Education Law Commons^™

Peeling Back The Student Privacy Pledge, Alexi Pfeffer-Gillett

Scholarly Articles

Education software is a multi-billion dollar industry that is rapidly growing. The federal government has encouraged this growth through a series of initiatives that reward schools for tracking and aggregating student data. Amid this increasingly digitized education landscape, parents and educators have begun to raise concerns about the scope and security of student data collection.

Industry players, rather than policymakers, have so far led efforts to protect student data. Central to these efforts is the Student Privacy Pledge, a set of standards that providers of digital education services have voluntarily adopted. By many accounts, the Pledge has been a success. …

Report: Tying Teacher Evaluation To Student Test Performance In New York State, Anthony Ciaccio, Richard Demaio, Ashley Flynn, Sean Hanssler, Michelle Malone, Steven Mare, George Santiago, Victoria Short

Hofstra Law Student Works

This Report, authored by a small group of third-year law students under the guidance of Professor Robin Charlow, focuses on the controversial issue of tying teacher evaluations to student performance on state assessments, specifically, as this practice has been applied under New York State law. First, we provide a brief history of the federal and state laws that have resulted in the implementation of this practice. We then examine the arguments both for and against using student performance on state assessments as a measure of teacher effectiveness, assess all options for amending or abolishing the practice, and propose one procedural …

Protecting Colleges & Universities Against Real Losses In A Virtual World, 33 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 101 (2017), Gregory Demers, Seth Harrington, Mark Cianci, Nicholas Green

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

Colleges and universities are prime targets for cyberattacks. Authors Gregory L. Demers, Seth C. Harrington, Mark A. Cianci, and Nicholas R. Green explore emerging data security risks and litigation trends on college campuses, and offer ways to manage these risks through a comprehensive insurance plan. Given the increasing variety and complexity of plans available, it is incumbent upon universities to regularly reassess the coverage afforded by their existing policies.

It's Time To Stop Punting On College Athletes' Rights: Implications Of Columbia University On The Collective Bargaining Rights Of College Athletes, Lucas Novaes

American University Law Review

The National Labor Relations Board ruled in Columbia University that student assistants who have a common law employment relationship with their university are statutory employees under the National Labor Relations Act, which granted them full bargaining rights and union protection. However, just one year earlier, the Board decided to not address the question of whether college athletes receiving grant-in-aid scholarships should similarly be accorded the protections of the Act as statutory employees. Importantly, the Board noted that it was well-suited to make that determination in the future.

College athletes have been left in legal limbo as the teams, universities, and …

Bureau For Private Postsecondary Education, Daniel Ballinger, R. C. Fellmeth, J. D. Fellmeth

California Regulatory Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Rule Of Law, Activism And Equality: Growing Antisubordination Norms Within The University, 50 J. Marshall L. Rev. 249 (2017), Peter Halewood, Donna Young

UIC Law Review

This article examines this recent surge of student activism to determine how it fits within larger social movements and to evaluate how receptive courts and legislatures may be to some of the claims raised by the protests. Significant changes in civil rights laws have often been driven by significant shifts in societal perceptions of and engagement with social justice issues. And importantly, social movements have often fostered the political pressure necessary for social, legal, and political reform. There is the potential for these protests to influence courts and legislatures and shape their interpretations of legal rules in ways that recognize …

Restorative Justice: A Look At A Legal Community Creating Harmony On The Front Lines Of An Urban Jungle, 50 J. Marshall L. Rev. 463 (2017), Daniela Velez

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Charter School Laws In The United States: The Good, The Bad, And Illinois, 50 J. Marshall L. Rev. 965 (2017), Alexandra Verven

UIC Law Review

This goal of this Comment is to highlight the areas in which Illinois can improve its charter school law in hopes of becoming the best ranked law in the nation. To get there, one must understand the operation and usage of charter schools in addition to the evolution of the charter school movement. It is also vital to recognize the three basic principles of charter schools to truly appreciate the NAPCS’s model charter school law. After having a general comprehension of the background, this Comment seeks to compare Illinois’s charter school law with that of Indiana (the best ranked state) …

