Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Education Law Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Fordham Law School

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type

Articles 31 - 60 of 71

Full-Text Articles in Education Law

Turf Wars And Growing Pains: How New York Education Law Can Ease The Co-Location Battle, Joanna Zdanys Mar 2016

Turf Wars And Growing Pains: How New York Education Law Can Ease The Co-Location Battle, Joanna Zdanys

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Faculty Insights On Educational Diversity, Meera E. Deo May 2015

Faculty Insights On Educational Diversity, Meera E. Deo

Fordham Law Review

    Twice in the past two years, the U.S. Supreme Court has approved educational diversity as a compelling state interest that justifies the use of race in higher education admissions decisions. Nevertheless, it remains on somewhat shaky ground. Over the past decade, the Court has emphasized that its acceptance of diversity stems from the expectation that a diverse student body will enhance the classroom environment, with students drawing on their diverse backgrounds during classroom conversations that ultimately bring the law to life. Yet, the Court provides no support for its assumption that admitting and enrolling diverse students actually result in these …


Test Unrest: New York City's Examination High Schools, Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2015

Test Unrest: New York City's Examination High Schools, Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

New York City bases admissions to its eight “specialized” high schools entirely upon scores on a single standardized test. This policy, hotly contested when it was codified by state law in 1971, faces renewed political and legal attacks today. Single-test admissions consistently result in alarmingly low levels of African-American and Hispanic enrollment at the most sought-after specialized schools. This brief essay compares today’s debate to that of 1971. It notes two major developments since then. The City now has eight test-only high schools, not three. Moreover, the eight schools now function in the larger context of New York’s system of …


What We Disagree About When We Disagree About School Choice, Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2014

What We Disagree About When We Disagree About School Choice, Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

The debate over school vouchers, charter schools, and other varieties of school choice has become a bit stale. It would improve were advocates on all sides to acknowledge several crucial realities that they too often obfuscate. First, the debate is fundamentally normative, not empirical. The desirability of choice depends primarily upon how we weigh competing claims of equality and liberty in education. Second, all participants in the debate should acknowledge both that constrained choice is still genuine choice, and that how and to what extent parental decisions are constrained are fundamental issues in choice policy. Finally, with respect to the …


Charter Schools, The Establishment Clause, And The Neoliberal Turn In Public Education, Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2013

Charter Schools, The Establishment Clause, And The Neoliberal Turn In Public Education, Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

Regardless whether the American charter school can improve academic performance and provide effective alternatives to traditional public schools, its steady entrenchment as an institution portends significant, destabilizing changes across education law. In no area will its impact be more profound than the law of religion and schooling. Despite the general view that charter schools are public schools, charters’ neoliberal character — they are privately created and managed, and chosen by consumers in a marketplace — makes them private schools for Establishment Clause purposes, notwithstanding their public subsidy. This conclusion, which rests in substantial part on the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris vouchers …


Religious Consumers And Institutional Challenges To American Public Schools, Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2012

Religious Consumers And Institutional Challenges To American Public Schools, Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

The paradigm of American K–12 education is shifting as the institution of local educational polities, each responsible for own its 'common schools,' faces competition from programs of school choice. Although charter schools and related reforms are generally studied in terms of quality and equity, the rise of consumer sovereignty as an alternative to political sovereignty as an organizing principle for educational governance has much wider ramifications. Paradigms of choice have already begun dramatically to alter religious education and its relationship to public schooling. Moreover, because these paradigms rely upon consumer preferences and the aggregation of those preferences by markets, the …


Changing The Conversation In Education Law: Political Geography And Virtual Schooling Book Review Essay, Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2012

Changing The Conversation In Education Law: Political Geography And Virtual Schooling Book Review Essay, Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

