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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Comparative Legal Landscape Of Educational Pluralism, Nicole Stelle Garnett Jan 2020

The Comparative Legal Landscape Of Educational Pluralism, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

In the United States, debates about private and faith-based education tend to focus on questions about government funding: which kinds of schools should the government fund (and at what levels)? Should, for example, students be able to use public funds to attend privately operated schools? Faith-based schools? If so, what policy mechanisms should be used to fund private schools—vouchers, tax credits, direct transfer payments? How much funding should these schools receive? The same amount as public schools or less? As a historical matter, the focus on funding in the United States makes sense because only public (that is, government-operated) elementary …


Coerced Choice: School Vouchers And Students With Disabilities, Claire Raj Jan 2019

Coerced Choice: School Vouchers And Students With Disabilities, Claire Raj

Faculty Publications

The landscape of public education, once thought to be a core function of the state, is shifting towards privatization. The appointment of Betsy DeVos as U.S. Secretary of Education further cements this shift. In particular, DeVos intends to vastly expand the availability of vouchers and tax credits that use public dollars to fund private school tuition. The debate over this expansion and its impact on traditional public schools has been polarizing and combative. Thus far, commentators have framed vouchers as purely matters of choice and increased educational opportunities. Drowned out in the debate are the voices of students with disabilities. …


Sector Agnosticism And The Coming Transformation Of Education Law, Nicole Stelle Garnett Apr 2017

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. …


Autism In The Us: Social Movement And Legal Change, Daniela Caruso Jan 2010

Autism In The Us: Social Movement And Legal Change, Daniela Caruso

Faculty Scholarship

The social movement surrounding autism in the US has been rightly defined a ray of light in the history of social progress. The movement is inspired by a true understanding of neuro-diversity and is capable of bringing about desirable change in political discourse. At several points along the way, however, the legal reforms prompted by the autism movement have been grafted onto preexisting patterns of inequality in the allocation of welfare, education, and medical services. In a context most recently complicated by economic recession, autism-driven change bears the mark of political contingency and legal fragmentation. Distributively, it yields ambivalent results …


The Challenge Of Inner-City Education, Lois Libby Jan 2005

The Challenge Of Inner-City Education, Lois Libby

Education Faculty Publications

There are two Connecticuts described in public education circles: One Connecticut includes a set of school systems that are suburban, educating primarily white and/or Asian students. The other set of Connecticut schools systems is urban, comprised primarily of students of color, and of low socio-economic status. The purpose of this chapter is to focus on the latter set of schools, provide some history of their development, look at the indicators of poor progress in more detail, review options of ameliorating the urban school systems, including assessments of state efforts so far, and offer some perspectives and conclusions.


The Theology Of The Blaine Amendments, Richard W. Garnett Jan 2004

The Theology Of The Blaine Amendments, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

The Supreme Court affirmed, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, that the Constitution permits us to experiment with school-choice programs and, in particular, with programs that include religious schools. However, the constitutions of nearly forty States contain provisions - generically called Blaine Amendments - that speak more directly and, in many cases, more restrictively, than does the First Amendment to the flow of once-public funds to religious schools. This Article is a series of reflections, prompted by the Blaine Amendments, on education, citizenship, political liberalism, and religious freedom.

First, the Article considers what might be called the federalism defense of the provisions. …


Family Choice: An Idea Whose Time Has Come And Gone?, James J. Fishman Jan 1983

Family Choice: An Idea Whose Time Has Come And Gone?, James J. Fishman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The heart of the criticism of the existing educational system is the feeling that public schools no longer meet the needs of society, educational bureaucracies account to no one, parents have little say or choice in the educational options for their children, there is little diversity in public schools, and the public school establishment has resisted any attempts at reform or distributing data that could be used to challenge the present system.