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Litigated Learning, Law's Limits, And Urban School Reform Challenges, Michael Heise Jun 2007

Litigated Learning, Law's Limits, And Urban School Reform Challenges, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article assesses the likely efficacy of litigation efforts seeking to enhance equal educational opportunity by improving student academic achievement in the nation's urban public schools. Past education reform litigation efforts focusing on school desegregation and finance met with mixed success. Current litigation efforts seeking to improve student academic achievement promise to be even less successful because student academic achievement involves variables and activities located further from the reach of litigation than such variables as a school's racial composition and per pupil spending levels. Moreover, efforts to improve student achievement in the nation's urban public schools--especially high poverty schools--face additional …

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No Lawsuit Left Behind, Michael Heise Jan 2006

No Lawsuit Left Behind, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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Educational Jujitsu: How School Finance Lawyers Learned To Turn Standards And Accountability Into Dollars, Michael Heise Oct 2002

Educational Jujitsu: How School Finance Lawyers Learned To Turn Standards And Accountability Into Dollars, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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The Courts, Educational Policy, And Unintended Consequences, Michael Heise Jul 2002

The Courts, Educational Policy, And Unintended Consequences, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Recent school finance litigation illustrates yet again how law can generate unintended policy consequences. Seeking to improve student achievement and school accountability, more states now turn to educational standards and assessments. At the same time, a multi-decade school finance litigation effort develops and changes its theoretical base. Recently, educational standards and school finance litigation converged in a way that enables school districts to gain financially from their inability to meet desired achievement levels. Specifically, courts increasingly allow litigants and lawsuits to transform standards and assessments into constitutional entitlements to additional resources. As a consequence, increased legal and financial exposure for …

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Assessing The Efficacy Of School Desegregation, Michael Heise Jan 1996