In Five Miles Away, A World Apart, James E. Ryan concludes that the educational reforms of the hour, school accountability and school choice, will exacerbate rather than undermine the systematic educational advantages enjoyed by wealthier Americans. Paul Peterson, in his Saving Schools, argues that increasingly centralizing American schools have become sufficiently centralized that, as a labor-intensive industry, few productivity gains are available from governance reform, even as demand escalates for the customization of education to individual needs. Both volumes therefore pin their hopes for change upon political geography-the relationship between people and educational institutions in space. Ryan argues that changing …


Moving Beyond The Safety Zone: A Staff Development Approach To Anti-Heterosexist Education, Scott Hirschfeld Jan 2011

Moving Beyond The Safety Zone: A Staff Development Approach To Anti-Heterosexist Education, Scott Hirschfeld

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Like the rest of the world, most teachers and administrators were raised and schooled in a society that considered homosexuality a sickness--a topic unsuitable for discussion in both classroom and faculty room. Though mainstream attitudes have shifted in recent years, LGBT issues remain largely taboo in school communities. Despite the preponderance of character education and anti-bullying programs in American classrooms today, it is evident that schools are not safe and affirming places for a significant number of students and their families. It is therefore essential to question the nature and effectiveness of the trainings and interventions schools use--if they use …


Hats Off To Claire Flom: Education And The Importance Of Being Involved , Judith S. Kaye Jan 2011

Hats Off To Claire Flom: Education And The Importance Of Being Involved , Judith S. Kaye

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This transcript of the Claire Flom lecture covers primarily two themes—the importance of early intervention, and the importance of people getting involved with the public school system and in their children - and other children's education The lecture applies these concepts first to children with special education needs and then to adolescents, kids at the brink of adulthood. The article argues that early intervening early is key to both populations and that neglected learning difficulties only worsen with the passage of time.


The Mainstreaming Requirement Of The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act In The Context Of Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Conor B. Mcdonough, Ph.D. Jan 2008

The Mainstreaming Requirement Of The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act In The Context Of Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Conor B. Mcdonough, Ph.D.

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Children with autism or one of the related autistic spectrum disorders ("ASD") are eligible for special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), which provides, in part, that disabled students must be educated with non-disabled peers as often as possible, a practice referred to as mainstreaming or inclusion. The federal circuit courts apply different tests to evaluate compliance with this mainstreaming requirement, but as argued in this Note, the circuit tests are effectively equivalent with respect to children diagnosed with ASDs. One significant issue in applying each of these tests is that tensions exist between the mainstreaming requirement …


School Choice And States' Duty To Support Public Schools , Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2007

School Choice And States' Duty To Support Public Schools , Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

The education clauses of state constitutions require states to support schools that not only educate children adequately and equitably, but that are "public" or "common." This Article argues that state-supported school choice can be consistent with these latter requirements. Individual choices, about where to live and whether to educate children privately, have long shaped traditional "public" schooling arrangements. The more direct role choice plays in school voucher and charter programs is also consistent with the requirement that schools be "public." Such programs must ensure, however, that parents' choices among schools are "genuine and independent." This criterion, developed by the U.S. …


Footing The Bill For A Sound Basic Education In New York City: The Implementation Of Campaign For Fiscal Equity V. State, Bonnie A. Scherer Jan 2005

Footing The Bill For A Sound Basic Education In New York City: The Implementation Of Campaign For Fiscal Equity V. State, Bonnie A. Scherer

Fordham Urban Law Journal

On March 16, 2005, in what appeared to be a victory for the children of New York City, the Court of Appeals of New York, applying the Education Article, upheld a lower court decision and recommendation, by a panel of judicially appointed Special Referees, holding that the New York State school funding system failed to provide New York City children with a “sound basic education.” The Court of Appeals mandated that the State Legislature phase in $5.6 billion annually, as well as an additional $9.2 billion in a capital fund to reform the City public schools. The opinion, however, failed …


Last Wave: The Rise Of The Contingent School District, The , Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2005

Last Wave: The Rise Of The Contingent School District, The , Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

