Education Law

Friday Snippets: 3/21/08 - Tough Week for Teachers

By Justin Bathon

A teacher forced a Florida boy to go in a lunchbox ... in the back of the room ... with everyone watching. (shaking head)

Teachers also ... please don't bite students.

Or wake students up that are sleeping in class with loud noises. (Quizlaw doesn't buy it).

Or throw punches at each other in front of students (not the best week for teachers!).

Or call a student a terrorist.


States may be given a little more leeway when it comes to sanctions for schools that don't meet AYP (read my policy brief of NCLB Sanctions here).

Dr. Spellings is asking us all to give NCLB another chance as some provisions are eased.

Also, the Department of Education is accused of partisan photo-ops such as in Minnesota where they stopped to take pictures with Norm Coleman, who has a significant and expensive fight with Al Franken coming up for U.S. Senate. (Not to fear, Al Franken was on Letterman this week ... and talked NCLB policy).

Fingerprint scanning in schools? Stateline has a great analysis and shows how it works. Also, a concerned parent that is keeping an eye on it.

Illinois' controversial moment of silence law is going to the courts and a judge basically allowed everyone in the state to join in as a party in what is now a class-action suit.

Illinois and the Fed. seemed to have agreed on testing plan for children of immigrants ... but that doesn't mean folks are happy about it.

Some in NY are trying to preempt test score based employment decisions (merit pay).

Michigan's Affirmative Action ban was found to be constitutional.

A new front is opening in the Utah voucher battle (more).

Following up from last week ... Gov. Crist in Florida opposes the Baggy Pants Bill.

ABC News has a story (video) saying the more sex ed ... the fewer teen pregnancies.

Also ABC has a look back (video) at news reports on school busing limitations during the Nixon Administration. (we have come so far in some ways ... and in others are still fighting the same battles).

And, finally, you can't hit on the highlights of this week without mentioning Barack Obama's speech, A More Perfect Union (video, check out the number of hits!), which talked a good deal about education and race and inequality. I don't mind saying that I was highly impressed with this speech. It is nice to talk about it again ... in public ... without blame ... without fear ... without barriers. It was one of those things that when you watch it and you know the context ... you can just feel America changing. We are going to talk about race differently after this week, which is nice.

Around the Ed. Law Blogosphere ...

Mark Walsh has some on the recent Supreme Court cases and finds that the 6th Circuit is considering rehearing the Pontiac v. Spellings case en banc, which the NEA opposes (no kidding).

Karl Romberger at Fox Rothschild has great primer on religious exemptions and the ADA.

Mitchell Rubenstein and Jim Gerl got into a mini debate about rural special education and Jim follows up with 2 additional posts to make his case: Yes it is different - Yes I am really not kidding here people it is different. (These conversations are why I love the ed. law blogosphere).

Mitchell also has an interesting post on a 2nd Grade boy going to school as a girl and the school accommodating her(him?) (Second Grade? Really?).

And a somewhat technical difference between privilege and immunity in a superintendent giving out a reference.

And a posting linking to several school law resources (basically NSBA and a couple primary source links -- god the online educational law infrastructure is horrid  -- look for an upcoming report on this from myself and a colleague).

Higher Ed Law Prof Blog found one of our own Mark Yudof is the top candidate to take over the Presidency of the University of California system. (Good luck Mark).

David Hoff has an interesting post on Randi Weingarten's, the UFT president, new accountability proposal which relies on additional factors (is this caving a little on the part of the union?)

David also thinks we may be moving to fundamental changes in federal K-12 policy, instead of just tweaking NCLB.


And, for your weekly time waster ... I give you Google Sky - The Universe on your Laptop (its pretty cool, but um, well, it might just be too big for even Google).

That is, if you are not already consumed with watching the NCAA tournament on your computer, as Jonathan Becker is.

Google Document Link: Friday Snippets 3/21/2008

Full post as published by Edjurist on March 21, 2008 (boomark / email).