Education Law

Harrison and Harrison on the NCAA and Antitrust Law

Posted on September 15, 2009
Professor Jeffrey Harrison of the University of Florida Levin College of Law and Casey C. Harrison, a J.D./M.S. (Sport Science) candiate at the same school, have recently posted to SSRN an interesting working paper relating to the antitrust concerns of the NCAA, which they refer to as a "monopsony," a sole buyer in a market with multiple sellers (as opposed to a traditional monopoly, which would be a sole seller in a market with multiple buyers)...

Gigs Up Anti-Bullying Laws

Posted on September 15, 2009
The AP is calling them out: Forty-four states expressly ban bullying, a legislative legacy of a rash of school shootings in the late '90s, yet few if any of those measures have identified children who excessively pick on their peers, an Associated Press review has found...

Orange County Student Newspaper (probably better than real Orange County Register)

Posted on September 14, 2009
This is an absolute disaster of an article on the decision by the principal of the Orange County High School for the Arts to delay the publication of their student newspaper. The article is written with so much bias it is sort of hard to even read. The author called sources on only one side of the issue and clearly allowed that to sway him away from writing an objective story...

Utah & Feds Just Can't Get Along

Posted on September 14, 2009
One of the reasons I really like Utah is its open defiance of the federal government on some issues. Today, for instance, the Department of Education slapped a penalty on Utah's Office of Education for failing to use the right test in a couple districts...

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A More Benign Use of the Spending Power

Posted on September 14, 2009
Is it just me or is anyone else sort of liking the Obama Administration's usage of the spending power in education. Now, granted, I sort of dislike any use of the spending power related to schools, but compared to the flashy, demanding, annoying law that NCLB was with deadlines and sanctions and public fights between the Fed...

Did You Know 4.0

Posted on September 14, 2009
I know some of our audience overlaps (so sorry techies if you saw this twice) but to my legal interested folks out there, please check out Did You Know 4.0 from my partner in the CASTLE blogging network Scott McLeod and associated team members. A special shout-out goes to Laura Bestler, a graduate student at Iowa State who helped design parts of The Edjurist, who did a lot of the work on the video...

"Delusions of Adequacy"

Posted on September 09, 2009
Justin blogged earlier this week about the recent Missouri Supreme Court decision upholding the trial court's rejection of the state's most recent school funding lawsuit.  Now that I am beginning to emerge from beginning of the year course planning, conference paper preparation, and final dissertation edits, I thought I would chime in...

Get Schooled: You Have The Right*

Posted on September 08, 2009
*For promotional purposes only - no legal right to an education exists in the United States and neither the Gates Foundation or its affiliates nor Viacom or its subsidiaries or affiliates are subject to enforce or guarantee the lack of said right.    Just helping out the Gates Foundation and Viacom on their new endeavor (via EdWeek)...

New DOE Online Digs

Posted on September 08, 2009
Liking the Department of Education site upgrades a lot. Their site was always one of the most difficult education sites to navigate and certainly set a tone that the rest of education sites followed (not a lot of great education sites out there).  It would be really cool (and probably too much to ask) if they were to put up tutorials and maybe even videos of how they went about building the new one...

We survived it.

Posted on September 08, 2009
Now, was that so bad ...  It was dull (hello, not a campaign speech?), but I actually sort of liked it. I hope he does it every year and it becomes a tradition for all Presidents.  

The ELA Listserv Disaster

Posted on September 08, 2009
Something that a lot of you probably didn't see over the weekend, unless you are subscribed, was the disaster that unfolded on the ELA Administrator listserv. Here is how it played out: An administrator asks what others are doing re: Obama's speech...

This Kentucky thing is not going to be easy ...

Posted on September 08, 2009
Sometimes I love that I am in Kentucky, and some days I dread that I am in Kentucky. Today is one of those latter kind of days. If you didn't see it splashed all over the Internet or in the comments earlier (thanks Matt Foster!), then I guess I should give you some background...

Are Personal Emails of Wisconsin School District?s Employees Subject to the State's Open Records Law?

Posted on September 07, 2009
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has agreed to review a case dealing with whether the personal emails of employees of a school district sent using district email accounts and district-owned computers are subject to release under the state's open records law, even if the emails did not in any way relate to the employee's job duties...

What Would Google Do ... A Review

Posted on September 07, 2009
I'm making an effort to review the books I read on here, whether or not they relate explicitly to education law (this one does only tangentially). I have been reading heavily into technology lately and we return to that theme today. So you know, I get a lot of my tech...

Students ... Give Up Your Passwords? Parents ... Give Up Your Schools!

