Law Commons^™

Home, Schooling, And State: Education In, And For, A Diverse Democracy, Vivian E. Hamilton

Faculty Publications

Since the late nineteenth century, virtually all school-aged children have attended school; only rarely did children live and learn entirely within their homes. In recent decades, however, the practice of elective homeschooling has emerged, and the number of families opting out of regular schools has surged. Currently, the parents of nearly two million school-aged children annually eschew traditional schooling.

A small but well-resourced homeschool lobby has aggressively pressured state legislators to withdraw state oversight of homeschooling. No similarly resourced lobby exists to counterbalance these efforts. As a result, states now impose few—and in some cases, no—obligations on parents who choose …

Getting It Right By Writing It Wrong: Embracing Faulty Reasoning As A Teaching Tool, Patricia G. Montana, Elyse Pepper

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In the early days of legal writing, we use exercises that have clear "right" answers. The rules are very simple and their meaning, even without looking at the cases, is usually clear. So, the "right" answer is often obvious. Indeed, it is intuitive. Though these exercises give students a sense of accomplishment and allow them to track achievement and understand success and failure, in some ways, they reinforce a common problem in first-year law students: their inability to see beyond the surface of a legal rule.

To ensure the "right" answer, students must distill not only a general rule, …