Back from AALS

I just returned from the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (the AALS) in New Orleans.  For those of you not familiar with the organization, it is the primary professional academic organization on the law side (like AERA for education).  The conference spans several days, during which time many papers are presented, many panels convene, and many hours are happy. 

The AALS also includes an Education Law section, which puts on a program at every meeting.  I was fortunate enough to be chosen for this year's program, and I presented a work in progess analyzing the provisions of the Louisiana Constitution relating to education in the context of the reforms now occurring in the Orleans Parish Schools.  The other presenters were Rob Garda of Loyola New Orleans Law, who gave a great overview and predictive analysis of the reforms viewed from the ground level in Orleans Parish, and Daniel Kiel of Memphis Law, who analyzed the current situation in Orleans from a federal equal protection perspective.  Stetson Law's Mark Bauer did a great job organizing the program, and we were proud to elect out new leader, Kristi Bowman, of Michigan State Law, at the conclusion of the presentations and discussion. 

This was my first time at the conference, and I will be back.  More to come on another panel that I attended as a spectator . . .

What if ...

What if education reporters were like sports reporters? After years of being lauded by the very same media, how many of our "performance enhancing" (not cheating on those tests, mind you) superintendents would be under collective fire until they held a tear-filled press conference?

Why Charter Schools Bother Me

This case really illustrates why charter schools fundamentally bother me. Here is a summary of it (I did this for the School Law Reporter, and since I am putting this one out for free, do me a favor and consider joining ELA):

Northern Kane Ed Corp v. Cambridge Lakes Educ Ass'n, 914. N.E.2d 1286 (Ill. App., 4th Dist., 2009). A teacher union’s ability to organize and represent the teachers of an Illinois charter school was at issue in this case. Reversing the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, the appellate court found that the charter school authorizing statute excluded the provisions giving bargaining rights to public school teachers. The court interpreted the statutory provision reading, “[a] charter school is exempt from all other state laws and regulations in the School Code” as including the provisions of the Education Labor Act, while the union argued that the Education Labor Act was a distinct law from the School Code. The Court did note that Illinois subsequently passed a separate law providing coverage of the Education Labor Act over charter schools, but that the law could not be applied ex post facto to the school district.  

So, a legislature, in this case Illinois, writes a law saying "exempt from all other state laws in the School Code" without really defining anything else.

Um ... then what?

Actually, I'll tell you what comes next ... a whole bunch of lawsuits like this one. And we're just at the tip of the iceberg on these charter school lawsuits. This is going to be an enormous mess legally.

Here are the questions, for instance: Did the legislature intend to give charter school teachers bargaining rights? Did it not? What's the legislative history say? Should we pull out some statutory interpretation rules? What does public policy prefer? Should judges be making these policy decisions in the first place? And, does it stop there? What about due process elements for teachers? What about tort immunity laws? What about workplace safety laws? What about, what about, what about ... it's sort of endless.

Basically, courts (largely ignorant when it comes to sound educational policy) are left to guess and fill in all the holes because a legislature got ahead of themselves in writing these charter laws. It has taken us a hundred years to fill in the details of school law in the United States (fifty times over, in fact). To try and just sweep that away in one fell swoop is irresponsible at best. Sure, that 100 years of law is an enormous bureaucratic hurdle and it hampers educational innovation. I get that. But, every single one of those laws (even crazy ones like this one, see section c) is there for a reason to protect some kid, some teacher, some parent, some administrator and the schools themselves. If you don't like those rules, change them. Tweak them. Reform them. But, don't just try and get rid of them... all ... at once. 

I get that everyone wants to blame the law. It's an easy and politically expedient target. I get it. But, the law is not the problem most of the time. The law is not what is holding our schools back. There is a lot of flexibility already built into the system. Certainly enough to make massive changes as a school leader and there is flexibility in our democratic system that we can change the laws when they get out of date. 

Charter schools are a quick fix, a cop out in some ways, and like any other quick fix they frequently cause more problems (and litigation) than just putting in the hard work to fix the law in the first place would have done. This case is just one small example of what is likely to continue to be a growing trend.

Body Scanners in Schools ... Tick, Tock

Photocredit: John&Julie CHow long until these new body scanners enter the school house?

It's probably inevitable that some school will do it sooner or later, so let me try to head this one off now.