Spurred in part by state court cases holding that states bear a constitutional duty to educate all children adequately, and making creative use of the arguments of school choice advocates, the states and other policy actors have in recent years recast the problem of deficient schooling as one of government structure rather than one of individual rights. This reorientation has contributed to a dramatic erosion of the traditional role of the local school district as the leading administrative, policymaking, and legal unit of American school government. A new, polyarchic distribution of power has arisen in place of district primacy, bearing …


Legislating Accountability: Standards, Sanctions, And School District Reform , Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2004

Legislating Accountability: Standards, Sanctions, And School District Reform , Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

The “New Accountability” movement in American education purports to catalyze improvement in American education by setting clear state standards for academic performance, measuring performance against those standards, and disseminating information about results. This Article argues that the potential of state accountability programs lies not in their imposition of standards but in their imposition of a sanction - the disestablishment of school districts, which entails unseating the local superintendent and school board and replacing them with state officials or their designees - that is extremely painful for the targeted district but is also painful for states to impose. The first Part …


Edison Schools And The Privatization Of K-12 Public Education: A Legal And Policy Analysis, Lewis D. Solomon Jan 2003

Edison Schools And The Privatization Of K-12 Public Education: A Legal And Policy Analysis, Lewis D. Solomon

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article examines the private takeover of the management of K-12 publicly funded schools. It focuses on one particular educational management organization, Edison Schools. This Article examines the situation in Philadelphia's public schools and the efforts of a local school reform commission to revitalize K-12 education. It goes on to look into the personalities of those who started and today run Edison Schools, analyze Edison Schools financial position, and discuss the structured educational approach Edison Schools uses in it schools. This Article addresses the policy considerations behind the efforts to privatize public schools. It concludes that while Edison Schools does …


Campaign For Fiscal Equity, Inc. V. New York: No Slam Dunk Victory For Public School Children, Denise C. Morgan Jan 2003

Campaign For Fiscal Equity, Inc. V. New York: No Slam Dunk Victory For Public School Children, Denise C. Morgan

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Having been involved in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. v New York case over the course of ten years, Denise C. Morgan has an intimate view of the victories and losses resulting in the Court of Appeals decision. In the article, the wins and losses of the case are discussed as she sees it, and how the victory on the state level came with a loss on the federal one. The article describes the CFE case and its two claims: the victory that the promised to make the distribution of state aid for public education to New York City …


From Equity To Adequacy: The Legal Battle For Increased State Funding Of Poor School Districts In New York, Brian J. Nickerson, Gernard M. Deenihan Jan 2003

From Equity To Adequacy: The Legal Battle For Increased State Funding Of Poor School Districts In New York, Brian J. Nickerson, Gernard M. Deenihan

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article evaluates the influence of federal courts' school finance cases on the New York school finance groups' decision to litigate in the New York courts. It then analyzes the importance of other states' legal precedents in school finance cases as a factor influencing interest groups in New York to challenge the state's public education funding formulas. This Article discusses the progression of public elementary and secondary school funding formula litigation in New York, focusing on the legal arguments raised by various interest group-plaintiffs and tracing the development of those arguments to school finance cases in other states. The conclusion …


Expanding Latino Participation In The Legal Profession: Strategies For Increasing Latino Law School Enrollments, William Malpica, Mauricio A. España Jan 2003

Expanding Latino Participation In The Legal Profession: Strategies For Increasing Latino Law School Enrollments, William Malpica, Mauricio A. España

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Essay explores how Latinos have faired in the law school admissions process -- a hurdle that the group has yet to overcome -- and evaluates current efforts to bolster Latino enrollment. It examines the underlying conditions that contribute to low Latino enrollment in law schools by revealing the primary obstacles to Latino admission: the limited pool of eligible Latino college graduates and current law school admissions policies that emphasize Law School Admission Test scores and grade point averages. This Essay review a sampling of responses to low Latino law school enrollment and concludes that the most effective strategies for …


Examining How The Inclusion Of Disabled Students Into The General Classroom May Affect Non-Disabled Classmates, Marissa L. Antoinette Jan 2003

