Source: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/education_law/2013/10/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 22:34:52+00:00

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Paul C. Gorski, associate professor of integrative studies at George Mason University, has published anew book called Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap.” The book focuses on five common stereotypes about poor families and education. First, poor people do not value education. Second, poor people are lazy. Third, poor people are substance abusers. Fourth, poor people are linguistically deficient and poor communicators. Fifth, poor people are ineffective and inattentive parents. Gorski points to social science to rebut each of these stereotypes.
On valuing education, he says this stereotype is an assumption based on less parental involvement at the school building itself by low-income families, but he points out that the inability to be at school is caused by job, transportation, and other barriers poor families face, not a lack of interest. He says there is no information to infer that they actually value education less. The laziness stereotype is easily debunked by the fact that many poor families work more hours and jobs than other families. They just make less money. On substance abuse, he says data shows that wealthier families actually have a higher rate of alcohol and drug abuse than poor families. They, of course, also have more money with which to indulge.
The linguistic deficient, however, was the most interesting. He does not contest that lower income parents may have less formal vocabularies, which also manifests itself in their children’s oral communication. He does contest that they are less complex or necessarily eqaute to ignorance. He points to evidence that indicates oral vocabularies are not as closely linked to reading and writing vocabularies as one might think. In short, a child’s oral linguistics are not a limit on their ability to learn to read. This makes sense because, after all, reading is new to all kids, regardless of how well they might speak. Gorski acknowledges that low-income students do tend to start school with fewer reading skills than other students, but he argues this is a function of difference in access to quality pre-k educational opportunities, not necessarily their parents’ communication skills. His debunking of the bad parent stereotype is largely intertwined with the previous four points.
Speaking of Professor Waldman's "I ♥ Boobies" post, the Easton Area School District board voted Tuesday to appeal the Third Circuit’s decision in B.H. v. Easton Area School District. The Third Circuit in an en banc decision rejected the school district's claim that it was correct to ban the breast cancer awareness bracelets as lewd and suspend students who wear them. Easton district superintendent John Reinhart told The Express-Times of Easton that the Third Circuit's decision "has compromised administrators’ abilities to intervene in what is and what is not appropriate in school.” Reinhart has said earlier that the bracelets were “cause-based marketing energized by sexual double-entendres.” Professor Waldman noted a similar concern in her post that the Third Circuit case had sympathetic facts--the girls bought the bracelets with their mothers to commemorate relatives who had suffered from breast cancer--but "not all the middle-school wearers of the “I [heart] boobies” and “feel my balls” bracelets will be coming from the same mindset." Read the Washington Post's coverage here.
In August, Emily Gold Waldman's post on the First Amendment "I [Heart] Boobies" case noted how school policies piecing out acceptable cancer awareness clothing from the "lewd" can get messy. Last Friday, Friendly High School in Prince George’s County, MD, handed out in-school suspensions to students who showed up to school in Breast Cancer Awarness Month t-shirts. Seventy-five students showed up in pink shirts to celebrate October's "Pink Out" breast cancer campaign that readers may have seen during NFL, WNBA, MLB, and PGA Tour events this month. But pink shirts violate the district's uniform policy, and the principal told students in advance that they could not hold their annual “Pink Out.” When students showed up anyway wearing pink shirts, they were ordered to cover up or receive in-school suspensions. The students given in-school suspensions were told that they would receive an unexcused absence and zeros for their classes. Here's the messy part: the first wave of students apparently were ordered to cover up the pink shirts with some acceptable ones that the school had around. Those students went on to class. But the school ran out of acceptable cover-up shirts, so students who showed up later got in-class suspensions. Yesterday, the district posted an apology on Friendly High's website for the "confusion regarding our school’s Breast Cancer Awareness event this year... The student Pink-Out that occurred on Friday has made the school district aware of the issues that can result from inconsistencies in uniform policies for special commemorative events." Instead, the school allowed all students to wear pink ribbons yesterday. I suspect (or hope at least) that the school rescinded the in-school suspensions because of the inconsistent policy. Read more at the National School Boards Association here.
John Taylor on Pennsylvania's Bill Requiring Schools to Display "In God We Trust"
The Pennsylvania’s House Education Committee has passed a bill (the “National Motto Display Act”) that would require all public schools to display the words “In God We Trust.” It is not yet clear when or if the measure will be put to a floor vote. Should it become law, it will inevitably lead to high-profile, divisive litigation which will require some unfortunate federal district judge to confront the Supreme Court’s confusing pronouncements about government religious speech.