First, ethically ... c'mon. Your fooling yourself if you think scanning millions of kids this way is worth it, even if you do catch a couple extra weapons entering the school.

Second, Britain found an issue with these body scanners and child pornography laws, as the images created by the scanners may be detailed enough to amount to a "graphic image" of the child. I haven't compared our laws, but I would expect similar issues.

Third, more fundamentally, consider this summer's Supreme Court case of Safford v. Redding.

We do mean, though, to make it clear that the T.L.O. concern to limit a school search to reasonable scope requires the support of reasonable suspicion of danger or of resort to underwear for hiding evidence of wrongdoing before a search can reasonably make the quantum leap from outer clothes and backpacks to exposure of intimate parts. The meaning of such a search, and the degradation its subject may reasonably feel, place a search that intrusive in a category of its own demanding its own specific suspicions.

Given that this full body scanner reveals quite a bit of a students "intimate parts," I think schools will have a very difficult time making the case that such a scan is legal. Remember, the bar here for schools is fairly high. The full body scanner cannot be considered a search at all for this to work in place of metal detectors. Metal detectors are not a search, per se, because metal detectors only examine the airspace around the student and students have no expectation of privacy in that airspace. But, I think it would be a difficult case to say these full body scanners function under a similar legal theory in schools (although I could see how the case would be made). In my opinion, the difference is not one of degree it is one of the expectation of privacy. No part of one's body is revealed when passing under a metal detector that wouldn't otherwise be revealed not passing through the metal detector. But, with the full body scanners, I think something additional, something not intended, is revealed. Thus, the legal theory that this is not a "search" doesn't really hold water and if it is a search, it must meet the reasonable suspicion legal test.

Now, how I could see these used is possibly in place of a strip search once reasonable suspicion has been established. Certainly, I think, it is less of an invasion of privacy to examine a student's body through a scanner than actually making the student physically remove his or her garments. So, that could be a legal foothold for these body scanners. But, even then, I would heavily warn against it. While it might be technically better than a physical strip search, the body scans are very close to strip searches anyway, which, after Redding, require some pretty high danger thresholds to meet. I think putting them in the schools would just encourage school authorities to use it against pretty clear discouragement from the Supreme Court.

I'm fairly confident that we'll have to deal with these in the relative near future if for no other reason than airports represent a fairly small market and schools represent an enormous market (and there are some pretty big players manufacturing these). But, unlike metal detectors, the legal justification for these is simply not as strong. So, we'll see, but schools would be well served to play a wait and see approach with these. Not only may the technology become less intrusive over time, but assuredly there is going to be a decent amount of litigation coming out of the transportation sector, so we should probably wait and see how that plays out first.

Putting it All Together - Education, Technology & Law

Finally this semester I get a chance to pull it all together in writing ... and I'm excited. 

It's been tough until now not only because I have been busy with lots of other important stuff, but also because it took a lot of time to learn how to frame the technology argument and embed it within a legal argument. Most folks natural inclination toward law is that it is typically conservative and frequently anti-innovation. And, the natural response to that is anti-law (and that's where I was for a while). But, while that is true in a lot of ways (example), it is not entirely accurate. Many laws may be written in a way that minimizes technology's impact, but underlying those laws are other laws that are in fact quite friendly to technology. And, at the bottom of our legal system, our Constitution is actually quite friendly toward technology, innovation, change, adaptation, etc. It's a document that has survived and prospered for 200+ years now, so I think it can probably handle these latest changes as well. It's just a matter of how we interpret those words in light of our new economy and societal situation. 

The idea is that you can hook up the legal literature (from judges, law professors, legislators, etc.) related to education with the emerging literature on twenty-first century learning and business. It's clear by now that this Internet thing is sort of important. And, that global awareness and competitiveness is essential. So, once you don't have convince people of that so much, then you are free to apply these ideas to the legal literature. In fact, that is where much of the debate is likely to turn in the near future. Once the ideas gain acceptance (and, granted we are not all the way there yet but the Big Fish are close), attention must turn to implementation within the existing legal structure. And, for that, we are going to need some help. And, there you have it. A writing niche for me. 

So, you'll probably be hearing a lot of that argument from me over the coming months and years. 

