The Ballot Box: A Tool for Education Reform?
Stand for Children made a prudent choice by taking to the ballot box a proposal which ties hiring, firing, and transfer decisions to teacher effectiveness.
Door Still Closed
Alabama plaintiffs lose federal school finance challenge
Alabama plaintiffs lose federal school finance challenge
School Finance Litigation: With defeats like these, who needs victories?
Last Thursday, Washington’s Supreme Court ruled that the state legislature needs to spend more on education. At first glance, the ruling looks like significant victory for the plaintiffs, but a close reading of the ruling shows that looks can be deceiving.
Evaluate Teachers on How Much Students Have Learned
On Tuesday, Nov. 1, a group of parents and taxpayers sued the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to make the district follow the law, by evaluating teachers based on how much their students have learned.
What We’re Watching: GA Supreme Court Strikes Down State Chartered Schools
In this Choice Media TV report, Georgians react to the news that their state can no longer approve or direct funding to charter schools.
Taking Failing Schools to Court
The California court’s ruling in Reed v. State of California is a reminder that collective-bargaining agreements cannot trump the constitutional rights of children.
Trouble in Kansas
Parents in a wealthy district sue to pay more taxes
Parents in a wealthy district sue to pay more taxes
Thou Shalt Not Say Jesus
Do elementary school students have free-speech rights?
Do elementary school students have free-speech rights?
School Funding: Do We Have to be as Poor as Our Neighbor?
In a provocative new school funding case, a federal court judge in Kansas City ruled against parents from the suburban Shawnee Mission school district who had wanted to increase property taxes above the state mandated limit. This is a local control debate that is sure to heat up as we stumble through the current financial crisis.
Why Do Students Have Greater Free-Speech Rights Than Teachers?
Buzz is building about an Arizona charter school teacher who got fired for refusing to remove a bumper sticker from her car.
The Ninth Circuit v. Reality
Highly qualified teachers don’t grow on trees
Highly qualified teachers don’t grow on trees
Public Advocates Knows Best?
In our latest Legal Beat column, Martha Derthick and I discuss a case, Renee v. Duncan, where the 9th Circuit held that teachers seeking alternative certification could not count as highly qualified under No Child Left Behind.
Educational Providence
New York courts close one door, federal money opens another
New York courts close one door, federal money opens another
Is Desegregation Dead?
Parsing the relationship between achievement and demographics
Parsing the relationship between achievement and demographics
School-Finance Reform in Red and Blue
Where the money goes depends on who’s running the state
Where the money goes depends on who’s running the state
Money and Good Intentions Won’t Fix Our Schools
Last week the media reported the apparently shocking news that the Kansas City, Missouri School District school board voted 5-4 to close nearly half of its schools, 26 of 61 schools in the district. But those familiar with the district were not surprised. The real question is not why the school board has decided to close so many schools but why it took them so long.
Strange Bedfellows
Students find unexpected ally in the Christian Right
Students find unexpected ally in the Christian Right
Tale of Two Cities
Why do minorities do so well in Raleigh and so poorly in Syracuse?
Review of Gerald Grant’s Hope and Despair in the ?American City
Supreme Modesty
From strip searches to school funding, the Court treads lightly
From strip searches to school funding, the Court treads lightly
Court Mandates on School Funding Sharply Decline
Since 2005, there have been important adequacy case decisions in over a dozen states, and in none of them have the courts required further funding increases. Several courts, when deciding new adequacy cases, have either dismissed them based on separation of powers grounds or have ruled against the plaintiffs on the merits following a trial.
Voters Choose Neighborhood Schools over Socioeconomic Diversity
Podcast: Education Next’s Paul Peterson and Chester E. Finn, Jr. talk this week (October 29) about Wake County, North Carolina, where voters earlier this month elected new school board members who have pledged to undo the county’s controversial policy of assigning students to schools based on income (to achieve diversity).
Colorado Supreme Court Jumps into the Abyss of School Finance
Colorado’s state Supreme Court defied national trends on Monday, handing down a decision in Lobato v. State that thrusts the judiciary into the middle of the state’s educational finance disputes.
From Courthouse to Schoolhouse
Is the involvement of courts an obstacle to school reform, or an asset? A new book, From Schoolhouse to Courthouse: The Judiciary’s Role in American Education, edited by two Ed Next bloggers, Marty West and Josh Dunn, attempts to address this broad topic in a comprehensive way.
The Lost Art of Book Reviewing: Editors Defend School Money Trials
The academic book review is a lost art. In days gone by, one could count on fellow scholars to lay out the books’ argument, skewer it, then identify a laundry list of factual errors that demonstrate the author was careless or worse.