“In God We Trust” began appearing on U.S. coins in 1864 (during the Civil War) and was adopted as the national motto in 1956 (during the Cold War). (In each case, one motivation may have been to proclaim that God was “on our side” of the conflict.) The still-governing principles of Establishment Law (i.e. the Lemon, endorsement, coercion tests) would suggest that these invocations of God are unconstitutional. If the government is supposed to remain neutral in matters of religion and is forbidden from “declaring religious truth” (as Prof. Andrew Koppelman would put it), “In God We Trust” looks to be clearly unconstitutional. Like “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, the national motto is a statement of what defines and unites us a people – and what unites us is said to be faith in (read most broadly) the God of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). That is hardly neutral. Nevertheless, it is impossible to imagine that the current Supreme Court (or, for that matter, more liberal past Courts) would actually rule “under God” in the Pledge or “In God We Trust” on currency as unconstitutional. While rationales are harder to foresee, the end results are not. Consequently, we have a strong – and obvious – tension between principles and practice in the Court’s jurisprudence of government religious speech. In her role as median justice on church-state issues, Justice O’Connor sought to resolve the tensions by treating “under God” and “In God We Trust” as instances of ceremonial deism. Today, somewhere between two and five of the Justices might resolve the conflict by abandoning the principle of neutrality altogether and stating that government may embrace “monotheism,” if not Christianity. (This would be a bad idea, in my view, but that is a larger topic than a blog post permits.) Until the Court either explains or dissolves the tension between theory and practice, lower courts face a difficult job.
The Foundation for Opportunity in Education just released its analysis of the 13 states that have laws granting tax credits to individuals and businesses that donate to private school scholarship funds. The analysis includes not just a discussion of the amount of the tax credit, but a thorough discussion of how the scholarship funds must be managed and the extent to which the private schools that enroll the scholarship recipients must comply with testing, non-discrimination, and other regulation. These later details are probably the most interesting to equity minded readers, as the concern with some scholarship programs was that they might be used to cheat the tax system. For instance, a parent might not recieve a tax credit for paying their child's tuition, but if they donated to a foundation and they foundation then gave that parent's child a scholarship, the parent theoretically might receive a tax deduction for the donation.
I had been avoiding posting on Colorado's upcoming vote on education funding until after the vote, but the state is increasingly becoming the focus of national attention. Next week, the state will vote on whether to make a huge additional investment in education--$950 million annually to be precise. The state legislature and governor have already approved the funding, but under Colorado law, citizens must also approve tax increases as well. The funding itself is obviously important, but a few other wrinkles add to the importance. First, this is coming on the heels of a state supreme court decision rejecting a school finance claim. Sometimes you can loose the battle in court, but win the larger war. Unfortunately, you can also win the court battle and loose the larger war. Second, charter schools and public school teachers--normally adversaries--are coming together to support this bill. Not only are they supporting it with votes, they are supporting it with big money from outside the state. Part of the lesson here is that when the pot of school funding is big enough, charters and public schools are not forced to fight over crumbs. Finally, Arne Duncan says that that the success of this bill would make Colorado “the educational model for every other state to follow.” Because this one liner seems to be all that is getting reported, it is not entirely clear why it is a model, but one has to assume he is referring to the wide-spread and bipartisan support of additional investments in education, which is what Duncan believes can happen with a federal pre-k bill.
For those who did not catch James Ryan's article, Poverty as Disability and the Future of Special Education Law, when it went up on ssrn or for those who need a citation, the final version is now available on westlaw at 101 Geo. L. J. 1455 (2013). The article is pretty remarkable in its analysis and conclusion. Ryan's primary argument is that new findings in neuroscience indicate that poverty affects the brain and learning in much the same way that some disabilities do. "To oversimplify, growing up in poverty can physically affect how a child's brain develops and functions." Disability law, however, distinguishes between internal conditions that impede learning--such a dyslexia--and external ones-such as poverty. For those looking for a thought provoking education article, including those who do not focus on special education, this one is a must read. The introduction to his article follows the jump.
