ECS Reauthorization Database

Stumbled across this a couple of days ago and I just wanted to pass along the link. I am getting a lot of questions from school personnel lately regarding the reauthorization and what different groups are saying ... and, the Education Commission of the States and their top notch policy analyst Mary Fulton have put together a database on just that issue. So here are the links:

No Child Left Behind Reauthorization Database

And from the ECS Press Release:

According
to the ECS synthesis and analysis of 15 key education policy
stakeholders across 16 issues, the greatest collective agreement
emerged in the following areas:

• Allow growth models for calculating Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
• Provide more flexibility for students with disabilities and English Language Learners (ELL)
• Provide adequate funding to support NCLB requirements
• Build state and local capacity to assist low-performing schools
• Offer high-quality professional development
• Target assistance and interventions to the highest-need schools and students

And, finally, ECS has a Reauthorization Survey that you can take or direct your friends to take.

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.

Fed Chair Bernanke: Education is a Good Investment

If you are reading this blog, you probably already know that education
is a good investment because most readers have devoted their life to
education in some form or another. But, just in case you had any
remaining doubts, the nation's top economist has confirmed your
suspicions.

         

 Education is the best investment not only for workers but also for the
economy in a time of continuing competitive strain, Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday.

"Education lifelong education for everyone from toddlers to
workers well advanced in their careers is indeed an excellent
investment for individuals and society as a whole," said Bernanke. He
spent most of his professional life as a teacher and is married to one. ...

Although the United States has long been a leader in expanding
educational opportunities, it also has long grappled with challenges
such as troubling high-school dropout rates, particularly for minority
and immigrant youths, as well as frustratingly slow and uneven progress
in raising test scores, he said.

Continue Reading

While
this comes as no surprise to educators or lawyers that work for
educators, apparently in some of the nation's governing bodies this
fact is not so clear ... as schools are consistently underfunded and
the price of higher education is continuing to rise beyond the
affordability point for many young Americans even at public schools.
So, next time you are in a debate about school funding ... know that
you have the economists on your side.

9th Circuit Strip Search Case: Redding v. Stafford

The Adjunt Law Prof Blog has the scoop this morning on a 9th Circuit case which upheld the use of a strip search in K-12 schools. In the case of Redding v. Stafford Unified School Dist. out of Arizona, two students were subjected to a strip search after the principal of the school had a tips regarding some students bringing illegal prescription drugs on campus. The 9th Circuit went through the New Jersey v. T.L.O. criteria in determining that the strip search was both justified at its inception and was justified in scope under the reasonable suspicion standard.

After reading the case, I have to disagree with the majority in this case. I echo the dissenting thoughts of Justice Thomas:

I must respectfully part company from my friends in the

majority. As we have said “[i]t does not require a constitutional

scholar to conclude that a nude search of a thirteenyear-

old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some

magnitude. More than that: it is a violation of any known

principle of human dignity.” Calabretta v. Floyd, 189 F.3d

808, 819 (9th Cir. 1999).

Thirteen-year-old Savana Redding, an honor roll student

with no prior disciplinary problems, was required to strip,

exposing her breasts and pubic area, in a fruitless search for

— at worst — prescription strength ibuprofen. Savana had no

history of drug involvement of any type, nor was she alleged

to have any connection to illegal drug distribution. Rather,

school officials based their actions entirely on uncorroborated

statement by a student that Savana had given her a few ibuprofen

tablets. The school officials did not suspect that the

pills were something other than ibuprofen. The nurse recognized

the pill immediately as an ibuprofen tablet. At no point

did the school officials ask Savana’s mother to be present for

the search, nor did they permit Savana to call her mother or

any other relative during her two and a half hour detention.

School officials discovered nothing in the search. Given these

circumstances, I would hold that the unwarranted intrusion on

Savana’s privacy violated the Fourth Amendment.

How can a strip search of a 13 year old be considered reasonable in scope when searching for Ibuprofen? Sure, having and passing out prescription drugs is wrong and the search of the backpack was fine. But was it necessary to strip search her? How about searching her locker first or calling her parent ... or calling the cops? Any of these methods would have been more reasonable in scope and likely more productive in obtaining any illegal drugs and/or reprimanding the offending student. I personally feel this is clearly outside the bounds of the Constitution and even further outside the bounds of common sense. I continue to urge school administrators to refrain from strip searches of students of any age. If the search is that important that it is necessary to expose the most private parts of a student's body, it is important enough to get the police involved. The court may have found the school administrator's conduct legal in this case, but that does not mean it was ethical and that also does not mean it was the best available action in response to the incident.

