Education Commons^™

The Role Of The Administrator In Instructional Technology Policy, Philip T.K. Daniel, Jason P. Nance

Jason P. Nance

In response to national and state reform movements, and in an attempt to strengthen preparation standards for teachers and students, accreditation boards have prepared performance indicators in the area of technology. Such standards call for the full integration of technology in school curricula, formal coursework and professional development workshops for teachers, and an understanding on the part of teachers and students alike as to the legal and ethical issues surrounding the use of technology. The thesis of this research is that it is essential that school administrators be involved in all levels of planning and integrating technology into school curricula …

In Defense Of Idea Due Process, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Due Process hearing rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are under attack. A major professional group and several academic commentators charge that the hearings system advantages middle class parents, that it is expensive, that it is futile, and that it is unmanageable. Some critics would abandon individual rights to a hearing and review in favor of bureaucratic enforcement or administrative mechanisms that do not include the right to an individual hearing before a neutral decision maker. This Article defends the right to a due process hearing. It contends that some criticisms of hearing rights are simply erroneous, and …

Idea Class Actions After Wal-Mart V. Dukes, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Wal-Mart v. Dukes overturned the certification of a class of a million and a half female employees alleging sex discrimination in Wal-Mart’s salary and promotion decisions. The Supreme Court ruled that the case did not satisfy the requirement that a class have a common question of law or fact, and said that the remedy sought was not the type of relief available under the portion of the class action rule permitting mandatory class actions. Over the last two years, courts have struggled with how to apply the ruling, especially how to apply it beyond its immediate context of employment discrimination …

The Legal Impact Of Emerging Governance Models On Public Education And Its Office Holders, Robert A. Garda Jr., David Doty

Robert A. Garda

The idea that changing the formal structure of governance can lead to better schools is rooted in American political and intellectual history. Politicians, career educators, parents, business leaders, and investors continue to wrangle over the control of public schools all across the country. With these battles for control have come more lawsuits, more laws, and more administrative regulations dictating the governance structures of educational institutions. Indeed, one could argue that, in recent years, debates over how schools and school districts should be governed have subsumed the curriculum debates over how and what children should be taught. Leadership matters, and therefore …

"All Areas Of Suspected Disability", Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires school districts to assess children “in all areas of suspected disability.” It further provides that each child’s individualized education program (IEP) must contain measurable annual goals designed to “meet each of the child’s . . . educational needs that result from the child’s disability,” and a statement of special education and related services that will be provided for the child “to advance appropriately toward attaining annual goals.” Courts have strictly enforced these requirements in the last several years, remedying violations of IDEA when school districts fail to assess in all areas of …

The Rights Of Disabled Students, Derek W. Black, Robert A. Garda Jr., John E. Taylor, Emily Gold Waldman

Robert A. Garda

Education Law: Equality, Fairness, and Reform situates case law in the broader education world by including edited versions of federal policy guidance, seminal law review articles, social science studies, and policy reports. It offers comprehensive coverage of education law while also focusing specifically on equality and civil rights issues. It includes individual chapters on each major area of inequality: race, poverty, gender, disability, homelessness, and language status. Those chapters are followed by a structured approach to the complex first amendment questions, dividing the first amendment into three different chapters and addressing, in order, freedom of expression and thought, religion in …

Barbara Garii's Book Review Of Student Teaching And The Law In The Journal Of Tutoring And Mentoring: Partnership In Learning, Zorka Karanxha

Zorka Karanxha

No abstract provided.