The California Higher Ed. Funding Amendment

I sort of like it. It makes the right kind of statement. Here is the official summary. And here is Gov. Schwarzenegger's rationale:

California universities are known around the world as the crown jewel of California’s education system. Until recent years, California’s priorities were clear: the state dedicated approximately 10 percent of its General Fund to higher education and just three percent on prisons. Today, California spends more than 10 percent on prisons and seven percent on higher education.

It was delivered today in his last state of the state address. Of course, Mark Yudof, the President of the University of California system, likes it and sent around this analysis, including this chart. 

The issue of prison spending to higher education funding was an interesting one to me, so I decided to check out what other states are spending. I found this excellent data from Pew which PBS put into a map (see page 15-16 & 31 in the Pew Report). Notice there is a discrepancy between what Pew says about California and what the Governor says, but I assume that is easily explained (if someone wants to do the research to prove either way, please let me know). But, I wanted to view the data differently though for all states, so below you can see the result. 

This is a heatmap of the ratio of $1 spent on higher education to prison spending. You can see the range is from some states like Minnesota spending around $0.20 on prisons for every dollar spent on higher education to Vermont, Michigan, Oregon and Connecticut which spend over a $1.00 on prisons for every higher education dollar (if you want to see the exact numbers, see page 16 and 31 of the report). 

But, as if that is not concerning enough, it is the growth in overall prison spending that might be the most concerning (p.15): 

In 1987, states collectively spent $33 billion of their general funds on higher education. By 2007, they were spending $72.88 billion, an increase of 121 percent. Adjusted to 2007 dollars, the increase was 21 percent. Over the same timeframe, inflation-adjusted corrections spending rose 127 percent, from $10.6 billion ($19.4 billion in 2007 dollars) to more than $44 billion. 

So, I sort of like California's idea here. Surely this will make legislator's jobs more difficult, but so be it. That's what constitutions are for and using the constitution in this manner strikes me as appropriate (although I know there will be some who disagree). All this "tough on crime" political speak has got us in a situation where to be hard on crime it requires legislators to be soft on schools. I applaud California's efforts to draw the line and hope more states look into their funding priorities in a similar manner. 

Some Book Reviews

I have meant to get some of these reviews up a while ago, but I have been struggling to keep my blogging time lately (the wife and I are expecting twins in May 2010 and I have been busy trying to get ahead on my research). Anyway, I'll sort of do short reviews here and if you have specific questions, leave a comment and I can go in more detail. 

Cluetrain Manifesto: 4 out of 5 and a nice historical read. (Amazon) (Overview Video)

I really didn't know what to expect from this book. It is sort of seen as one of, if not the, seminal work that heralded in the details of the Information Age. The problem is that it was written in 2001 and so I was worried that it would be too old and all the ideas would be common knowledge now. I would say that my guess was about half right. All the references to the intranet did get a little old and the big players of that day are not the big players today (reading it one would have thought Sun Microsystems was responsible for it all). The 95 theses are the heart of the book and do have a multitude of ideas, but I think 50 would have been plenty. Further, the book gets a little too ambitious at times for my taste. All the ideas about business being redefined entirely were a bit much. But, what I loved was their vision in 2001. They clearly saw where this was going and tried to warn people that they must change their ways or be run over. They were speaking to business, and many businesses have been run over already, but I think there are many relevant points for education as well. Certainly enough that it is worth your time to read this relatively small book packed with an outstanding vision. 

The Bottom Billion: 4.25 out of 5 - a must read for social activists. (Amazon) (Overview Video)

I enjoyed this book, although it will be more economically focused than most people will like. Further, the other thing that annoyed me slightly was the author's heavy reliance on his own work (as if he has all the answers). But, outside of the economic focus and the self-referencing, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. The author identified traps that countries fall into and can't get out of; they get stuck in a repeating pattern away from development that includes civil wars, natural resource traps, logistical problems, and bad neighborhoods. These traps keep countries from developing and the rest of the world is not helping out all that much because they are not addressing these fundamental traps with their aid. It's a provocative argument and one that I have trouble disagreeing with in general (although specific points are debatable). As I was reading it though, certainly I thought there were lessons for U.S. states as well. We don't have coups on a regular basis for sure, but the landlocked issues, the bad neighborhood issues, the natural resource issues (hello, Kentucky ... coal!) and even the problems with federal aid sort of seem to cross over not just from The Bottom Billion, but to our bottom 100 million here in the U.S. as well. Anyway, the take away is the idea that uninformed social activism really isn't all that helpful. There are real barriers to development that once removed allow societies to enter the global marketplace. Pouring in aid that doesn't address these barriers makes folks in the Western world sleep better at night, but doesn't fundamentally alter the futures of those folks stuck in the bottom billion. 