Denying Certiorari In Bell V. Itawamba County School Board: A Missed Opportunity To Clarify Students’ First Amendment Rights In The Digital Age, Elizabeth A. Shaver

Brooklyn Law Review

In the last decade, the federal circuit courts have grappled with the issue whether, and to what extent, school officials constitutionally may discipline students for their off-campus electronic speech. Before 2015, three federal circuit courts had extended school authority to off-campus electronic speech by applying a vague test that allows school officials to reach far beyond the iconic “schoolhouse gate” referenced in the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. Two other federal circuits had avoided the issue altogether by deciding the cases before them on other grounds. In 2015, the Fifth Circuit Court …

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 …

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 …

Embracing Race-Conscious College Admissions Programs: How Fisher V. University Of Texas At Austin Redefines "Affirmative Action" As A Holistic Approach To Admissions That Ensures Equal, Not Preferential, Treatment, Nancy L. Zisk

Marquette Law Review

In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the United States Supreme Court affirmed well-established Supreme Court doctrine that race may be considered when a college or university decides whom to admit and whom to reject, as long as the consideration of race is part of a narrowly tailored holistic consideration of an applicant's many distinguishing features. The Court's latest decision heralds a new way of thinking about holistic race-conscious admissions programs. Rather than considering them as "affirmative action" plans that prefer any one applicant to the disadvantage of another, they should be viewed as the Court has described …

Lost & Found: Order In The Court -- The Party Game, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Presentations and other scholarship

Lost & Found is a strategy card-to-mobile game series that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.

The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States. Comparative religious literacy can build bridges between and within communities and prepare learners to be responsible citizens in our pluralist democracy.

The second game in the series, Lost & Found: Order in the Court …

Reimagining Accountability: A Move Toward Re-Entrenching The Higher Education Act, Twinette L. Johnson

Journal Articles

In 1964, while delivering his "Great Society Speech"' at the University of Michigan, President Lyndon B. Johnson stated that, "[e]ach year, more than 100,000 high school graduates, with proven ability, do not enter college because they cannot afford it." 2 In 1964, there were 1,037,000 students enrolled in college, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). 3 By 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Higher Education Act4 (HEA or the Act). "[T]he Act sought to bridge the ... gap for [economically and socially disadvantaged] citizens ... by providing [them] the means to pursue higher education." 5 The …

The Prisonization Of America's Public Schools, Maryam Ahranjani

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Shame Agent, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

As a nation, we have recently experienced a significant positive shift in norms against casual campus sexual violence. These changes are perhaps as dramatic as the attitudinal shifts over recent decades regarding drunk driving or cigarette smoking. In a world in which masculinity is too often associated with sexual conquest, and women still suffer under intense and conflicting pressures regarding their sexual behavior, pushing this potential transformation forward is both difficult and necessary. Enforcement of Title IX protections has become a crucial driver of much of this change.

This is an account of some of what I learned as a …

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

Faculty Scholarship

In October 2015, a Black teenager at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina had her cell phone out in her math class. Her teacher told her repeatedly to put it away. Repeatedly she refused. The teacher then called a school administrator, who similarly instructed her to put away her phone. The student continued to refuse. The administrator then called the school resource officer (“SRO”), the uniformed, armed deputy sheriff assigned to the school. The SRO came and informed the student that she had to put away her cell phone. When the student again refused, the officer arrested her …

Counting Zeros: The Every Student Succeeds Act And The Testing Opt-Out Movement, Paul A. Hoversten

Michigan Law Review Online

The story begins with threatening letters. In October 2014, the U.S. Department of Education reminded Colorado’s chief state school officer that the department “ha[d], in fact, withheld Title I, Part A administrative funds . . . from a number of States for failure to comply with the assessment requirements” under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Given the occasion, the department implied, it wouldn’t hesitate to be ruthless.

Colorado could be forgiven for assuming it was authorized to craft its own policies in this arena; according to the Wall Street Journal, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) represented “the …

Chapter 888: Exemptions To Anti-Discrimination Laws In Higher Education: What You Don’T Know Could Hurt You, Tyler Wood

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

Chapter 419: Cyber Sexual Bullying, “Sexting” In Schools, And The Growing Need To Educate The Youth, Matt Gross

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.