My suspicion is that Jindal helped orchestrate this intervention in the first instance because it would give him another wedge to drive in this case. To his defense, orchestrated interventions by the underdog are not that uncommon (query whether governors fit the role of underdog). But the obvious danger with interventions in this type of case is their likelihood of muddying the water. The legal issues in this case do not turn on what voucher families want or need, nor do they have legally vested rights in the vouchers. Rather, the issues in this case turn solely on desegregation law. Thus, whether Jindal likes it or not, these families do not have a clear role in this case; they simply care about its outcome more than most. But, of course, that is par for the course in desegregation cases, as they directly and indirectly affect so many students. In fact, scholars have analyzed the likely role that third parties' interests have played in shaping major desegregation cases like Milliken v. Bradley. Per this reasoning, even if these intervenors do not make it into the case, their interest will likely weigh heavily on its outcome, which is why I noted in my first post weeks ago that the longer Jindal could delay this case the better for him. More parents would have applied for vouchers and the pressure to not impede their expectations would mount.
Real estate investment firm Municipal Acquisitions’ (MA) offer to buy 30 of Philadelphia’s closed schools for $100 million has sparked a feud between the city council, the school district, and the mayor. The School District of Philadelphia has to make up a $304 million deficit, and City Council President Darrell L. Clarke thinks that MA offers a creative way to stabilize the district’s finances. The school district and Mayor Michael Nutter, however, are cautious about the “too good to be true” offer, particularly as MA has not appraised the properties. After the school district passed on MA’s offer, Clarke called for a hearing on the district's financial stewardship. Clarke and Mayor Nutter are already disputing where to find $50 million that the city promised to loan the district in September. Mayor Nutter reportedly wants to borrow the money; Clarke wants to give the school district money for closed buildings that were already at odds over where to find the $50 million the city promised the district in September. Nutter wants to borrow the money; Clarke wants to give the district cash for closed buildings that could be sold to pay back the city. Drexel and Temple universities have expressed interest in seven of the closed schools. MA specializes in offering to buy public buildings from local governments in financial difficulties. If MA’s bid gets serious consideration, get ready for some fireworks, because MA’s attempted acquisition of North Carolina’s Roanoke Rapids’ theatre was a controversial leaseback deal that Roanoke Rapids ultimately rejected.
In an article I wrote a few years ago on hostile student speech about school officials, “Badmouthing Authority: Hostile Speech About School Officials and the Limits of School Restrictions,” 19 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 591 (2011), I observed that such hostile speech basically falls into three main categories: (1) speech that arguably threatens a school official; (2) speech that is primarily vulgar about a school official, and (3) speech that, while expressing non-threatening hostility toward a school official, also expresses a substantive viewpoint about that official’s behavior. I was particularly concerned that schools were too quick to restrict even the third category of student speech when it occurred at school, running the risk of suppressing legitimate student dissent.
Teacher Duct-Tapes Student's Mouth Shut: Does Student Have a Case?
News broke last week of a 6th grade teacher at Ocean Springs Upper Elementary in Mississippi duct-taping a male student's mouth shut for talking too much. According to the student, he was taped and forced to sit in a corner for 10 minutes. Aside from the horrific nature of the act itself, the troubling question is whether it violates the constitution. In Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977), the Supreme Court held that neither the Fourteenth nor the Eighth amendment prohibited corporal punishment of public school students. The Fifth Circuit, in which Mississippi rests, has taken Ingraham's holding and ran with it, sanctioning egregious instances of corporal punishment. See generally Deana Pollard Sacks, State Actors Beating Children: A Call for Judicial Relief, 42 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1165, 1194-1209, 1222-23 (2009).
Of course, corporal punishment is not duct-taping, but both are subject to the same "shocks the conscience" standard (although I and others would argue that this this standard should not be extended from police cases to school cases). This standard, as current applied, places relatively few limits on outlandish school disciplinary actions. Some courts have been willing to reject student claims arising out of cases such as a teacher slapping a student or locking a student in a closet. Smith ex rel. Smith v. Half Hollow Hills Cent. Sch. Dist., 298 F.3d 168, 173 (2d Cir.2002); Bisignano v. Harrison Cent. Sch. Dist., 113 F.Supp.2d 591, 599–600 (S.D.N.Y.2000). Courts have certainly gone the other way under similar facts, JG & PG ex rel. JGIII v. Card, 2009 WL 2986640 (S.D.N.Y.,2009), but a "win" for the student is never a foregone conclusion.