The Assault on Reason: 2 out of 5 - not worth it at all (Amazon) (Overview Video)

This book was an utter disaster, so don't bother with it. I enjoyed Gore's arguments on climate change, so I thought I would give him another spin on larger democratic issues ... my mistake. It was basically a Bush bashing book. Now, I dislike George Bush and his time as President as much as the next guy, but this was beating a dead horse. Not just a little beating the dead horse ... hours and hours of doing it. I totally understand Al Gore's resentment of George Bush (yes, the election probably was stolen from Gore), but that's the breaks and there is no use in ruining your reputation on a personal vendetta (although he would never admit that and takes pains to make it seem impartial). Anyway, I don't want to spend more time on it because I still thank Al Gore for making us aware of climate change. So, keep your positive picture of him and don't read this book.

Earth: The Sequel: 3.5 out of 5 - Details on the Energy Revolution (Amazon) (Overview Video) 

When I say details ... I mean a heck of a lot of them. I literally think this book introduces you to over 150 new companies that are all trying to make money on the new energy revolution. The crazy thing is that none of them are profitable. The crazier thing is that all of them have good ideas. The market is not going to support all of these good ideas, but it will support some of them - even without the market reflecting the true cost of coal and oil. If Congress gets their act together this upcoming year and lets the market be more reflective of the truth, then the market may well support a lot of these new companies. The book doesn't have any breakthrough ideas on which energy source may be the leader of the revolution, but it does give you a whole lot more data on how those companies are likely to emerge (and if you are smart, you can start to think about how you can get involved/make money from this). So, why the low rating? It was not exactly an easy read. There was too much detail and it really took a lot of energy to listen to details on the 129th company. But, if you are legitimately interested in understanding how the Green Revolution is likely to play out, then pick up a copy. 

Nudge: 2 out of 5 - I'm nudging you against it (Amazon) 

I really disliked this book, but I think a lot of you will like it. I am skeptical generally of behavioral control, or behavioral economics as it is being called ... call it my own libertarian streak (this is not unlike the part of me that disliked Outliers). Libertarian is important here, because the authors call their ideological background libertarian paternalism. Here's my rub, though. In order for this framework to work and nudges to be necessary, people must be stupid (of, okay, let's say underinformed). What kind of ideology starts with the proposition that people are stupid, they will always be stupid, so some of us (who knows who gets to pick) need to nudge them into doing things that we think are best for them (if they knew what we knew, they would make the same decision too). How incredibly undemocratic. The collective will rarely make the right decision and some group of elite need to make the right decisions (and build choice architecture). Who gets to make the decisions ... well, law professors, I guess. Anyway, you get what I took from it. They make a benign case, of course, but the natural endpoint is a scary place for me. 

Innovator's Solution: 4.5 out of 5 - A wonderful business book (Amazon) (Overview Video)

I normally don't like business books, so I'll call this one an innovation book within the context of business. I liked this one because there was so much to take away. The basic idea is that there are a set of good business practices that allow small companies to compete with the big boys if you are in a disruptive marketplace (i.e. not just improving on an existing product, but creating a new new product niche). But, all those good business practices are just good business practices to me anytime. It's a model that puts innovation at the forefront and I really think that organizations, especially educational organizations, must always be innovators. Pretty much every few pages there was another good idea that I can apply to my own business. Anyway, get on the disruptive innovation curve and pick up a copy, I don't think you will regret it.  

Making it Cool Because It is Necessary

A nice quote from a NY Times article on computing education:

Hybrid careers ... that combine computing with other fields will increasingly be the new American jobs of the future, labor experts say. In other words, the nation’s economy is going to need more cool nerds. But not enough young people are embracing computing — often because they are leery of being branded nerds.

I have certainly found that to be true in my own job. I'm an educational law guy that knows a lot about computing/technology. It opens lots of doors that otherwise wouldn't be opened. And, I'm not all that interested in hiring people to work with me if they don't also bring at least some background in technology. It's just an essential component of today's (not tomorrow's) careers.

h/t Sylvia Martinez

New Adequacy Suit in Florida

A new state constitutional challenge based on educational adequacy has been filed as Case No. 2009 CA 004534 in the Circuit Court for the 2nd Judicial Circuit, Leon County, Florida.  