Examining How The Inclusion Of Disabled Students Into The General Classroom May Affect Non-Disabled Classmates, Marissa L. Antoinette

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Comment discusses the effectiveness of the inclusion of disabled students in general classrooms, focusing particularly on the effects on non-disabled classmates. Part I of this Comment outlines the history of inclusion as established through federal legislation, as well as its gradual implementation in New York City. Part II examines the issues concerning inclusion, looking at the consequences inappropriate inclusion of disabled students may have on the non-disabled ("general") student. Finally, Part III proposes a solution, suggesting that a school district give a disabled student a "three strikes" policy regarding disruptions, after which she may be removed, permanently or temporarily, …


Diversity Efforts In Independent Schools, Michael Brosnan Jan 2001

Diversity Efforts In Independent Schools, Michael Brosnan

Fordham Urban Law Journal

When it comes to diversity, many high-end institutions--including those in education, politics, and media--have been slow to change and reluctant to promote people who do not fit a certain profile. They are cautious institutions reflecting the broader culture of power. Independent schools are wrestling with the same concerns as law firms. They are trying to diversify their teaching staffs and student bodies, but are having limited success. Diversifying a school with a tradition of being predominantly white (and sometimes predominantly Christian) requires work on many fronts. Any effort to hire teachers of color, to be successful, must coincide with steps …


The Diversity Dialogues In Higher Education, John H. Bunzel Jan 2001

The Diversity Dialogues In Higher Education, John H. Bunzel

Fordham Urban Law Journal

It is hard to be an enemy of diversity. Most Americans recognize diversity as one of the nation’s proudest attributes. Beyond that, however, there is confusion over the term’s meaning. No matter how often people say the word, or how strongly they believe in it, they continue to ignore the way diversity has become an all-embracing concept. The term “diversity” has become a code word that fails to define precisely what it allegedly exalts and what exactly is to be accomplished by those who extol its virtues. The elasticity of the term “diversity” has masked many kinds of questionable conduct. …


Why Girls’ Schools? The Difference In Girl-Centered Education, Whitney Ransome, Meg Milne Moulton Jan 2001

Why Girls’ Schools? The Difference In Girl-Centered Education, Whitney Ransome, Meg Milne Moulton

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The past decade has witnessed a remarkable resurgence of interest in all-girls’ education. Following the enactment of Title IX in 1972, the number of single-sex schools declined. By the mid 1990s, only two public girls’ schools remained. What, then, explains the remarkable renaissance that has occurred in just over a decade’s time? What has led to the renewal of interest in girls’ schools? How does an all-girls education differ from a co-educational education? The answers to these questions can be found in a series of interrelated developments in educational theory, gender research, and the link between brain function and the …


Confronting Same-Sex, Student-To-Student Sexual Harassment: Recommendations For Educators And Policy Makers, Thomas A. Mayes Jan 2001

Confronting Same-Sex, Student-To-Student Sexual Harassment: Recommendations For Educators And Policy Makers, Thomas A. Mayes

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Student-on-student sexual harassment has been the subject of significant scholarly commentary and numerous court battles. In light of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, which held that in certain cases students have a cause of action under Title IX against schools for peer sexual harassment, many schools have been advised to consider responses to and ways to prevent student-on-student sexual harassment. When considering corrective and preventative approaches to peer sexual harassment in the schools, educators and policy makers should strongly consider addressing same-sex harassment. Prior to its decision in Davis, a unanimous …


The Education Justice: The Honorable Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., Victoria J. Dodd Jan 2001

The Education Justice: The Honorable Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., Victoria J. Dodd

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The Honorable Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr. is “the education Justice” of the United States. During his tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court, from 1971 to 1987, Justice Powell authored at least twenty major opinions in education law, in addition to numerous significant concurrences and dissents. Just a sampling of Justice Powell's majority opinions on education could form the bulk of an education law textbook recognizable by any American law student. This Article will explore some of Justice Powell's major Supreme Court rulings in education law. It will also consider how these rulings may have related to aspects of Justice Powell's …


