Education Law Commons^™

Black English And Equal Educational Opportunity, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

There is a danger that the King case will be misunderstood. The press has sometimes portrayed it as a vindication of the right to use black English in the classroom rather than of the educational opportunities of the children who speak it, and the King opinion itself is at times confusing. This Note clarifies the meaning of King and section 1703(f) by examining four critical steps in Judge Joiner's reasoning. Section I examines the court's holding that "language barriers" under section l 703(f) include impediments to equal educational opportunity arising from dialect differences, and concludes that although the court's argument …

From Brown To Bakke: The Supreme Court And School Integration: 1954-1978, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Book Notice about From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration: 1954-1978 by J. Harvie Wilkinson III

Local Taxes, Federal Courts, And School Desegregation In The Proposition 13 Era, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines a federal court's dilemma when the remedy of school desegregation collides with the trend of tax limitation - when a school desegregation order requires funds that the local school authorities do not have and cannot raise. Can the district court order a local tax levy to fund school desegregation when the school authorities have already reached their maximum taxing limit? Is there a better alternative remedy?

To tackle those questions, this Note first elucidates three equitable principles to guide courts in fashioning desegregation decrees. It then explores the history of judicial power to order state and local …

Parents And The Public School Curriculum: Is There A Right To Have One's Child Excused From Objectionable Instruction?, Mary-Michelle Upson Hirschoff

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Legislative Notes: The Education Of All Handicapped Children Act Of 1975, Donald W. Keim

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I reviews the landmark judicial decisions which have established the right of handicapped children to participate in free, public education. The basic provisions of the Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 are then presented in Part II. The funding provisions are discussed in Part III with particular emphasis upon the tension between the promise of federal largesse and the expense of compliance with statutory and judicial requirements. Part IV reviews prior efforts to obtain judicial recognition of a substantive right to an appropriate education and suggests some ways in which the 1975 Act may alter the framework …

Education And The Law: State Interests And Individual Rights, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

No government activity exerts a more pervasive influence on Americans for a longer period of their lives than the regulation of education. The state seeks through its educational system to achieve two goals: the development of the basic reading, writing and other academic skills that any productive member of society must possess; and the inculcation of values deemed essential for a cohesive, harmonious and law-abiding society. Basically, through uniformity and standardization of the education experience the state attempts to guarantee that children will not become liabilities to society and that a minimal acceptance of shared values and norms will be …

The Monkey Laws And The Public Schools: A Second Consumption?, Frederic S. Le Clercq

Vanderbilt Law Review

Recent events suggest that the creationist movement is both potent and truly national. in scope. In California, the science curriculum guidelines for public schools were modified by a sympathetic state board of education to accommodate the creationist position.' Science textbooks for use in the public schools of California are being edited to dilute passages on evolution, and creationists almost achieved express recognition of their beliefs in the science texts. In Tennessee, a law has been passed that requires inclusion of the Biblical account of creation in biology textbooks used in the public schools." Similar legislation to require treatment of creationist …

Voucher Systems Of Public Education After Nyquist And Sloan: Can A Constitutional System Be Devised?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Criticism of the present system of American elementary and secondary education has rekindled interest in the idea, first proposed by Adam Smith, of providing parents with vouchers to purchase their children's education. The basic elements of a voucher plan are simple. Parents are given vouchers worth roughly the per pupil cost of education in their city. These vouchers can be used to purchase education at any public or private school that meets the accreditation requirements imposed by the state. Such a system would increase the ability of parents and children to choose among various options in the education market, a …

Impasse Resolution Mechanisms And Teacher Strikes, Diane L. Kaye

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Public school teachers have no right to strike under Michigan law, but the power to strike exists. Michigan residents witnessed forty teacher strikes in the autumn of 1973 alone. Among them was the forty-four-day strike by Detroit teachers. The strikes during the past fall were not an unfortunate aberration. Ninety percent of the strikes in Michigan are by school teachers. In the public education context, the threat of a strike no longer brings negotiating parties together. A new mechanism for resolution of deadlocks in teacher-school board contract disputes is needed. This article describes the problem, outlines impasse resolution procedures presently …

Constitutional Law--Church And State--Freedom Of Religion--The Constitutionality Under The Religion Clauses Of The First Amendment Of Compulsory Sex Education In Public Schools, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

It has been said that "[s]ex education, once the domain of the church and the home, has by necessity, become a responsibility of the schools." Indeed, by the operation of most state education statutes, sex education can be made compulsory in public primary and secondary schools if it is taught as part of otherwise compulsory classes or if the local school authorities have prescribed sex education courses as a compulsory part of the curriculum. While some of the state statutes authorize exemptions on religious grounds, most do not. Nevertheless, the introduction of sex education into public schools has not been …