The plaintiffs, a collection of advocacy groups, parents, and students, seek a judicial declaration that the education system in Florida fails to meet the constitutional command that "Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education," pursuant to "a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders."   

The last time an adequacy challenge was brought in Florida, the Florida Supreme Court dismissed it on separation of powers grounds (see here), but that decision was rendered prior to a constitutional amendment strengthening the language surrounding the statement of the duty of the State.  It will be interesing to see where this goes. 

Rose at 20 - The Symposium

This is the third and final installment in the Rose series from the Rose at 20 event we held in cooperation with the University of Kentucky (ed & law) and the Education Law Association. The prior two installments are here (the players) and here (the Governor).

In this installment, we have the symposium that constituted the second half of the program. This component was more nationally focused about the future of education finance, having reflected on the twenty years of school finance adequacy cases post Rose (the first half of the program was more local focused). The speakers we invited for the second half of the program were Craig Wood of the University of Florida, William Thro of Christopher Newport University, and William Koski of Stanford University Law School. These three will be publishing their papers in a special issue of the Kentucky Law Journal set to arrive next year (I'll announce when it is ready and I'm happy to report all the papers are in!). Finally, the symposium was moderated by Kern Alexander, who not only is a school finance scholar himself, but was also a central player in the Rose litigation (and his ideas impacted all subsequent litigation). Thanks to all of those scholars for participating.

Anyway, on with the show:

Rose at 20: Kentucky Law Journal Symposium from UK College of Education on Vimeo.

If you want any more information about Rose or the Rose at 20 event, please contact us here at UK and we'll be happy to accommodate. 

A New CASTLE Blog: 1 to 1 Schools

Excited to pass along word of the latest of the growing CASTLE blogging stable: 1 to 1 Schools. Scott McLeod has all the details here and I can say that I met Nick Sauers (the main author who is also a former principal) and was very impressed by him so I look forward to some great information. I even granted his interview request to talk about legal issues (it was a little on the spot to pardon my stumbling around). Anyway, CASTLE continues to grow and I can't wait to start telling you about our efforts here in Kentucky to support CASTLE as well.

Cert. Grant in Christian Legal Society Case

Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the 9th Circuit case out of UC-Hastings College of the Law arising from the denial of student activity funds to a campus religious group. 

The Christian Legal Society is an organization open to all members to the UC-Hastings community, but only members who affirm that they are both Christian and heterosexual can vote or hold office.  The College of Law based its denial of funding on its anti-discrimination policy.  The student group's challenge is based on the theory that the application of the College's policy to it is an impermissible infringement on the First Amendment expressive associational rights of the members. 

Paul Caron has collected numerous helpful links related to the case here.  You can track the case at Scotus Blog, as well. 

Databases and RSS Feeds - Extending Information Flow

Spent some wonderful time today with our education librarian, Brad Carrington. I had a specific purpose related to our College's dissertations, but we stumbled onto an area that I think can be really helpful in the future ... query-based rss feeds from educational datasets.

So, here is the "educational law" query rss feed from the ERIC database ... and ... there are some surprisingly useful things in there. I added it to my Google Reader. You can also search by author, so here is the RSS for "Bathon" using an author search (yeah, I know not a lot is indexed). But, here is the author RSS for Martha McCarthy (which is much more useful). Anyway, you get the picture.

Some other datasets are now incorporating this feature, like dissertation abstracts (login required), but not all are there yet. The legal databases have sort of been there for a while with their alerts features, but I find those less useful than the RSS feeds, which I can have in my e-mail like the alerts, but I can also put in my reader, embed on a blog, put on my facebook page, etc.

Use your own search terms to create your own RSS feeds and then put them in your reader.

Rose at 20 - The Players

This is the second installment (first here) of the Rose at 20 videos from the ELA conference in Louisville. See here for details and thank yous.

In this video, Debra Dawahare, the counsel for the plaintiffs and Ray Corns, the district court judge, tell their stories about the case and reflect on its impact and the future of school finance in Kentucky. At the beginning, our new Deans of the Education and Law school introduce themselves.

Rose at 20: Debra Dawahare, Esq. and Judge Ray Corns from UK College of Education on Vimeo.

