective school leaders must be continued by school districts in the form of induction and mentoring programs. Perhaps the family law issues enumerated above are of a unique nature that any principal would seek direction from central office personnel. And yet, I am left wondering and I will definitely revisit the importance of family law issues the next time I teach school law.