Last week, I posted on the uniqueness of Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz's suit against the state board of education for engaging in secret meetings. I was most interested in how the courts would react here as compared to suits filed by students. Before the courts do anything, however, the case is already taking a surprising twist. Four of the state board's members penned an open letter asking her to drop the suit. The full text of the letter is after the jump.
For those who do not immediately recognize the name, Steve Morrison was a long time partner of Nelson Mullins, one of the most influential law firms in the South. But most know Steve not for his work representing paying clients, but for his pro bono work. Steve is near and dear to the hearts of school children in South Carolina and school funding advocates nationally because he devoted so much of his time over the past 15 years litigating a school finance case for free. I only had the good fortune to meet Steve a few times, but I was most impressed by his willingness to take on not just school finance, but race. School finance litigation can often devolve into no more than a debate over data. The state's motivations are not necessarily relevant. And, in some cases, beyond poverty, the demographics of the children may not be of explicit concern either.
Steve, however, just as recently as last year's arguments before the Supreme Court, insisted that race mattered. He did not charge a racial segregation case per se, but he insisted that that the story of South Carolina's poor schools was heavily intertwined with the state's history of segregated schools. He said that the state had condemned its poorest minority children to educational ghettos. He sent chills through the room as he levied this and other charges at the state. These are not the sort of arguments one would normally expect a white, male, esteemed partner in one of the South's most prominent firms. He was truly a remarkable man. His presence will be sorely missed. More details on Steve's life are available here.
William J. Mathis, Managing Directer of the National Education Policy Center, released a policy brief, Effective Educational Spending: Getting a Good Bang for Our Bucks, earlier this year that summarized effective educational spending as quickly and directly as I have seen. For the expert reader, the brief only touches the surface of various complex questions, but it provides a good starting point, particularly for people new to the field. Each year, I supervise any number student papers and law review notes dealing with school finance in one way or another. Because it is such a complex area and students often come to it with huge assumptions, Mathis's brief is a good place for them to start because it does not overwhelm them and focuses on basic.
Providing increased funding and program support for economically disadvantaged children and English language learners.
His full brief is available here. It is the 6th out of 10 briefs on the page.
Students from a Dallas Fort Worth School allege that a music teacher separated the African American students from the white students and then demeaned the African American students, including calling them "stupid." Charges of racism are now being leveled at the teacher. The district is investigating. In my attempt to track down the facts-- which are pretty fuzzy--on thisstory, I ran across a few other similar stories. I would have thought that blatant classroom discrimination segregation would be an isolated story, but two stories suggest it may not be.
The first story relates to another teacher in Minnesota calling African American students "fat" and "stupid" in class. The families subsequently filed a discrimination lawsuit. If these were only isolated statements, they would be unlikely to lead to liability under Title VI, but the claim is that the teacher had repeatedly used such language and the school had refused to address it, which makes their claim stronger.
The second story was not malevolent, but even more remarkable. In 2011, school officials in Lancaster, PA admitted to segregating African American students from the rest of a school's students and then dividing the African American students further by gender. The separation is purportedly brief, lasting just six minutes each day and 20 minutes twice a month. When brought to light, the officials defended the plan, indicating it was motivated by their desire to address the specific challenges that African American students face and to close the achievement gap. The school, however, seems to be overlooking its own biases as one of the likely causes of the underachievement of African American students. That these biases are in play is reinforced by their stereotypical notion that African Americans are the only students in the district with risk factors that need to be singled out and that all African Americans are seriously at risk. Were these assumptions not below the surface, the total and rigid segregation of African American students would have been illogical to the district. In short, the district appears to have been well intentioned, but good intentions do not keep bias or discrimination at bay.
The number of charter schools is increasing, with growing debate about their proper place in state public education systems. To ensure equity and excellence in those systems, states must create a policy environment built on the expectation that charters will be fully accountable to the public, and operate effectively and equitably in the communities they serve. After all, the states have the responsibility to ensure students the quality education they must have to succeed and are legally entitled to receive, regardless of how the state allows its local schools to be governed.
• Ensuring that charter schools are not impeding access, through means explicit or subtle, to any and all students who are eligible to enroll, including very low income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities.
• Requiring public transparency in the lottery process; in maintaining waiting lists and documenting transfers and attrition; in adhering to state and federal due process in student discipline matters; and by disclosure of annual budgets, including funds and other support received from private sources.
Their full statement is available after the jump.

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