Again, thanks to Brad Duncan for doing the recording.

UCEA Flavor

Sorry I didn't post much during #UCEA09, but Internet access was spotty (at best) and there really was only a couple law sessions. Anyway, to get a little flavor of the conference, you can check out the videos Scott McLeod shot. It's a good way to get a sense of the conference and, if you are intrigued, we're in New Orleans next year (during Halloween ... yeah! - hoping my wife will let me go!). 

The Debate over Higher Education Costs in California

California's budget has reached crisis, and it is slouching toward catastrophe, by the looks of it.  At AERA last Spring, I learned that California's budget shortfall at that time was larger than the actual budgets of many of the other states.  Since then, the leaders of the state have engaged in all manner of cutting, slashing, and reorganizing to close the budget gap, but the leadership is substantially hamstrung by the state constitution's provisions limiting local property taxation and requiring a supermajority to pass a tax bill.  Thus, to shore up the state's higher education system, the most recently approved measure has been to greatly increase tuition in the UC system, such that, in the near future, one might have to pay as much as $60,000 per year to attend UC as an out-of-state law student.  Of course, if you are in-state, you get a break--it will only cost you $50,000 per year to attend law school at UC-Davis, for example, in 2012-13.  Remember, this is just tuition--not the whole bill. 

In response to this dire scenario, Michael O'Hare at The Reality Based Community has posted a very interesting and thought-provoking cost-benefit-based analysis of the question whether higher education should be subsidized by the state.  Check it out here. 

Rose at 20: Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear

Over the course of the next couple weeks, I'll be releasing the videos from the Rose at 20 event in Louisville celebrating the Rose v. Council for Better Education case. This event was a partnership between the UK College of Education, College and Law, Kentucky Law Journal, and the Education Law Association, with funding provided by Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs.

Today, the first of those is the Governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear. The first part of this speech, really the first 7-8 minutes, is absolute gold. I was really highly impressed with the Governor and he was really being honest in his statements because he was a player in the litigation as the Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky around the time of the case. He brought a good deal of political heft and class to the event. Enjoy:

Rose at 20: Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear from UK College of Education on Vimeo.

Thanks to Brad Duncan for doing the video recording and processing. 

Freedom of the Press IS Freedom of the Internet

When most people think of "freedom of the press" in the First Amendment, I think they think of a freedom that is associated with news reporters (those folks that work for newspapers, radio, TV, etc.). I don't think that is what the founders meant. The words press and media and other terms nowadays refer to specific elements of news reporting (because of their historically close association as users of that technology) ... but they have broader meanings that were used more heavily during the founders time. The press referred to the printing press (as in paper was "pressed" against a dye to replicate information) and media as a plural of medium, an information intermediary. If you look at the Oxford English Dictionary and their earliest usage references (click on previous 3 links), it seems much more likely that press meant the actual printing press as the earliest references to press and media as people instead of machines happened about the time or slightly after the time the Constitution was written. In other words, the medium as much as, or more than, the content or the purveyors of that content. 

As Al Gore points out, in his largely otherwise forgettable book the Assault on Reason, the physical object of the printing press was the technology largely responsible for the Enlightenment and subsequently the reestablishment of democracy in America. Thus, protecting the physical object was as important or more important to the founders than protecting the content that the physical object replicated.

By extension, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom ... of the press" could be interpreted these days, I think appropriately, as "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom ... of the Internet."

Credit: Matt Britt via WikipediaBasically, the Internet is just a much wider and more powerful collection of printing presses (think of each node in the image to the right as a printing press). It is the distribution capacity that has changed, but the basic theoretical component of a machine that replicates and distributes information has not changed. Thus, it is no extension of the constitution to apply to the historical protections afforded the press directly to the Internet.

I am sure other scholars have made this point, and probably numerously so, but it was a realization that occurred to me over the weekend and I wanted to pass it along. If someone has a reference to a paper that makes this point further, I would much appreciate it.

Copyright and Lesson Plans - A Rejoinder from Tom H.

Tom Hoffman at TuttleSVC, a longtime friend of the blog, has taken the copyright post on teachers selling lesson plans to the logical next level of whether this information is even capable of being copyrighted at all. It is a good post and I encourage you to continue our ongoing conversation on this issue over there. There is such good conversation on this issue, and so many implications, it looks like I am going to be forced to write an article on this one.

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.