Law Commons^™

Abandoning The Federal Role In Education, Derek Black

Faculty Publications

In December 2015, Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which redefined the role of the federal government in education. The ESSA attempted to appease popular sentiment against the No Child Left Behind Act’s (NCLB) overreliance on standardized testing and punitive sanctions. But in overturning those aspects of the NCLB, Congress failed to devise a system that was any better. Congress simply stripped the federal government of regulatory power and vastly expanded state discretion. For the first time in fifty years, the federal government lacks the ability to prompt improvements in student achievement and to demand equal resources for …

Sector Agnosticism And The Coming Transformation Of Education Law, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

Over the past two decades, the landscape of elementary and secondary education in the United States has shifted dramatically, due to the emergence and expansion of privately provided, but publicly funded, schooling options (including both charter schools and private-school choice devices like vouchers, tax credits and educational savings accounts). This transformation in the delivery of K12 education is the result of a confluence of factors—discussed in detail below—that increasingly lead education reformers to support efforts to increase the number of high quality schools serving disadvantaged students across all three educational sectors, instead of focusing exclusively on reforming urban public schools. …

Title Ix And Procedural Fairness: Why Disciplined-Student Litigation Does Not Undermine The Role Of Title Ix In Campus Sexual Assault, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

As a matter of civil rights, Title IX mandates that federally funded educational institutions address reports of sexual assault. Often disciplined-student plaintiffs argue unsuccessfully that the college or university’s decision to discipline them is tainted by “reverse” sex discrimination. This Article examines the recent spate of disciplined-student cases in an effort to harmonize Title IX compliance with the procedural rights of students accused of sexual assault. It provides a historical context for Title IX’s application to sexual assault on campuses and the requirements the law imposes on the educational institutions. Next, it describes the role Title IX plays in disciplined-student …

Paying For Attendance: Using Incentives To Combat Chronic Absenteeism, Madeline H. Meth

Faculty Scholarship

Students with poor attendance miss opportunities to learn social and academic skills.' They perform worse on achievement tests. ² They are also less likely to graduate.³ A student who misses school in as early as the first grade is significantly more likely to eventually drop out of high school.⁴ Individuals who drop out see a significant loss in earnings and are more likely to be jobless; women who drop out make about 60% of what female high-school graduates earn, and men who do not graduate lose approximately $9,564 in annual wages. Because high-school dropouts earn less than those …

What Is That Hamburger Doing To My Child's Grades? Childhood Obesity And Its Effects On A Student's Academic Performance, Cheryl Page

Journal Publications

This paper addresses childhood obesity and its correlating effects on an obese child's academic development. The terms and studies outlined in this paper specifically address the issue of obesity in children. It is important to state this distinction because obesity among children is defined and measured differently than it is among adults. Before discussing the differences in the academic development of non-obese children and obese children, I will begin by defining the following terms: "Body Mass Index (BMI)," "BMI-for-age," "Overweight," "Percentile Rates," and "Childhood Obesity."

Beyond The 'Resiliency' And 'Grit' Narrative In Legal Education: Race, Class And Gender Considerations, Christian Sundquist

Articles

Law schools have been struggling to adapt to the “new normal” of decreased enrollments and a significantly altered legal employment market. Despite the decrease in traditional attorney jobs, as well as the possibility that artificial intelligence systems such as “ROSS” will displace additional jobs in the future, there still remains a significant gap in legal services available to the poor, middle class, and immigrants. The integration of social justice methodologies in the classroom thus has become critically important to the future of legal education and of the very practice of law.

Many commentators on the future of legal education have …

Positive Education Federalism: The Promise Of Equality After The Every Student Succeeds Act, Christian Sundquist

Articles

This Article examines the nature of the federal role in public education following the recent passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in December 2015 (“ESSA”). Public education was largely unregulated for much of our Nation’s history, with the federal government deferring to states’ traditional “police powers” despite the de jure entrenchment of racial and class-based inequalities. A nascent policy of education federalism finally took root following the Brown v. Board decision and the enactment of the Elementary and Secondary School Act (“ESEA”) with the explicit purpose of eradicating such educational inequality.

This timely Article argues that current federal education …

Averting Educational Crisis: Funding Cuts, Teacher Shortages, And The Dwindling Commitment To Public Education, Derek Black

Faculty Publications

Recent data shows that two-thirds of states are funding education at lower levels than in 2008. Some states are 20% or more below levels of just a few years earlier. The effect on schools has been devastating. States are only exacerbating the problem by reducing teachers’ rights and benefits. These attacks, combined with funding decreases, have scared many prospective teachers away from the profession. The net result is an extreme shortage of teachers nationwide. When the school year began in 2015, a large number of public schools opened without enough certified teachers to fill classrooms, relying instead on substitutes and …

The School To Prison Pipeline's Legal Architecture: Lessons From The Spring Valley Incident And Its Aftermath, Josh Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the 2015 Spring Valley High School incident – the high-profile arrest of a Columbia, South Carolina high school student for “disturbing schools” in which a school resource officer threw her out of her desk – to identify and illustrate the core elements of the school-to-prison pipeline’s legal architecture, and to evaluate legal reforms in response to growing concern over the pipeline.

The Spring Valley incident illustrates, first, how broad criminal laws transform school discipline incidents into law enforcement matters. Second, it illustrates how legal instruments that should limit the role of police officers assigned to schools (school …

Increasing Diversity By A New Master's Degree In Legal Principles, Joni Hersch

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Students who leave their JD program before graduation leave empty handed, without an additional degree or other credential indicating that their law school studies had any professional, educational, or marketable value. The absence of such a credential combines with the substantial risks and costs associated with law school education to discourage risk averse students from applying. The adverse impacts of these risks may be especially great for lower income students who have fewer financial resources to draw on and less information about their fit with legal education and the legal profession. I propose that law schools award a master’s degree …