Disabled Students' Rights Of Access To Charter Schools Under The Idea, Section 504 And The Ada, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Charter schools are under increasing attack for denying admission to disabled students. But traditional schools also turn away disabled students, often preventing them from attending schools in their neighborhood or within their district. This Article discusses when a school is permitted under federal disability law to deny admission to a disabled student. After nearly four decades of special education jurisprudence and regulatory guidance, the circumstances under which a student with a disability may be denied admission to a particular school are still remarkably unclear. This Article first discusses the "zero-reject" principle underlying the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and concludes …

Common-Law Interpretation Of Appropriate Education: The Road Not Taken In Rowley, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Thirty years old in 2012, Board of Education v. Rowley is the case that established a some-benefit or floor-of-opportunity standard for the services public school districts must provide to children who have disabilities. But the some-benefit approach is by no means the only one the Court could have adopted. It could have endorsed the view of the lower courts that each child with a disability must be given the opportunity to achieve his or her potential commensurate with the opportunity offered other children. Or it could have adopted a standard based on achievement of the child’s full potential or the …

Culture Clash: Special Education In Charter Schools, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Charter schools and special education for disabled students are based on conflicting education reforms and agency oversight principles. Charter schools operate in a culture of regulatory freedom and flexibility. They arose out of the modern era of accountability reform, in which student outcomes are the primary measure of school success and the driving engine of agency oversight. In stark contrast, special education laws were conceived in the civil rights era of education reform, which emphasized process and paid little attention to outcomes. The education of disabled students is steeped in a culture of regulatory oversight focused on rigid compliance with …

The Result Of Fitzgerald V. Barnstable School Committee On Special Education Law, Arthur Lang

Arthur Lang

The Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA) requires that states receiving federal funds provide a Free and Appropriate Education (FAPE) to students with disabilities. Failing to provide a FAPE is discriminatory under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Rehabilitations Act (RA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The IDEA provides remedies to correct inadequacies with compensatory but does not provide compensatory damages. Parents dissatisfied with the adequacy of the education of a child with special needs have tried to bypass this, using §1983 to seek damages for an inadequate education under the IDEA and under the …

The Politics Of Education Reform: Lessons Learned From New Orleans, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Hurricane Katrina demolished the educational facilities and state leaders took the opportunity to raze the broken educational governance structures in New Orleans. Leaders re-created the Orleans Parish School District based on the education reforms sweeping the nation: school choice, accountability, state takeover of failing schools, and charter schools. The city is now the proving ground for modern education reforms and policymakers from around the country are watching closely. The mistakes made and lessons learned in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina can act as a roadmap for states and districts moving toward the “new” education model - choice plans, charter schools …

The White Interest In School Integration, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Scholarship concerning desegregation, affirmative action and voluntary integration is primarily, if not exclusively, focused on whether such policies harm or benefit minorities. Scant attention is paid to the benefits whites receive in multiracial schools despite these interests underpinning over thirty years of Supreme Court integration jurisprudence. In this article, I explore the academic and social benefits whites receive in multiracial schools, and I do so from a white parent’s perspective. The article begins by explaining the interest-convergence theory and how white interests explain the course and content of the Supreme Court’s desegregation jurisprudence. White parents must understand that their “buy-in” …

The Economics Of Section 170: A Case For The Charitable Deduction Of Parochial School Tuition, Meir Katz

Meir Katz

That payments for parochial school tuition are not deductible under Section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code is a foregone conclusion in the eyes of many tax policy scholars. Tuition provides an easy case because the donor receives something of great value in return for his donation: the education of his children. This Article questions that conclusion. By taking a close look at the economics behind these tuition payments in the context of a discrete population, the religious Jewish community, I show that traditional economic assumptions are inappropriate for analysis of those payments. Rather than a traditional economic exchange for …

Introduction To Symposium On Reconstructing Education In New Orleans Post-Katrina, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

No abstract provided.

Education Law Association, Zorka Karanxha

Zorka Karanxha

No abstract provided.

Hunt V. Mcnair, Zorka Karanxha

Zorka Karanxha

No abstract provided.