Posted on September 04, 2009
A private school in S.C. has passed a policy requiring students in the school to give school officials their social networking passwords upon request (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.). The story (also on CNN video - a couple minutes in). Here's the local video: I've thought about this for a couple days now, and I can't really think of a legal problem here (if you disagree, let me know, I would be happy to be proved wrong)...

Welcoming Dr. Hutchens to The Edjurist

Posted on September 03, 2009
Source: UKY COE GraphicsToday is a great day for The Edjurist because I get to introduce our third UK contributor, Dr. Neal Hutchens. Neal is as talented and promising as they come and we're lucky to have him both here at UK and blogging at The Edjurist...

The President's Speech to Students and the Craziness that Ensued

Posted on September 03, 2009
Okay ... approaching the edge of sanity today with the public outcry against the President's upcoming address to students returning to school. This whole thing, the politicization of this event by some, makes me a little sick to my stomach. He is tasked with making students do better, but is not allowed to simply ask them to do better...

Aggressive Churches and School Influence

Posted on September 02, 2009
I was sort of disturbed by this story out of Gainesville earlier this week which had a local church encouraging its school age students to wear t-shirts to school which said "Islam is of the Devil." The Gainesville Sun has pictures and video. Starting at 2:58, the pastor starts speaking, and it is worth listening to...

"Put Christ Back Into Schools" Facebook Group - Really?

Posted on September 02, 2009
The "Put Christ Back Into Schools" Facebook group is almost at a million members. Their position statement: Allow Teaching of and only the Bible by teachers at any time to students anytime. Allowing the Bible (and only the Bible) to be an elective in all schools, and not forced upon...

Missouri School Funding Suit Fails

Posted on September 01, 2009
The Missouri Supreme Court has rejected a school funding suit brought by many districts in that state. It caps 5 years and 6 million dollars worth of litigation. The decision is here. More info on Missouri school finance is here and here. These school finance suits are always high-risk, high-reward endeavors and today the districts that brought the suit lost big...

Should We Trust the Numbers? Good Question.

Posted on August 27, 2009
Iowa State is holding a symposium on Sept. 11 titled: Should We Trust the Numbers? A Workshop on Philosophy, Mathematics and Statistics in the Court of Law. What a just flat out awesome idea for a symposium. While the program is a bit philosophical for my tastes, the question nevertheless is extremely important and one that scholars across the country are wrestling with as more and more legal scholars are also being trained as researchers (ex: myself, Scott B...

More on Bearing the Costs of Education

Posted on August 26, 2009
Following up on my post yesterday on educational cost inflation, NPR today has information from a Sallie Mae/Gallup study (via The Atlantic) on how students are paying for college (there are lot of other very informative charts in the study and it is worth checking out):  Sallie Mae/Gallup via The AtlanticThere are a couple of interesting points...

Education Costs in Perspective

Posted on August 25, 2009
Niraj Chokshi: The AtlanticThere's a scary chart. The inflation in the price of education has consistently outpaced inflation in the medical world and, of course, inflation itself.   Now, I am sure the numbers can be argued (although they are from the Department of Labor), but that's not the point...

The Rubber Room in the New Yorker

Posted on August 25, 2009
A lovely (long) article on the New York City Rubber Rooms (which I frequently get asked about) in the New Yorker worth checking out. And, this is probably coming out pretty soon - which will keep the rubber room in the news.  h/t Kishizuka

California as the Prototype

Posted on August 24, 2009
If you haven't noticed, California is gearing up the wheels of education reform. The Governor has even called a special session to work on reforming some laws that conflict with the Obama Administration's demands for federal "Race to the Top" dollars...

Defining "Civil Rights" for Curriculum Purposes

Posted on August 24, 2009
Mississippi is looking like they will make "civil rights" an essential part of the curriculum from kindergarten to 12th grade. The civil rights curriculum will be a part of the social studies course, but will be independently tested.  This is a good idea, but "civil rights" should be defined broadly...

Some Catching Up: Rose Event Details & New Website

Posted on August 20, 2009
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...

Special Ed. Teacher Instruction in Law

Posted on August 19, 2009
The big news making rounds today is the new GAO report on teacher education as related to special education. In it, the GAO finds that most schools of education require at least one course related to students with disabilities and only 20 percent offer instruction related to ELL students...

The Budget Cut Curve

Posted on August 17, 2009
I loved this graphic from a story on Stateline.org on state budget deficits: National Conference of State Legislators via Stateline.orgWhat is really interesting is their curve projections in that the curve of this recession is steeper, both higher and more narrow...

The Louisiana Fall-Out

Posted on August 12, 2009
An outstanding new colleague of mine, Dr. Wayne Lewis (who blogs here on ed. policy - love to bring on these blogging faculty members!) brought me up to speed on the political fight that is going on in Louisiana right now between the State Superintendent of Schools and, well, just about everyone else...

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