Jena Case, Taser Case

I have been asked by many students lately about both the Jena case out of Louisiana and the Taser case out of Florida, so I decided to post a few videos about both of these incidents, which both related to education law. So much for the slow education law days of August.

First, on the Jena case:

Here is a video about the case generally by NBC:

Here is a more recent clip about the latest developments:

Second, a little video on the tasering incident at a John Kerry speech at the University of Florida:

First I suggest you watch either or both of these videos from news sites on the incident:

CNN News

ABC News

Then, if you desire, here is a full and uncut video of the incident (note: this video is graphic with some bad language and violence):

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.
   

NCLB Reauthorization Hearings Begin & Countdown Widget

Well, the hearings on NCLB Reauthorization have begun. You can the watch the initial House Committee Hearing online here.

Also, the NY Times documents the various groups that have already spoken up in opposition to various parts of the law, which the School and Education Law Blog noted earlier.

And, finally, not to increase the pressure, but I created a NCLB Expiration Countdown which I posted in the sidebar. We are already closer to expiration than I thought.

Upgrades to Podcasting Capability

My blog host has decided that they need to have Podcasting capability, which is fine with me, however they decided to stop supporting some designs during this change over. Unfortunately, the design I was using was one of the ones that got cut (and I know you all loved it so). Anyway, over the next couple of days the site will undergo various changes mostly to the design. During this time, you should still be able to read posts and search.

After this upgrade is complete, I am really anxious to introduce some new features I have been working on. Just a hint, some involve widgets! (No seriously, there is such a thing as widgets on the Internet, they are not just fictional products in law schools). There will also be some more basic information about the authors and a blogroll (finally).

Anyway, thank you in advance for your patience as we transition.

-- Justin

Gabcast! Edjurist Podcasts #0

Odd Search & Seizure Case from Illinois: Dean Enters Home Looking for Evidence with Mother in Shower

This is one of the odder search and seizure cases I have
seen. The case comes from Illinois. Apparently, a school Dean was looking for
evidence from a previous incident at school. To obtain this evidence, the Dean
had one of his students take him to the student's house and let him in. While
the student's mother was in the shower, the Dean found the knife he was looking
for, took it, and left. All without notifying the student's mother. Here is the
Sun-Times account of the facts:

He was looking for a knife Tyler
D'Allesandro, then 12, said he had inadvertently taken to school in 2006. Tyler
said he doesn't know how the knife from his father's workshop got into his
school bag.

But the Indian Trail Junior High
student noticed it there and pointed it out to his friend. The friend took it,
and then a third boy, whom Tyler did not know, grabbed it and brandished it
toward other students "in a menacing manner," according to a federal
lawsuit the family filed.

Tyler's friend put the knife back in
the school bag. Tyler went home thinking the incident was over. That was on
Friday, Sept. 22, of last year.

But on the following Monday morning,
a parent complained to the school's dean, Michael Brumbaugh. According to the
lawsuit, Brumbaugh drove Tyler home and told Tyler to let him in. Tyler's
mother, Kelly D'Allesandro, was inside taking a shower, and Brumbaugh knew
that, the suit said.

Continued: Here is the URL of the Sun Times Story (sorry, hyperlinking to this
article did not work, copy and paste): http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/548369,CST-NWS-knife09.article




What an odd search on the part of the school Dean. Even with the student's
permission, entering the student's home (even if no one was home) seems clearly
out of line (so much so, I would imagine immunity would be out of the question,
as may indemnity). I know we have zero-tolerance policies against knifes, but
this is over the line. If he wanted that knife that badly, how about calling
the cops and getting a warrant? Or, here is a radical idea, how about calling
the student's parents first and asking them?

Lawyers and Education

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



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




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

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

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

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

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

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



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



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

Plageriarism in Educational Leadership Doctoral Dissertations

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



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





Here are some links in case anyone else is interested.



Poshard defends himself here.

Chronicle of Higher Education story
here.

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

More NCLB Action

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

               

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

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