New York City School Decentralization, Barry D. Hovis

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The 1969 New York Education Act grew out of a movement demanding decentralization of the New York City school system. The ultimate goals of this movement were to: (1) encourage community awareness and participation in the development of educational policy, and (2) create sufficient flexibility in the school system to enable administrators to resolve the diverse needs of the varying communities within the city. Support for the plan arose out of more than a decade of dissatisfaction with the centralized system by educators, school administrators, and parents. Supporters of decentralization had pointed in particular to the failure of the centralized …

The Evolution Of A Collective Bargaining Relationship In Public Education: New York City's Changing Seven-Year History, Ida Klaus

Michigan Law Review

The bargaining relationship between the New York City Board of Education and its teachers had its roots in the social forces of the mid-fifties and its formal origins in the events of the early sixties. The relationship came about without benefit of law or executive policy. No law permitting public employees to bargain collectively was in effect anywhere in those years, and Mayor Wagner's 1958 Executive Order-the culmination of three years of study and public inquiry-did not apply to teachers. Instead, the impetus came directly from the persistent and increasingly powerful drive of the teachers themselves. They demanded a substantial …

The Coming Revolution In Public School Management, Donald H. Wollett

Michigan Law Review

Dr. James Conant has commented on ·what he views as "concurrent educational revolutions"-changes in methods of instruction, in curriculum emphasis, and in public school financing-which portend radical revision in the methods of determining educational policy. However, thus far neither Dr. Conant nor any other observer of similar stature has addressed himself seriously to a fourth educational revolution-in-the-making: the direct involvement of teachers, through structured collective negotiations, in the management of public elementary and secondary school systems. This Article will focus on that coming revolution.

Racial Imbalance In The Public Schools: Constitutional Dimensions And Judicial Response, David B. King

Vanderbilt Law Review

Eleven years after the decision of the Supreme Court in the School Segregation Cases, white and Negro children remain separated in many school systems throughout the nation. In the South this racial separation has been persistently fostered by both school and public officials. Since the rationale of the School Segregation Cases to the effect that official policy requiring separation on the basis of race is prohibited, this racial separation in the South, commonly known as segregation, is clearly illegal. Separation of the races in the school systems of the North and West has resulted both from devious types of racially …

The School Segregation Cases: A Comment, Paul H. Sanders

Vanderbilt Law Review

Segregation in the public schools on the basis of race or color pursuant to law has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.' Such segregation, the Court says, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The unanimous opinions of the Court delivered by Chief Justice Warren, declare this to be so regardless of the "equality" of the "tangible factors" in such educational facilities. This action, of paramount significance during the term just ended, will have a sequel of …

The Fourteenth Amendment And The "Separate But Equal" Doctrine, Joseph S. Ransmeier

Michigan Law Review

Recent cases in which the Court has overthrown enforced separation in public higher education on the ground of inequality but without consideration of the merits of the separate but equal rule have been the occasion for an outpouring of law review discussion on the subject. The present paper is a part of this stream. Its purpose is two-fold: first, to set forth the judicial history of the modern separate but equal rule, noting its pre-Fourteenth Amendment origin and the rather uncritical manner in which courts permitted it to infiltrate its way from one area of the law to another; and …

Constitutional Law-Fourteenth Amendment-Equal Protection Of The Laws-Racial Segregation In Public Educational Institutions, Neal Seegert S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Segregation of races, particularly separation of white and colored races, has long been condoned by American courts as permissible under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Underlying the traditional view is the idea that the equal protection clause is not violated by segregation so long as equal facilities are provided for both races. On this basic premise a large number of jurisdictions, particularly the southern states, have predicated constitutional provisions and statutory enactments compelling racial segregation, while a number of other states where segregation has not been forbidden by express constitutional or statutory provision have achieved …

The Legal Status Of The Teacher, Floyd R. Mechem

Other Publications

The subject upon which I have been asked to speak, is the legal status of the teacher. In endeavoring to comply with this request, I have assumed that such an audience as this would not be interested in the bare legal aspect of the question, as an audience of lawyers might be. Nevertheless, any effort to speak upon the teacher's legal status necessarily presupposes that what is to be said on the social, political, or pedagogical sides of the matter will be said by others, and that only that which pertains to the legal aspect is now in order. The …

The Legal Status Of The Teacher, Floyd R. Mechem

Articles

Prof. Mechem's address on the status of public and private school teachers.