Unequal Educational Opportunities For Gifted Students: Robbing Peter To Pay Paul?, Charles J. Russo Jan 2001

Unequal Educational Opportunities For Gifted Students: Robbing Peter To Pay Paul?, Charles J. Russo

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Brown ushered in an era that has led to admirable, yet arguably incomplete, gains in equal educational opportunities for all children, most notably minorities, females, and students with disabilities. However, despite the progress that has been made in the struggle for educational equality, many exceptional students are not being fully served. Aside from commission reports and rhetoric, little has been done at either the federal or state level to offer appropriate programming for gifted and talented children's educational needs. It is questionable whether educational leaders and policy makers have taken sufficient steps to meet the educational needs of gifted children. …


An Idea Schools Can Use: Lessons From Special Education Legislation, Terry Jean Seligman Jan 2001

An Idea Schools Can Use: Lessons From Special Education Legislation, Terry Jean Seligman

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (the “IDEA”) has been a part of our public education system since 1975. The IDEA was enacted in response to the exclusion and inadequate education of children with disabilities. The IDEA is widely viewed as having opened the doors to education to previously excluded children. During the summer of 2001, as Congress labored to pass new standards for public education, the Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush's administration resisted efforts to increase funding for special education, asserting that the IDEA needed reforms that money could not address. This article argues that the …


Diversity Efforts In Independent Schools , Michael Brosnan Jan 2001

Diversity Efforts In Independent Schools , Michael Brosnan

Fordham Urban Law Journal

In recent years, independent schools have begun committing themselves to diversity. Schools are recruiting more students and teachers of color and have transformed their curriculum to better address race, gender, class religion, and sexual orientation. Schools must start marketing themselves to a broad spectrum of families, teachers, and administrators, and have done so in order to prepare students for the adult world to come. Schools need to hire and retain teachers of color. To achieve this, some overlapping efforts by schools include: creating the need to hire teachers of color with the school's mission, clarifying the school's climate and culture, …


Alternative Education: The Criminalization Of Student Behavior, Augustina H. Reyes Jan 2001

Alternative Education: The Criminalization Of Student Behavior, Augustina H. Reyes

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Public education was intended to give students a broad perspective to prepare them for living in a complex, diverse society. This article will examine a relatively recent development in public education: alternative education programs (AEPs). Using Texas public schools as a case study, this article argues that AEPs defeat public education’s goal of exposing students to a diverse student body. This is because AEPs segregate at-risk students-- usually Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans, and poor Whites--from the rest of the student population. This article deals with disciplinary AEPS, also known as DAEPs. Part I of the article will explore the …


Discipline Of Special-Education Students Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Allan G. Osborne, Jr. Ed.D Jan 2001

Discipline Of Special-Education Students Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Allan G. Osborne, Jr. Ed.D

Fordham Urban Law Journal

In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. Since 1975, Congress has amended the statute several times. One of those amendments, enacted in 1990, gave the law a new name: the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). The law, as initially enacted and amended, was silent on the subject of discipline. In 1997, Congress passed the most comprehensive amendments to the IDEA to date. The amendments included provisions on the discipline of students with disabilities. Many of those provisions simply codified existing case law; others, however, helped clarify formerly opaque areas. This article will analyze the requirements …


Defending All-Male Education: A New Cultural Moment For A Renewed Debate, Stephen H. Webb Jan 2001

Defending All-Male Education: A New Cultural Moment For A Renewed Debate, Stephen H. Webb

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Although all-female schools still prosper and are defended by members of the academic elite, an all-male college has become a near-extinct species. Many people are surprised such a creature still exists. All-male colleges strike many as vestiges of male privilege. They evoke the traditional bastions of power that precluded women from advancing in public life. Single-sex education is not for everyone, but if our educational system is to be truly pluralistic, such an education should be an option. Single-sex education for both genders can be a constructive way to address problems plaguing not only education but the culture as a …