Special Education From The (Damp) Ground Up: Children With Disabilities In A Charter School-Dependent Educational System, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Hurricane Katrina created the need and the opportunity to reconstitute the New Orleans public school system. Educational reformers took advantage of the destruction of existing institutions to build a new system based on educational choice and dependent on charter schools to provide the choices. The disaster also created the need and opportunity to rebuild the system of special education in the city, but education for children with disabilities appears to have been an afterthought. Reports have surfaced of children being steered away from charter schools or inadequately served there. This paper asks what principles should guide reformers in establishing education …

Equitable And Adequate Funding For Special Needs Children In Louisiana, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Comprehensive and coordinated special education remains a major problem across public schools in Louisiana. One issue arises due to the fact that special education money in some districts is allotted at the district level instead of following students to the schools they attend, resulting in inconsistent support for schools serving students with multiple types of disabilities. Money is not allocated based on student needs and the neediest students do not receive the services the funding is intended to provide.

Louisiana Appleseed and the Louisiana Bar Foundation have recruited volunteer attorneys to: (1) research Louisiana Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) formulas and …

Student Teachers’ Diversity Rights: The Case Law., Zorka Karanxha, Perry Zirkel

Zorka Karanxha

This chapter provides a concise and up-to-date synthesis of the published case law where a student teacher was the plaintiff, the defendant was an institution of higher education or cooperating local school district, and the issues in dispute were related to diversity. The number of such court decisions was surprisingly small, and the outcomes generally favored the defendant institutions. The court cases fall under three categories: 1) student teachers’ diverse views on religion, 2) student teachers’ diverse forms of free speech, and 3) student teachers with special needs. Constitutional claims were the predominant avenue of litigation against school districts and …

Creeping Judicialization In Special Education Hearings?: An Exploratory Study, Perry A. Zirkel, Zorka Karanxha

Zorka Karanxha

No abstract provided.

Who Is Eligible Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act?, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Determining who is eligible under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) has plagued decision-makers for over three decades, leading to both over- and under-identification of eligible children and the disproportionate identification of minority students as disabled. The statutory requirements for finding a child IDEA-eligible appear straightforward: a child must have an enumerated disability that adversely affects educational performance and by reason thereof the child must need special education. Application of these provisions has proven problematic, however, and the authorities are divided as to what constitutes “educational performance,” when is it “adversely affected” by the disability, under what circumstances …

The New Idea: Shifting Educational Paradigms To Achieve Racial Equality In Special Education, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

African American students are being re-segregated in today's public schools by their disproportionate placement in special education classes for the disabled pursuant to the Individuals With Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA). At the same time, the overall number of children found disabled and entitled to special education under the Act has skyrocketed over the past decade, leaving special education classes with swollen roles and inadequate resources. Congress attempts to remedy this divisive dual eligibility crisis when it re-authorized the IDEA in 2004 by promoting an educational paradigm of individualized instruction in general education. The new IDEA seeks to "fix" special …

Untangling Eligibility Requirements Under The Individuals With Disabilities In Education Act, Robert A. Garda Jr.

Robert A. Garda

Finding a child eligible for special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is one of the most important, if not the most important, decision that will be made in that child's life. Despite the importance of eligibility determinations the eligibility criteria of IDEA are intricately tangled and often misapplied by courts, hearing officers and inevitably parents and educators. The confusion surrounding eligibility standards leads to the disastrous results of both over-identification and under-identification of IDEA eligible children. This Article attempts to untangle the web of IDEA eligibility standards in order to determine who is entitled to its …

Paying Back Your Country Through Income-Contingent Student Loans, Evelyn Brody

Evelyn Brody

This article uses the case of paying for a college education to study broad issues of equity, both between families and between generations. As a normative matter, I argue that we should subsidize the education of those who are disadvantaged, but that is because a college education generally 'pays off,' society as a whole should not subsidize most students. Rather, the government can serve the valuable function of simply ensuring that students have access to sufficient loans to finance their education. Congress recently enacted President Clinton's proposal to convert the federal role from a guarantor of student loans to a …